Starfield did this but replaced "traditional pirate fantasy" with "traditional space fantasy." I am one of the few people that actually liked Starfield, but the bare bones and empty planets was my biggest complaint.
fun fact in all the early play tests before the first "open beta" there was no stamina bar. Instead there was a morale system where you had to feed your crew or go back to port once in a while or your crew would cause a mutiny. It actually was a really fun system that forced you to pick your battles and although health slowly regenerated damage to your ship would also lower your max hp and morale. It added so many layers to the games core loop and systems that you actually felt that you were controlling a crew and not a ship. you wanted to hunt animals for better food for longer morale boosts. You wanted to avoid damage instead of just tanking it. You felt adrenaline when you just barely scrape an engagement, are out of food and had to rush back to shore to completely repair your ship and crew. the larger the ship the longer the morale took to drain but the less effective the food would be. I have no idea why they removed this system. Not only did it make moving across the map faster and more engaging, but it actually made the game feel like a complete product. also other fun fact. In the playtests your female first mate was this really cool stoic black guy that looked like he could kill a shark in a single punch. they removed him for the Indian woman you see today. No idea why the VA was vastly superior and his character design and personality was infinitely better.
The more I hear about this game the more it feels like Ubisoft actively wanted it to fail for a tax write off. After how much money they dumped into its development, I wouldn’t doubt it.
Its really funny that the ONE TIME we actually want them to copypaste something they fail even at that XD It actually feels like they intentionally make games to be crap.
French lady "it's sad to hear that people are upset that we are not making black flag 2" THAT'S LITERALLY ALL WE'VE BEEN TELLING YOU WE WANT FOR 11 YEARS.
The closest you get is AC rogue and while I think it's a very nice assasins creed game it's not really an evolution of black flag just more of it... what a shame this game turned into
We are so sad that the customer is too stupid to know what they want is basically what they were saying. We know what we want and we voiced it quite clearly. Bean counters are what ruined AAA games.
Sadly most game companies don’t give a fluck anymore. They criminalize their own customers and see them as obstacles to their wallets. Despicable and desperate is the name of the game nowadays :/
10 years later, and Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag is still the best pirate game ever made. And its literally based in a franchise thats not even about pirates
Sea of Thieves is up there, fantastic game as of now. Edit: I also like to point out, Sea of Thieves is up there with No Mans Sky and Cyberpunk in terms of complete overhaul revival, thanks for the likes fellas.
You're 100% right. Before that game came out, it was probably Sid Meier's Pirates. Hell, I'd rather play LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean than any pirate game post Black Flag.
Crazy how they saw Black Flag and Sea of Thieves, grabbed both their foundations, removed the gameplay, replaced it with mobile game-like minigames and then call this a quadrupple A game.
Im not advocating them but the game from what ive seen from endgame battles seems fun for abit. Its an arpg but pirates, not supposed to be a singleplayer story driven game or anything.
@@rmedrano9752I agree about Odyssey but in AC Valhalla there's no ship combat nor storms & the ship would get stuck in shallow water & you'd have to very slowly try to get it unstuck whilst the crew say insults at you. Who tf at Ubisoft thought that would be a good idea? AC Valhalla has got good viking raids. Perhaps they should've copy & pasted that into Skull & Bones.
@@oficijalni5713Created by directors/CEOs changing ideas, so devs had to abandon features to create a new one, repeat this cycle for 10 years and you get this. They were only doing what was requested, most of the time is not their fault, they were only doing what was asked to be done
@@pax1217 People just don't like to admit that the majority of the time it's the higher ups in the studios and their shareholder masters that make the decisions, and the developers just have to do the best they can. I mean this game according to what Gameranx's reported in their video about S&B supposedly costed Ubisoft 120 million dollars in budget and that's probably not even fully accurate since that number was reported back in 2021 so who knows how much more cash got burned into this game three years later, at that point the shareholders were likely going "ok, where's our money" and they had to push the game out as it was just to try and make SOMETHING back.
The stamina bar thing kills me. Since I was young, my family had a sailboat. The main purpose of a "Sail boat" is to not require any resources outside of water and wind. And there's always water and wind in the Caribbean. Adding a stamina bar is basically removing the main purpose of using sails. On a "Sail" boat.
No no, every sailboat comes with a standard issue stamina bar so you can’t utilize the wind to its maximum resource potential. You must abide by the speed limit of the open sea.
Yeah when I think about this game to maybe try it out just for the graphics, the stamina bar is the first thing that comes to my mind. It's so immersion breaking and tedious. Even most modern shooters like cod got rid of it and replaced it with hearing distance
No no no, everyone knows you physically hold the sail up with your hands (or ropes with bigger boats) and when you can't do it any more, you have to rest for a bit before you can do it again!
These game companies make no sense. They want to follow in the footsteps of GTA online but don't want to actually do what rockstar did to make it as successful as it was.
Sid Meirs pirates was such an ambitious game for its time. A top down pirate strategy game that dealt with political alliances, ship battles, crew management, duels, and so so much more. Shit, we can dig up buried treasure by finding the island and tracking down the treasure. The ultimate pirate fantasy.
"players should stop feeling comfortable in owning their games" Well Ubisoft, if these are the games we are talking about, you don't have to worry about it: no gamer wants to own them...
@@oliverboisen7475 same. Ironically I am currently playing Black Flag for the first time, and it pains how this "AAAA" garbage is described by devs as "best pirate game ever". And it's still beated by ~10 year old game which wasn't solely a self-standing pirate game...
wyd? Its amazing, most people havent tried it. But the issues are non issues really, its not that grindy and you can get awesome customizations. Just get the micro transactions, all games have them and its not that expensive.
The absolute audacity of the Ubisoft CEO saying this is the first Quadruple A game. The resource gathering minigame and the fact you get a cutscene for boarding an enemy ship is straight out of a free-to-play MOBILE GAME.
Goes to show how out of touch they are . Same with the new MLB on my PS5 rn, the crap windows I can click are so ridiculous . Another game, I forget what now, but was pushed on my PS5 Home Screen and it was just SO CRINGE . They have no idea what gamers actually want .
i know, I kinda feel bad for Singapore, they financed a lot of the game only for these developers to lie in their faces and made a mobile game and ran away with the money
…oh my god What if THATS it. What if THATS why these studios are making live service games, to scare away pirating gamers!! You bastards!! You basically punishing everyone ELSE for it!!
When you're selling "timer savers", you are incentivized to waste the players' time. When you're selling powerful items, you're incentivized to piss off the players so much that they would just cave in and buy. Microtransactions are incompatible with game design, it's a conflict of interest.
All you have to do to make a good Pirate game: 1. Take Assassins Creed Black Flag. 2. Cut out the Assassins stuff. 3. Add more Islands where you find treasure or Sea Shanties. 4. Make it Multiplayer. How can anyone fuck that up?
The Triple A games industry is 95% of the time these days, no longer about making a good and fun game, it's about making a game that can hook you into only playing that one game, spending thousands of hours and money on it, and playing it forever... Until they shut down the servers, because they're all Always Online now and won't be accessible once servers are down 🙃
"Why is my _ship_ out of stamina" should *never* be a question for a _sailing_ game. _Maybe_ if the game had rowing to speed up against a headwind. Maybe.
With what happened of Ancel's departure (allegations of inappropriate workplace behavior), it may as well be... especially since the Beyond Good and Evil 2 markering was having some headway... and now nothing.
I'm almost thoroughly convinced that most game developers either don't actually have experience playing modern games or let their children have full creative control.
Alot of the time its not the Devs who are responsible for these "Games", but the higher ups and shareholders who, alot of the times, not even know what a Controller looks like. They think in investments and profit and whatnot - instead of "How can we have that AND actually give the People we want money from what they want". Thats why oldschool Games back then worked - the People in charge where Gamers alot of the time, taking risks and put in what they liked from Games. Nowadays its just playing it safe and profit profit profit to line some rich peoples pokets with.
