Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones Delayed Again

Skull and Bones refuses to sink, but that isn’t stopping Ubisoft from delaying it…again. The most recent push for the PC, PlayStation 5 (PS5), and Xbox Series X | S pirate video game arrived as part of the publisher’s most recent earnings call (via Eurogamer).

The Skull and Bones delay is buried deep in the report and only given a quick mention. It was previously set to launch before the end of 2023 but is now set for “Q4 2023-2024.” In other words, Ubisoft is now hoping to set sail sometime between January and March 2024. With no official word on the project’s release date in months and the year steadily drawing to a close, it’s sad but not a surprise to see it miss 2023 altogether.

Skull and Bones has to be one of the most infamously delayed titles in the history of video games. The pirate game was first announced with a gripping cinematic trailer at E3 2017, with plans, at the time, to launch in fall 2018. Ubisoft established itself as one of the premiere pirate game developers with games like Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag only a few years earlier, so players were excited to see what the publisher’s dedicated swashbuckling ocean adventure could offer. A sea of delays has since followed, with reports claiming that the project had seen an internal reboot and leadership changes since its reveal.

Related: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Remake Reportedly in Works

Although the project went dark and eventually reappeared with a late 2022 release date, it wasn’t long before Ubisoft pushed Skull and Bones to early 2023, and then late 2023, and now, early 2024. If Ubisoft does intend to finally let the project loose into the world in the first few months of next year, then we’ll surely hear more about it soon. With this current track record, though, it feels like we may never see Skull and Bones out on the open seas.

Elsewhere in today’s Ubisoft earnings call is a delay for a separate, unannounced game. The publisher describes the project as a “large game” that was previously planned to be released during the last quarter of the current fiscal year. Now, it will launch in fiscal year 2024-2025, “so as to maximize its value creation.” Meanwhile, the company is still riding the high from the release of Assassin’s Creed Mirage earlier this month, with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora primed to take players to Pandora on December 7, 2023. Be sure to stay tuned for more updates on Skull and Bones and the rest of Ubisoft’s plans in the coming months.