Every time someone advertise a game by saying "forget everything you know about this type of game..." means they just made it worse and they don't want you to compare!
Honestly, thatd be way doper. Traditional pirate fantasy game but your in a sub/uboat., going all the way up to a battleship Or maybe just like a fantasy take on wood and sails with submarines and needing to visually see em
It's so stupid for real. The first torpedoes didn't come about until over 200 years after the golden age of piracy. You started seeing them in use during the American Civil War and they weren't underwater torpedoes yet, but rather explosives attached to poles sticking out of small boats used for ramming enemy ships!
That made so little sense, I legitimately needed to do a double take on that section of the video to make sure I was seeing and hearing him correctly. In WHAT world does something like this make on the drawing board let alone past development?
Probably thought that "hey since pirates are operating the ship. They can get tired too! Let's put a stamina bar.". Likely the same person who allowed head winds in every direction.
'Forget everything you know about the traditional pirate fantasy' is a wild marketing technique given most people want a pirate game for the traditional pirate fantasy.
Love that you used Sea of Thieves for the green screen of you on the boat, because this game, a pirate game, doesn't allow you to walk around your ship...
Actually had some great moments on Sea of Thieves. There’s problems with it, but it’s incredibly fun setting sail with your friends, cooking up some meat, getting drunk and singing songs all the while narrowly avoiding being plundered by another ship. Just fucking around on the ship in SoT looks infinitely more fun than anything this game can offer
This is peak Ubisoft unfortunately, gone are the days when they actually cared about crafting a great player experience, and even then have mutilated some of their older games like ghost recon wildlands with loot boxes.
So sick of Ubisoft developers dumbing down gameplay to fit the entire PC family. I wish somebody could make an actual gritty pirate experience. Think Red Dead Redemption, except pirates instead of cowboys.
I love that the marketing for "AAAA" flopped so hard. And a good time to remind everyone, "AAA" 'triple-A' literally means nothing. It's a marketing term and nothing more.
It's funny because "AA" and Indie studios are making FAR better products with a fraction of the budget and man-power. Honestly, no AAA game is worth a pre-order or even a day 1 purchase anymore.
@@Wulfen109I preordered starfield for 100$ just to play early and after that disaster I will never pre order a game ever again. That was the nail in the coffin for me.
I’ve always just consider “AAA” to mean high budget and only really look into a game being called double or triple to know what quality to expect (I’m just more forgiving to the faults of a AA or indie game) when that guy came out with AAAA a to describe skull and bones and I tried the beta I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. I though the beta was decent and the game has promise but honestly playing skull and bones just makes me want to replay ac4 black flag idk.
Remember! Tradewinds 2 was released 22 years ago, and Sid Meier's Pirates was released 23 years ago. & remains to be my favorite. pirate-themed video games. ever! Nothing even approaches it.
46:26 This is a pirate game, where the only combat is ship combat, and the final boss has the rank of *_General?!_* I've seen people confuse army and navy ranks before, but having someone be called a _general_ instead of an _admiral_ is just ridiculous.
Maybe he's got one of them there fancy tank-boats that can go anywhere. He's the Omni-General. Ever present on Land and at Sea. His power is terrifying. 😨😨😨
I’m pretty sure those diversity hire developers have better things to do, like complain on X, get triggered and call gamers problematic homophobic racist transphobic aka normal people. Seriously, have you seen those feminist ship captains and the main game art having weird people that look like some bunch of privileged Californian insufferable zoomers than anything looking even slightly pirate. That chubby Asian girl from that developer video doesn’t even have a clue what’s the difference between admiral, general or pirate.
The large ships are missing because it's a marketing tactic. If they sold medium AND large, people would just buy large. So they'll wait till people buy the medium ships and in a few months, offer the large ships so you now need to buy the large ships too. It's all about the money.
I just looked it up in the Epic Game Store and you're right lol. It's pretty fucking pathetic for both this game and Suicide Squad because both games are a month old and they already have the publishers being pressured to make any bit of money they can out of it. And what I think is more ironic is that both companies got outdone by their older titles. More players play Arkham Knight then SS and I'm sure that is the same case for AC Black Flag and Skull and Bones.
And when you chop the trees down, the animation is so lazily designed that the tree falls straight down through the stump! I haven't seen something like that since the PS2 days lmaooo
Imagine the country singapore subsidizing this game. I can't wait to see their face, $100 millions only for 900 jobs and garbage product. They should ask for their money back.
I have to say, I’ve been having the best time since Skull & Bones released. Caribbean islands, hunting for treasure, building a crew, sailing your own ship, raiding other ships, getting the best outfits and just being the best pirate you can be! Yes, getting my old copy of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag has really been one of the best things I’ve done recently since that boring chore of a game came out. :)
Makes me think are these AAA companies going into a 40k style age of strife where the technological achievements they had a decade ago are just lost to time or something and they're using the in game store and season passes to hide what was lost? They can't make a climbing or combat system to walk around your ship but they have 100s of in game models the majority aren't going to see. Makes me think how few developers that are not in the art department that are holding the spaghetti code all together.
Idk why... but at some point someone up top made these decisions and thought they work better than what they already had in Black Flag. Its bizarre how terrible this game is, which is supposed to be a spinoff of an already established pirate game. Its seriously bizarre how badly they fucked this game's concept up!
How f.... difficult can it be to make a decent pirate game with krakens, mysteries like the flying Dutchman, crafting your own ship, buried treasure, killer mermaid? I can go on forever like this.. It's 2024 damm it.
It's obvious all the top developers have aged and opened up their own companies or freelance, whilst new ones don't know how to source code and just know how to use pre built assets on modern engines so they can't innovate. Then there's the blatant management cancer that is all about corporate appearance that plagues every modern business. These execs were never gamers and the idea of what their audience is is now gone forever. Very few old studios remain that have their past identity and mostly the new ones show promise until they inevitably fall to the same date of losing top developers and hiring useless top managers
@@oldspice051The two big problems with Sea of Thieves is that it’s filled to the brim with sociopaths, and you basically need to play with a group of friends. Solo play is not really an option, though God knows I tried to play it that way.
Say what you want about Sea of Thieves. But they at least knew what they were doing. Your ship dosen't have a stamina bar. You can choose what ship you want if you dont want a sloop. ( there should be more ship types but still at least your not stuck with the sloop.) You have a lot of customaztion options Wind isnt broken in game. Your ship functions differently when wind is against it ( sloop will move faster against the wind) Each ship is useful in some way. You can walk around your ship and even get off and on your ship making exploring more fun as it allows you to go places. Plus theres things you can find or encounter in the game that make it exciting. Plus there's intresting missions.
@@League-f9x modern games by AAA are Starfield or movies of PlayStation Instead of Elden Ring o Baldurs Gate 3 ( well this one is like 6 years of develop)
I think AA games are the best future for the industry. Large enough to have greater “scale” than indies but small enough budget to not be filled with AAA (and “AAAA”) bullshit. Something like Robocop Rogue City was a ton of fun despite the budget because it was just me, being Robocop, shooting bad guys in the dick while doing other police work in the 2.5th movie. No bullshit.
As a Singaporean, I'm actually getting a lot of satisfaction from watching this game fail spectacularly. The government of Singapore has always prioritised technical skill over art and innovation, using its education system and the country's work culture to churn out obedient, hardworking, pragmatic workers while dissuading artists and creatives from pursuing their passions. This deal with Ubisoft is them trying to buy their way into the game industry without first taking steps to encourage and support homegrown indie talent. And their investment blew up in their face.
@@jltheking3 I'm not saying there's anything wrong with offering subsidies. I'm saying the SG govt did so without first taking steps to organically nurture homegrown game development talent and cultivate a society where art isn't viewed as frivolous and impractical. When it comes to art, Singapore has an abundance of money but a lack of talent, whereas places like Hollywood have an overabundance of talent but not enough money to give them all jobs (hence the foreign subsidies). When it comes to addressing Singapore's lack of artistry, simply throwing money at the problem isn't going to work, and this game is testament to that fact. You can spend millions in taxpayer and foreign corporate money and still end up with a pile of garbage. And now the game development industry in SG has been humiliated on the global stage. When you say you work there do you mean Ubisoft Singapore? So you're essentially confirming the "alleged" report that Ubisoft took money from the govt and that's why they couldn't cancel this stinker? That's hilarious. Thanks for the confirmation. It actually gives me even more satisfaction to know that Ubisoft SG devs are watching this review, cos you are the ones who need to hear this criticism. Last question: did you all know while working on this game that it would be complete garbage?
@@jltheking3You sound like that Starfield dev whining about how hard game development is. No one cares dude. It is not the responsibility of the consumer or critic to understand how hard it is to make whatever they consume. They simply judge the final product and choose whether to spend their money on it or not. If my plane crashes can Boeing tell my family, "hey you don't understand how hard and complex aerospace engineering and maintenance is. Airbus can do it cos blah blah blah but most of us can't because blah blah." If you go to a steak restaurant and receive a burnt steak can the chef say, "making a steak in these working conditions is phenomenally hard, you don't understand." No, the consumer/end user shouldn't need to understand anything beyond "this product/service is worth my money." Y'all "AAA" devs sound so immature and insecure when you bring up Larian and BG3. BG3 aside, there are plenty of great games that were made by AAA/"quadruple A" studios that were beholden to shareholders and facing the same challenges y'all did (and probably more, without govt subsidies). It's very easy to see your situation as unique when you need to pardon your own failure. And sure, every game and its development process is unique, but being a unique snowflake doesn't excuse anyone from what is expected of them. And as your Singaporean parents probably told you too, "you should compare yourself to the best in your class, not the worst." And even if we understood on a deeper level why so many bad games get made, does that mean we shouldn't criticise? No. A bad game is a bad game regardless of the circumstances surrounding its development, and consumers have a right to know what they should spend their money on. So Joe and other critics are still doing the right thing, and absolutely nothing changes if we knew everything you know. Should I buy a bad game because it was made with suboptimal datelines, lacking manpower, the right skillset, the right team, lacking funding, and needing to fight the money people to get the game out the door? No. Knowing all that changes nothing. Not saying this game's failure is your fault specifically as a dev. Chances are Ubisoft management is mostly to blame. But you don't have to jump to their defence with the whole "boohoo video games are hard" argument. It's so played out at this point and for the reasons I've stated, I stress again, no one cares, nor should they.
@@jltheking3 You were the one who brought up the challenges of game development buddy. That didn't even have anything to do with my original comment. But I see that you don't know how to offer a rebuttal, so you resort to personal attacks on me and this channel's entire viewership (which includes you). How very mature and adult of you. But admittedly, very on brand for a Skull n Bones dev.😂🤡
This game was doomed to fail the moment they added all these Fortnite health bars and no sword combat. Quite literally could’ve made multiplayer AC Black Flag and it would’ve been better
@@manwithballsonarm6775 like how the game has too much UI. Like everything has a health bar, and it’s up and in your face like you can’t just, yk, see the ship or whatever you’re shooting is damaged
Ubisoft: Player engagement! Players: But I'm not having fun. Ubisoft: But engagement! Player: I Am Not Having Fun Fundamental disconnect between game companies and players in a nutshell
I'm always shocked what kind of false advertising is allowed in the USA. Those PR people in the video are straight up lying through their teeth. Those are downright illegal in my country. Marketing in the USA is like the Wild Wild West, anything goes.
As a Singaporean, I have a few friends who worked on this game. The project started around the time they got out of schools with their diplomas and degrees in game design or project management, bright eyed and eager. I can feel their heart break with what this game became. I can see now why most of them chose to leave ubisoft despite it being, at one time, a dream place to work for them.
Many Ubisoft games are rife with design decisions designed to milk the player instead of providing a fun experience. They games are sullied by greed, they feel dirty to play.
@@rigulur I imagine they got the Ubisoft special. "Here's the plan you get the game like THIS" "Sir, this is a store schematic" "Glad to see you understand, you have a week to finish while Steve from management breathes near your neck and makes you overtime to keep schedule, good luck"
Sid Meier : Pirates 2004. A game that came out 20 year ago before this game, was mechanically deeper than this game. It has ship management, cargo management, Crew management, Boarding strength based on crew number, Plundering success chance based on crew number, faction diplomacy, Retire system, Marriage, Treasure hunting, and Duel. Skull & Bones can just copy that at bare minimum
The one time everyone would have been completely fine with Ubisoft just copying one of their previous games, they decided not to do it and to fuck up a concept they already had nailed down 10 years ago.
The wost part in playing both black flag and rogue, they had missions where you played as the npc ships (frigate in Black flag, Man o war in Rogue) and they showed that they were practically a DLC away from all being fully playable. That's the real heartbreak that they were so close to the finish line 10 years ago.
I love how "forget everything you know about the traditional pirate fantasy" is now synonymous with phrases like "16 times the detail" and "it just works" love me a good Angry angry Review! 😂
And what Ghosts of Tsushima did for Ninjas (maybe? 🤷♂️) And what Dying Light (or maybe State of Decay?) did for zombies. That covers pirates, cowboys, ninjas and zombies.
You know what's funny? In Watch Dogs 2, the game that was also made by Ubisoft, which is focused mainly on hacking and electronic gadgets, you can use a sailboat to swim at Bay area. Unlike other boats, sailboat's speed is determined by wind's direction, and I dare to say, that the way you navigate it, is almost as like navigating The Jackdaw in AC Black Flag. You get it? Watch Dogs 2, the game which is not focused on sailing adventures, piracy and plunder, has much more realistic sailing mechanic, that the "AAAA" game! AND - the sailboat in WD 2 doesn't have stamina bar!
@@devilgames2217it's a good game I just don't consider it a sequel. It's more of a spin off, then watchdogs legion is a Holocaust, devs told us they were only following orders.
Passion clearly doesn’t pay. Just ignore Baldurs Gate 3, all of the pre-online Elder Scrolls games, Call of Duty from 2007-2012, the original Halo trilogy, pre-Unity Assassins Creed, the Red Dead Redemption games, all of the Soulsborne games, etc
Funny thing is, the project was originally intended to be a Black Flag multiplayer expansion focused on the ships. The project then appearantly grew so much it was supposed to be it's on spin off game and eventually it's own stand alone game
"We cant even go on the island to see if there are cool indigenous people to kill" That would've definitely been dark and gritty. They missed the mark with that one
Been playing Black Flag past couple days, I've had fun walking around on my boat during ship combat, jumping off my ship to explore islands, fighting enemies in hand-to-hand combat, boarding enemy ships to take their loot then sink their ship, etc. Boy, what a fun game.
All they had to do is take black flag, remove the animus and futuristic simulation shit, and boom a 10/10 pirate game. But no, Ubishit mathematically calculated the worst possible pirate game they can think of and put so much money into it you'd think this game was an excuse to funnel money into shareholders pockets. AAAA my ass.
They just didn't care after many years of mismanagement. They had to ship this game just because they recieved govt (Singapore?) funding. Ubisoft needs a massive change in leadership.
"a darker, grittier approach" Must be talking about the color palette and how physically dirty the pirates are because there isn't much dark and gritty about skull and bones. As far as I am aware no death is shown, no disease, no sexual assault; you know the actual dark and gritty parts of pirate life. All there is is drugs, alcohol, strong language, and discussion of murder. Its like they purposely were seeking an M rating to cater to an older audience, so they added strong language and drug references that sometimes would be removed to lower the rating.
Man imagine finding crew mates with their own strengths and weaknesses and own names. One is a drunk but a sharpshooter, the other is sometimes sea sick but great at handling the cannons. Choosing your crew, boarding other ships, fighting with swords and / or pistols, choosing a speciality, finding treasure maps and searching for the treasure on the picture with actual rare loot like new swords or a hat, keep morale high on your team. Imagine a game not having an ingame shop.
I already hate when stamina slows you down in non combat scenarios in other games for running or climbing, but stamina bars on a vehicle is an absurd level of content padding.......
I just checked the Steam forums for that game, and the top topic is "why are there no trans pirates" where someone is demanding the devs add trans pirates to the game. The 20 year old game.
If they ever re-mastered that game with new textures and refined features, I’d pay $40-50 for that. Give it a true remake and not just updated graphics
I'll never forget the old days of Ubisoft. They made such masterpieces, that when I would go into Blockbuster I would literally rent their games knowing nothing about it, because Ubisoft was on it. That's how good they used to be. Oh how far they've fallen.
Look at pictures of the dev room then and look at the pictures of the dev room now. Glaring differences, almost like hiring devs that are actually great devs matters, not what other boxes they check for the company.
Blame corporate greed. You think these devs WANT to make shitty MTX infested live service games? It's all about shareholders wanting to make a quick buck, no matter what
@@Wulfen109No, it's also about devs being incompetent morons who aren't able to make a good game to save their life. They put a stamina bar on a ship. And a wind system that exclusively fucks the player in the ass. No shareholder made those decisions.
For me, the thing that stood out wasn't just the limited number of faces, but that the only choices of hair colour are dark hair and blonde hair. No red hair option.
@@voidox I don't think his point was to "glaze" the helldivers studio, it is just a very recent well received videogame. The main point he was trying to get at is that big developers make these games that cater to all types of people but in the end, they often fail to fully understand and the wants and needs of their consumers.
Never knew about the game's mechanics, but when joe mentioned "Healing cannon balls" as an actual mechanic in the game, I rolled on the floor dying of laughter. xDDD
Torpedoes?! Look, I'm all for suspending my disbelief but torpedoes in the 19th century is f'ing stupid. You may as well include 50 cal machine guns or blasters. They're all equally out of place in the 19th century.
I know right?! I get it’s a made up setting etc but it’s so silly to see something like that. Especially when they ignore stuff like grape shot. I don’t even know how that would work. Do they have underwater fixed tubes like early Dreadnoughts? Or turreted launchers? It’s hilarious to think about it.
If this takes place in the age of piracy it's more like the 17th century, not the 19th. But I can't guarantee it isn't set in the 19th century, because I wouldn't play Skull & Bones if I got paid for it. What a joke of a pirate game. Personally, I think the free-aiming canons are worse, btw. Edit: Had to look it up, but early torpedos did exist throughout the 19th century.
I hate/love when companies say "forget everything you know about..." or "you're not ready for..." because that is a massive sign to me to NOT BUY IT. Oh! It's not what I was expecting, so I should pass and look elsewhere for what I want? Thanks for the warning! Oh! I'm not ready yet? Thanks for the warning and telling me to pass on your product for now and wait! On a side note. Did anyone honestly expect this game to be good? After the development hell it went through and HORRIBLE advertising campaigns.
Mass Effect Andromeda: Sorry my Face is tired
Skull and Bones: Sorry my Ship is tired
I was looking for this comment.
😂
I even guess their AAAA is so tired that they skipped their boardings
Overwatch 2: sorry, my brand is tired.
Your ship isn't tired its your crew. If there was no stamina for your crew faster ships could just sail away. What a stupid thing to say.
"Not since Suicide Squad have I seen a game bungled their concepts so bad"
So basically a week later then 🤣
Must be a record
It's a race to the bottom now tbf
the dips keep dipping
Both games have been in development for at least 8 years to lol
Remember when we all thought red fall would be the worst game for a few years….then we had gollum and it’s been a race to the bottom ever since
"Forget everything you know about the traditional pirate fantasy."
"But I like that fantasy."
"Yeah, well... Forget it."
Starfield did this but replaced "traditional pirate fantasy" with "traditional space fantasy." I am one of the few people that actually liked Starfield, but the bare bones and empty planets was my biggest complaint.
She looked dead inside when she said its darker and grittier
Thanks Ubisucks, very cool! 👌
And yeah, four A letters there for more
"No"
Vanessa Seow demonstrates Todd Howard levels of integrity.
fun fact in all the early play tests before the first "open beta" there was no stamina bar. Instead there was a morale system where you had to feed your crew or go back to port once in a while or your crew would cause a mutiny. It actually was a really fun system that forced you to pick your battles and although health slowly regenerated damage to your ship would also lower your max hp and morale. It added so many layers to the games core loop and systems that you actually felt that you were controlling a crew and not a ship. you wanted to hunt animals for better food for longer morale boosts. You wanted to avoid damage instead of just tanking it. You felt adrenaline when you just barely scrape an engagement, are out of food and had to rush back to shore to completely repair your ship and crew. the larger the ship the longer the morale took to drain but the less effective the food would be. I have no idea why they removed this system. Not only did it make moving across the map faster and more engaging, but it actually made the game feel like a complete product.
also other fun fact. In the playtests your female first mate was this really cool stoic black guy that looked like he could kill a shark in a single punch. they removed him for the Indian woman you see today. No idea why the VA was vastly superior and his character design and personality was infinitely better.
Dont make me more mad than i already am please
The more I hear about this game the more it feels like Ubisoft actively wanted it to fail for a tax write off. After how much money they dumped into its development, I wouldn’t doubt it.
Why was the superior character replaced with the shoe-horned in “STRONG, INDEPENDENT WOMAN”?
Not sure. Really. All I can say is she
Didn’t
Earn
It
That sounds amazing, and makes so much more sense than “my sails need a breather”
Ubisoft didn't make games nowadays, they make agressive left propaganda in the form of games.
It's actually sad that Ubisoft, a company notorious for copy and pasting, couldn't do just that for Black Flag with a new coat of paint.
Wow, you actually made me realize that, what a pathetic corpo they are, it's disgusting
Its really funny that the ONE TIME we actually want them to copypaste something they fail even at that XD
It actually feels like they intentionally make games to be crap.
U want some swashbuckling get pillars of eternity 2
This is the truth. They just had to make black flag without any assassins creed and bam. Instead they choose to make a garbage live service game
@@TackyKnackyThere are reasons I call "Ubishit" the name that I do
“Basic mechanics never nailed down”
“Are you a pirate, or a ship?”
“THEY CHOSE A SHIP”
Another iconic Angry Joe moment in the books! 😂😂😂
Such a weird decision
"What this bitch won't sell me chicken...?!"
*FUCK!*
“What this bitch won’t sell me chicken??”
French lady
"it's sad to hear that people are upset that we are not making black flag 2"
THAT'S LITERALLY ALL WE'VE BEEN TELLING YOU WE WANT FOR 11 YEARS.
Stupid consumer, we hired a consulting firm they know better what you want. They also told us to add more women.
The closest you get is AC rogue and while I think it's a very nice assasins creed game it's not really an evolution of black flag just more of it... what a shame this game turned into
“We were sad to hear what our customers wanted” fucking game devs
We are so sad that the customer is too stupid to know what they want is basically what they were saying.
We know what we want and we voiced it quite clearly. Bean counters are what ruined AAA games.
Sadly most game companies don’t give a fluck anymore. They criminalize their own customers and see them as obstacles to their wallets. Despicable and desperate is the name of the game nowadays :/
“Quadruple A” is going to go down in the annals of game marketing history right next to “16x the detail”
At least Fallout 76 is more fun than S&B
Absolutely Atrocious, Astoundingly Awful.
It just works
@@ChaosTheDoomsayer 16x the detail
16x the destail in distance weather and render technology.... Something that was actually in the game!
10 years later, and Assassins Creed 4 Black Flag is still the best pirate game ever made. And its literally based in a franchise thats not even about pirates
Sea of Thieves is up there, fantastic game as of now.
Edit: I also like to point out, Sea of Thieves is up there with No Mans Sky and Cyberpunk in terms of complete overhaul revival, thanks for the likes fellas.
Talking about One Piece?
Sea of Thieves is better imo but Black Flag is still very high up there.
You're 100% right. Before that game came out, it was probably Sid Meier's Pirates. Hell, I'd rather play LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean than any pirate game post Black Flag.
Sea dogs 2 is better
Crazy how they saw Black Flag and Sea of Thieves, grabbed both their foundations, removed the gameplay, replaced it with mobile game-like minigames and then call this a quadrupple A game.
I've seen mobile games with better cutscenes.
Im not advocating them but the game from what ive seen from endgame battles seems fun for abit. Its an arpg but pirates, not supposed to be a singleplayer story driven game or anything.
assassins creed odyssey and I'm pretty sure valhalla had better ship mechanics then this quadruple A garbage.
Absolutely Abysmal Avaricious Application.
@@rmedrano9752I agree about Odyssey but in AC Valhalla there's no ship combat nor storms & the ship would get stuck in shallow water & you'd have to very slowly try to get it unstuck whilst the crew say insults at you. Who tf at Ubisoft thought that would be a good idea? AC Valhalla has got good viking raids. Perhaps they should've copy & pasted that into Skull & Bones.
The only real pirates were the Devs taking peoples money 😂
I never understood why people blame the devs instead of the actual CEOs making these discussions.
@@CacheMeOutside97cause it’s a shitty game.
@@oficijalni5713Created by directors/CEOs changing ideas, so devs had to abandon features to create a new one, repeat this cycle for 10 years and you get this.
They were only doing what was requested, most of the time is not their fault, they were only doing what was asked to be done
kiss Joe's mexican hiney
@@pax1217 People just don't like to admit that the majority of the time it's the higher ups in the studios and their shareholder masters that make the decisions, and the developers just have to do the best they can. I mean this game according to what Gameranx's reported in their video about S&B supposedly costed Ubisoft 120 million dollars in budget and that's probably not even fully accurate since that number was reported back in 2021 so who knows how much more cash got burned into this game three years later, at that point the shareholders were likely going "ok, where's our money" and they had to push the game out as it was just to try and make SOMETHING back.
"Your ship gets tired!"
That is such a stupid concept that it took several moments for me to realize how stupid it is.
It's the crew that gets tired
@@Qbopit’s not a fucking rowboat dude. It’s a sail ship, which is powered by the WIND.
@@Qbophow the fuck the wind gonna get tired
@@Qbopdo you know how ships work
@@twilightparanormalresearch186 ocean god poseidon gets tired from blowing the players ship to their destination lol
The stamina bar thing kills me. Since I was young, my family had a sailboat. The main purpose of a "Sail boat" is to not require any resources outside of water and wind. And there's always water and wind in the Caribbean. Adding a stamina bar is basically removing the main purpose of using sails. On a "Sail" boat.
No no, every sailboat comes with a standard issue stamina bar so you can’t utilize the wind to its maximum resource potential. You must abide by the speed limit of the open sea.
Yeah when I think about this game to maybe try it out just for the graphics, the stamina bar is the first thing that comes to my mind. It's so immersion breaking and tedious. Even most modern shooters like cod got rid of it and replaced it with hearing distance
From what I can tell it isn't even the Caribbean. Seems more Indian/ Indonesian waters.
No no no, everyone knows you physically hold the sail up with your hands (or ropes with bigger boats) and when you can't do it any more, you have to rest for a bit before you can do it again!
…you’re bang on
Gamer's said: _"Give us AC: Black Flag with multiplayer!"_
Ubisoft heard: _"Sell us pirate themed micro transactions..."_
They could have added them that's the thing. If they made a good game with paid resources, people would get them.
I’m pretty sure if this was released 2-3years ago,they would sell those AC4 costume as NFT
These game companies make no sense. They want to follow in the footsteps of GTA online but don't want to actually do what rockstar did to make it as successful as it was.
Lol
They already have the blueprint for it and failed miserably
Guys, you don't get it. Sure, Ubisoft made AC Black Flag in the past but they lost the blueprints
Those Blueprints require King Pin I to unlock. Ubisoft was still trying to grind and ran out of time.
😂
More like they destroyed the blueprints so no one could ever attempt to replicate it.
Sid Meirs pirates was such an ambitious game for its time. A top down pirate strategy game that dealt with political alliances, ship battles, crew management, duels, and so so much more. Shit, we can dig up buried treasure by finding the island and tracking down the treasure. The ultimate pirate fantasy.
it really was! I keep hoping there will be a new one.
"players should stop feeling comfortable in owning their games"
Well Ubisoft, if these are the games we are talking about, you don't have to worry about it: no gamer wants to own them...
This. The only Ubisoft games I still play are like fucking over 10 years old at this point!
@@oliverboisen7475 same. Ironically I am currently playing Black Flag for the first time, and it pains how this "AAAA" garbage is described by devs as "best pirate game ever".
And it's still beated by ~10 year old game which wasn't solely a self-standing pirate game...
I am absolutely comfortable with never owning any one of ubishite games ever 👍
The insatiable greed of these suits will never cease to amaze me. Disgusting.
wyd? Its amazing, most people havent tried it. But the issues are non issues really, its not that grindy and you can get awesome customizations. Just get the micro transactions, all games have them and its not that expensive.
The absolute audacity of the Ubisoft CEO saying this is the first Quadruple A game. The resource gathering minigame and the fact you get a cutscene for boarding an enemy ship is straight out of a free-to-play MOBILE GAME.
Yup. Came here to say something similar
Ill not bother this game and keep playin rimworld with its whoever many A game it is
Goes to show how out of touch they are . Same with the new MLB on my PS5 rn, the crap windows I can click are so ridiculous . Another game, I forget what now, but was pushed on my PS5 Home Screen and it was just SO CRINGE . They have no idea what gamers actually want .
This is just an Assassin's Creed: Pirates port to pc
i know, I kinda feel bad for Singapore, they financed a lot of the game only for these developers to lie in their faces and made a mobile game and ran away with the money
Ubisoft did the unthinkable. They made a pirate game where not even the pirates will want to pirate it. Y'arr fucked it up!
they made the unsinkable
@@schuhsuppe7228 you cant sink what's already sunk
…oh my god
What if THATS it. What if THATS why these studios are making live service games, to scare away pirating gamers!!
You bastards!! You basically punishing everyone ELSE for it!!
@@dericanight861AGAIN!! AS USUAL!!
@@dericanight861😂
"Singapore is going to be so pissed when they see what you've done to this pirate game." 😂😂 It's wild that statement is based in reality
I love when Joe just plays footage of the game and the audio from Ubisoft's own promo video and just watch the company make a joke of the game itself
ubisoft is a joke ALL they had to do was make black flag 2 and it wouldve made billions but no they chose the lame ass route
When you're selling "timer savers", you are incentivized to waste the players' time. When you're selling powerful items, you're incentivized to piss off the players so much that they would just cave in and buy. Microtransactions are incompatible with game design, it's a conflict of interest.
Skull and Bones is what's left of you by the time you finish the game
🤣🤣
This needs more likes.
@joeyzapata6786 no it doesn't he stole the joke from a dunkey vid
@@stormblahblah5589no he didn’t donkey stole that shit from him, they were in a discord call. Next time do your research
💀🦴
All you have to do to make a good Pirate game:
1. Take Assassins Creed Black Flag.
2. Cut out the Assassins stuff.
3. Add more Islands where you find treasure or Sea Shanties.
4. Make it Multiplayer.
How can anyone fuck that up?
Hold my sexual harrassment cases........Ubisoft
The Triple A games industry is 95% of the time these days, no longer about making a good and fun game, it's about making a game that can hook you into only playing that one game, spending thousands of hours and money on it, and playing it forever... Until they shut down the servers, because they're all Always Online now and won't be accessible once servers are down 🙃
Black Flag was a gem of a game. Listening to the Sea Shanties while sailing was a fucking VIBE. Holy shit you actually felt like a badass pirate too.
@@fakskisyeah but these models don’t work especially when the gameplay sucks ass.
@@CommanderSuberox Yeah I know, I'm complaining about it too lol
"Why is my _ship_ out of stamina" should *never* be a question for a _sailing_ game. _Maybe_ if the game had rowing to speed up against a headwind. Maybe.
How the hell did they fuck up this badly when they already had a blueprint on how to make a good pirate game more than a decade ago.
Because they are making games for Journalists and focusing more on being woke, not what a true fan want and love
They touched it over and over again.
lucky for everyone sea of thieves is on sale and has way more content since it released
@@louniisbeing woke or not has nothing to do with this game being dogshit
They copied a mobile game instead.
"A level 3 CROWBAR!?"
"No no no. Much more better... It is a DRAWING of a level 3 crowbar." 😂😂
Thank you Jack Spa…I mean Captain Jack Sparrow.
Lolol
Dammit what a missed opportunity for a joke..god this game sucks the fun outta everything
"Gentlemen, what do crowbars do?"
“Uhhh…crowbars, open things?….”
So Ubisoft wastes hundreds of millions on this joke, but a simple Rayman platformer is somehow impossible to make.
I mean how are they gonna put a cash shop in a rayman platformer?
With what happened of Ancel's departure (allegations of inappropriate workplace behavior), it may as well be... especially since the Beyond Good and Evil 2 markering was having some headway... and now nothing.
@@bencomer2339 The same way nintendo added a cash shop to mario kart.
@@bencomer2339 Of course they can’t make that platformer to cash shop since they think NFTs in cash shop are better 😂
@@bencomer2339boom
I'm almost thoroughly convinced that most game developers either don't actually have experience playing modern games or let their children have full creative control.
Even a game made by children would have some wild, off the wall, creative elements to it.
The only people that can get developer jobs are super sheltered higher middle class nobodies that want to tell you how the world works lmao.
Alot of the time its not the Devs who are responsible for these "Games", but the higher ups and shareholders who, alot of the times, not even know what a Controller looks like. They think in investments and profit and whatnot - instead of "How can we have that AND actually give the People we want money from what they want".
Thats why oldschool Games back then worked - the People in charge where Gamers alot of the time, taking risks and put in what they liked from Games. Nowadays its just playing it safe and profit profit profit to line some rich peoples pokets with.
Every time someone advertise a game by saying "forget everything you know about this type of game..." means they just made it worse and they don't want you to compare!
It was such a mobile game thing to say 😂
Torpedoes?!? What's next, pirate submarines? "Ahoy captain! An enemy submarine on sonar." "Yarrr, drop depth charges and launch countermeasures!"
Scramble the fighters!
Honestly, thatd be way doper. Traditional pirate fantasy game but your in a sub/uboat., going all the way up to a battleship
Or maybe just like a fantasy take on wood and sails with submarines and needing to visually see em
It's so stupid for real.
The first torpedoes didn't come about until over 200 years after the golden age of piracy. You started seeing them in use during the American Civil War and they weren't underwater torpedoes yet, but rather explosives attached to poles sticking out of small boats used for ramming enemy ships!
I can see that happening if it was like One Piece pirates, that would be cool
@@Jack1994hoo yeah if it leaned into the wacky fun theme like One Piece, I would totally be down for that.
Who ever thought a stamina bar should be on a ship needs to be fired
That made so little sense, I legitimately needed to do a double take on that section of the video to make sure I was seeing and hearing him correctly. In WHAT world does something like this make on the drawing board let alone past development?
hehe 😅
No they will get promoted. Line went up and you bought it
@@TempoLOOKING Doubt, the game sold worst than Suicide Squad
Probably thought that "hey since pirates are operating the ship. They can get tired too! Let's put a stamina bar.". Likely the same person who allowed head winds in every direction.
"Forget everything you know about the traditional pirate fantasy".
That's the best fucking part
'Forget everything you know about the traditional pirate fantasy' is a wild marketing technique given most people want a pirate game for the traditional pirate fantasy.
Honestly I'm surprised that to this day nobody created a pirate game set in a fantasy setting for maximum pirate fantasy.
@@CommanderBohnthat's what I started thinking about listening to this video. It's actually a great idea!
@@CommanderBohn Now would be the perfect time for one to emerge.
Such a mobile game as thing to say 😂 ain’t surprise if the game free to play
Love that you used Sea of Thieves for the green screen of you on the boat, because this game, a pirate game, doesn't allow you to walk around your ship...
They made Sea of Thieves look good
And Sea of Thieves is a game that has gotten better and better with each year, where as this live-service disaster will just be forgotten..
This makes sea of theives a QUADRUPLE A GAME!!
@@cuddlecakes7153 Sea of Thieves is good...
Actually had some great moments on Sea of Thieves. There’s problems with it, but it’s incredibly fun setting sail with your friends, cooking up some meat, getting drunk and singing songs all the while narrowly avoiding being plundered by another ship. Just fucking around on the ship in SoT looks infinitely more fun than anything this game can offer
8:25 "The game made him so mad he left his own house"
That's a glowing recommendation if I've ever heard one!
*YAARRRRRRR* matey
😊I thought you deserved a pirate chant.
When the game is so bad you go to touch grass
So the game basically makes you rather play real-life than video games 😂
Poor memory allocation
This is peak Ubisoft unfortunately, gone are the days when they actually cared about crafting a great player experience, and even then have mutilated some of their older games like ghost recon wildlands with loot boxes.
So sick of Ubisoft developers dumbing down gameplay to fit the entire PC family.
I wish somebody could make an actual gritty pirate experience. Think Red Dead Redemption, except pirates instead of cowboys.
Ubisoft could never, ever, ever make a game equivqlent to Rdr2. Not even in their golden era.
@@Gibson343088sad but honestly true
Ironically, this game is not even worth pirating
@alargecorgi2199 In Reality though: "Good Job! Here are your promotions!"
@alargecorgi2199it’s more the big corporations forcing the devs to make these shitty games.
Not even worth looting
I wonder if they'll make DLC for it? I hope so I can see Joe's reaction to it.
lol best comment! 🥇
The trailer: "AN ENTIRE WORLD OF MASSIVE SHIPS AND SWASHBUCKLING!"
The game: "AN ENTIRE POND OF TINY RAFTS, SWASHBUCKLING SOLD SEPARATELY!"
I love that the marketing for "AAAA" flopped so hard. And a good time to remind everyone, "AAA" 'triple-A' literally means nothing. It's a marketing term and nothing more.
It's funny because "AA" and Indie studios are making FAR better products with a fraction of the budget and man-power. Honestly, no AAA game is worth a pre-order or even a day 1 purchase anymore.
@@Wulfen109I preordered starfield for 100$ just to play early and after that disaster I will never pre order a game ever again. That was the nail in the coffin for me.
@@sc_diemonds219You’ve got to learn the hard way sometimes!
@@sc_diemonds219 Mine was Cyberpunk
I’ve always just consider “AAA” to mean high budget and only really look into a game being called double or triple to know what quality to expect (I’m just more forgiving to the faults of a AA or indie game) when that guy came out with AAAA a to describe skull and bones and I tried the beta I couldn’t help but laugh to myself. I though the beta was decent and the game has promise but honestly playing skull and bones just makes me want to replay ac4 black flag idk.
Remember! Tradewinds 2 was released 22 years ago, and Sid Meier's Pirates was released 23 years ago. & remains to be my favorite. pirate-themed video games. ever! Nothing even approaches it.
G Ty is Iyfyzf
And remember its supposed to be multiplayer addition to Black Flag.
Please never get rid of “ya done fucked it up!” For bad games. Makes me chuckle every time.
Looks especially good while dressed as a pirate😂
ARE Y-ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIIIIND!
@@stevenesbitt3528 I agree. And how angry he is AS one.
46:26 This is a pirate game, where the only combat is ship combat, and the final boss has the rank of *_General?!_* I've seen people confuse army and navy ranks before, but having someone be called a _general_ instead of an _admiral_ is just ridiculous.
😂
Maybe he's got one of them there fancy tank-boats that can go anywhere. He's the Omni-General. Ever present on Land and at Sea. His power is terrifying. 😨😨😨
I’m pretty sure those diversity hire developers have better things to do, like complain on X, get triggered and call gamers problematic homophobic racist transphobic aka normal people. Seriously, have you seen those feminist ship captains and the main game art having weird people that look like some bunch of privileged Californian insufferable zoomers than anything looking even slightly pirate.
That chubby Asian girl from that developer video doesn’t even have a clue what’s the difference between admiral, general or pirate.
Something may have gotten lost in translation and they meant Generaladmiral....
Nah who am I kidding, they just didn't give a shit.
😂😂
The large ships are missing because it's a marketing tactic. If they sold medium AND large, people would just buy large. So they'll wait till people buy the medium ships and in a few months, offer the large ships so you now need to buy the large ships too. It's all about the money.
By the time large ships do come out, NOBODY will be playing this game anyways.
@@crackalacs74 everyone's playing Helldivers II 😂😂
12:45 That sounds like a meme.. I'm sailing, but my ship's tired.
🎵POLICE I SWEAR TO GOD🎵
What’s hilarious to me is that this game is already 25% off.
It's a suicide squad situation lmao
It needs to be lower
Quadruple A's all over the place.
If this what a Quad A title needs to be the bar has been set very very low, so im expecting an Octuple A game any month now then.@@kentonbaird1723
I just looked it up in the Epic Game Store and you're right lol. It's pretty fucking pathetic for both this game and Suicide Squad because both games are a month old and they already have the publishers being pressured to make any bit of money they can out of it.
And what I think is more ironic is that both companies got outdone by their older titles. More players play Arkham Knight then SS and I'm sure that is the same case for AC Black Flag and Skull and Bones.
And when you chop the trees down, the animation is so lazily designed that the tree falls straight down through the stump! I haven't seen something like that since the PS2 days lmaooo
Imagine the country singapore subsidizing this game. I can't wait to see their face, $100 millions only for 900 jobs and garbage product. They should ask for their money back.
That's the sort of stuff you see in a shovelware survival-crafting game, not in a.. ''AAAA'' game.
@@NerevarOfficialRealwell seeing as this is the first "AAAA" game apparently this is what we should expect going forward...
@@iank472the fourth A being the government money.
@@DMartinov Hahaha ha! 😅
I have to say, I’ve been having the best time since Skull & Bones released.
Caribbean islands, hunting for treasure, building a crew, sailing your own ship, raiding other ships, getting the best outfits and just being the best pirate you can be!
Yes, getting my old copy of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag has really been one of the best things I’ve done recently since that boring chore of a game came out. :)
Glad you're enjoying it. Obviously it hits some spots that people like👍
Makes me think are these AAA companies going into a 40k style age of strife where the technological achievements they had a decade ago are just lost to time or something and they're using the in game store and season passes to hide what was lost? They can't make a climbing or combat system to walk around your ship but they have 100s of in game models the majority aren't going to see. Makes me think how few developers that are not in the art department that are holding the spaghetti code all together.
@@cookie4wookiee read the whole comment lol
Had me there at first in the beginning paragraph 🤣
You had us in the first half not gonna lie!
Idk why... but at some point someone up top made these decisions and thought they work better than what they already had in Black Flag. Its bizarre how terrible this game is, which is supposed to be a spinoff of an already established pirate game. Its seriously bizarre how badly they fucked this game's concept up!
"Forget everything you know" is just code for "Lower your expectations" lol
Or it means prepare to get your expectation subverted
Forget everything you know = Forget this game exists
Fave fergitton who to wirte
The blueprints are like that scene at the beginning of pirates of the Caribbean dead man's chest. "It's a key." "No, it's a drawing of a key."
How f.... difficult can it be to make a decent pirate game with krakens, mysteries like the flying Dutchman, crafting your own ship, buried treasure, killer mermaid? I can go on forever like this..
It's 2024 damm it.
It's obvious all the top developers have aged and opened up their own companies or freelance, whilst new ones don't know how to source code and just know how to use pre built assets on modern engines so they can't innovate. Then there's the blatant management cancer that is all about corporate appearance that plagues every modern business. These execs were never gamers and the idea of what their audience is is now gone forever. Very few old studios remain that have their past identity and mostly the new ones show promise until they inevitably fall to the same date of losing top developers and hiring useless top managers
@@yazzzlet3549 yep its that easy look the people they interview not a clue
Sea of thieves did it
All of that is exactly what Sea of Thieves has done over the years.
@@oldspice051The two big problems with Sea of Thieves is that it’s filled to the brim with sociopaths, and you basically need to play with a group of friends. Solo play is not really an option, though God knows I tried to play it that way.
Say what you want about Sea of Thieves. But they at least knew what they were doing.
Your ship dosen't have a stamina bar.
You can choose what ship you want if you dont want a sloop. ( there should be more ship types but still at least your not stuck with the sloop.)
You have a lot of customaztion options
Wind isnt broken in game. Your ship functions differently when wind is against it ( sloop will move faster against the wind)
Each ship is useful in some way.
You can walk around your ship and even get off and on your ship making exploring more fun as it allows you to go places.
Plus theres things you can find or encounter in the game that make it exciting.
Plus there's intresting missions.
If this is an AAAA game, I want them to make just single A games.
AAAA games are supposed to be classics like Grand Theft Auto 5, Minecraft, Tetris, and Super Mario
Or make DEMAKE games play 2 is very fun or remakes like Demons Souls
@@League-f9x modern games by AAA are Starfield or movies of PlayStation
Instead of Elden Ring o Baldurs Gate 3 ( well this one is like 6 years of develop)
I think AA games are the best future for the industry. Large enough to have greater “scale” than indies but small enough budget to not be filled with AAA (and “AAAA”) bullshit. Something like Robocop Rogue City was a ton of fun despite the budget because it was just me, being Robocop, shooting bad guys in the dick while doing other police work in the 2.5th movie. No bullshit.
So indies?
As a Singaporean, I'm actually getting a lot of satisfaction from watching this game fail spectacularly. The government of Singapore has always prioritised technical skill over art and innovation, using its education system and the country's work culture to churn out obedient, hardworking, pragmatic workers while dissuading artists and creatives from pursuing their passions. This deal with Ubisoft is them trying to buy their way into the game industry without first taking steps to encourage and support homegrown indie talent. And their investment blew up in their face.
@@jltheking3 I'm not saying there's anything wrong with offering subsidies. I'm saying the SG govt did so without first taking steps to organically nurture homegrown game development talent and cultivate a society where art isn't viewed as frivolous and impractical. When it comes to art, Singapore has an abundance of money but a lack of talent, whereas places like Hollywood have an overabundance of talent but not enough money to give them all jobs (hence the foreign subsidies).
When it comes to addressing Singapore's lack of artistry, simply throwing money at the problem isn't going to work, and this game is testament to that fact. You can spend millions in taxpayer and foreign corporate money and still end up with a pile of garbage. And now the game development industry in SG has been humiliated on the global stage.
When you say you work there do you mean Ubisoft Singapore? So you're essentially confirming the "alleged" report that Ubisoft took money from the govt and that's why they couldn't cancel this stinker? That's hilarious. Thanks for the confirmation.
It actually gives me even more satisfaction to know that Ubisoft SG devs are watching this review, cos you are the ones who need to hear this criticism. Last question: did you all know while working on this game that it would be complete garbage?
@@jltheking3You sound like that Starfield dev whining about how hard game development is. No one cares dude. It is not the responsibility of the consumer or critic to understand how hard it is to make whatever they consume. They simply judge the final product and choose whether to spend their money on it or not. If my plane crashes can Boeing tell my family, "hey you don't understand how hard and complex aerospace engineering and maintenance is. Airbus can do it cos blah blah blah but most of us can't because blah blah." If you go to a steak restaurant and receive a burnt steak can the chef say, "making a steak in these working conditions is phenomenally hard, you don't understand." No, the consumer/end user shouldn't need to understand anything beyond "this product/service is worth my money."
Y'all "AAA" devs sound so immature and insecure when you bring up Larian and BG3. BG3 aside, there are plenty of great games that were made by AAA/"quadruple A" studios that were beholden to shareholders and facing the same challenges y'all did (and probably more, without govt subsidies). It's very easy to see your situation as unique when you need to pardon your own failure. And sure, every game and its development process is unique, but being a unique snowflake doesn't excuse anyone from what is expected of them. And as your Singaporean parents probably told you too, "you should compare yourself to the best in your class, not the worst."
And even if we understood on a deeper level why so many bad games get made, does that mean we shouldn't criticise? No. A bad game is a bad game regardless of the circumstances surrounding its development, and consumers have a right to know what they should spend their money on. So Joe and other critics are still doing the right thing, and absolutely nothing changes if we knew everything you know. Should I buy a bad game because it was made with suboptimal datelines, lacking manpower, the right skillset, the right team, lacking funding, and needing to fight the money people to get the game out the door? No. Knowing all that changes nothing.
Not saying this game's failure is your fault specifically as a dev. Chances are Ubisoft management is mostly to blame. But you don't have to jump to their defence with the whole "boohoo video games are hard" argument. It's so played out at this point and for the reasons I've stated, I stress again, no one cares, nor should they.
@@jltheking3 You were the one who brought up the challenges of game development buddy. That didn't even have anything to do with my original comment. But I see that you don't know how to offer a rebuttal, so you resort to personal attacks on me and this channel's entire viewership (which includes you). How very mature and adult of you. But admittedly, very on brand for a Skull n Bones dev.😂🤡
Hollywood... talent? You high?@@naviuhyuaehiushvg
@@naviuhyuaehiushvgguessing he deleted his comments
This game was doomed to fail the moment they added all these Fortnite health bars and no sword combat. Quite literally could’ve made multiplayer AC Black Flag and it would’ve been better
Wtf is fortnite health bars
A green bar?
@@manwithballsonarm6775 like how the game has too much UI. Like everything has a health bar, and it’s up and in your face like you can’t just, yk, see the ship or whatever you’re shooting is damaged
Noobs don't get it@@haydennr6
Fortnite has the trademark for green health bars?
34:00 I just love how OJ breaks character 😂😂😂
Ubisoft: Player engagement!
Players: But I'm not having fun.
Ubisoft: But engagement!
Player: I Am Not Having Fun
Fundamental disconnect between game companies and players in a nutshell
The funny thing is that the thing that Joe liked which is the whale? That's from Black Flag, not Skull and Bones lol
Replace player engagement with diversity and inclusion and you would be right
I'm always shocked what kind of false advertising is allowed in the USA. Those PR people in the video are straight up lying through their teeth. Those are downright illegal in my country. Marketing in the USA is like the Wild Wild West, anything goes.
@@One.Zero.One101 We call it hype.
As a Singaporean, I have a few friends who worked on this game. The project started around the time they got out of schools with their diplomas and degrees in game design or project management, bright eyed and eager. I can feel their heart break with what this game became. I can see now why most of them chose to leave ubisoft despite it being, at one time, a dream place to work for them.
what happened behind the scenes for it to go so wrong?
No one correlates this game with Singapore
Many Ubisoft games are rife with design decisions designed to milk the player instead of providing a fun experience. They games are sullied by greed, they feel dirty to play.
@@bridgesbane7032that’s a bit of an over exaggeration
@@rigulur I imagine they got the Ubisoft special.
"Here's the plan you get the game like THIS"
"Sir, this is a store schematic" "Glad to see you understand, you have a week to finish while Steve from management breathes near your neck and makes you overtime to keep schedule, good luck"
Sid Meier : Pirates 2004. A game that came out 20 year ago before this game, was mechanically deeper than this game.
It has ship management, cargo management, Crew management, Boarding strength based on crew number, Plundering success chance based on crew number, faction diplomacy, Retire system, Marriage, Treasure hunting, and Duel.
Skull & Bones can just copy that at bare minimum
The pirating minigame from Curse of Monkey Island was deeper than this game. :p
@@poilboileryou talking about "what a coincidence, you fight like a cow!" 😂😂😂
The pirate level in Sly Cooper 3 was better, and it was like 1/7th of the game
The original Sid Pirates from 1987 was better
That Dancing mini-game in SM Pirates was the true trial by fire
Listening to the screeching female pirates while in combat is immersion breaking.
The one time everyone would have been completely fine with Ubisoft just copying one of their previous games, they decided not to do it and to fuck up a concept they already had nailed down 10 years ago.
The wost part in playing both black flag and rogue, they had missions where you played as the npc ships (frigate in Black flag, Man o war in Rogue) and they showed that they were practically a DLC away from all being fully playable. That's the real heartbreak that they were so close to the finish line 10 years ago.
Black flag is still the best game hands down, and they have it in countless games especially black flag 😂
I love how "forget everything you know about the traditional pirate fantasy" is now synonymous with phrases like "16 times the detail" and "it just works" love me a good Angry angry Review! 😂
We needed a new meme. Keep it up
At the end of the day what we all really want is just an open world game that does for pirates what RDR2 did for cowboys.
And what Ghosts of Tsushima did for Ninjas (maybe? 🤷♂️)
And what Dying Light (or maybe State of Decay?) did for zombies.
That covers pirates, cowboys, ninjas and zombies.
Cough cough rockstar make us a damn pirate game please lol
Sea of Thieves?
@@viralshark running around on ships and islands, sailing, fighting, and plundering- with maps, crew, and monsters as well.
Amen!
7:06 This moment is funny as hell. I never expected Alex of all people to say it. Does anyone know what video this is from?
You know what's funny? In Watch Dogs 2, the game that was also made by Ubisoft, which is focused mainly on hacking and electronic gadgets, you can use a sailboat to swim at Bay area. Unlike other boats, sailboat's speed is determined by wind's direction, and I dare to say, that the way you navigate it, is almost as like navigating The Jackdaw in AC Black Flag. You get it? Watch Dogs 2, the game which is not focused on sailing adventures, piracy and plunder, has much more realistic sailing mechanic, that the "AAAA" game! AND - the sailboat in WD 2 doesn't have stamina bar!
Do you want to know why they use Stamina here? Because they want you to waste as much as time in game...
WD2 is underrated btw.
@@devilgames2217it's a good game I just don't consider it a sequel. It's more of a spin off, then watchdogs legion is a Holocaust, devs told us they were only following orders.
Watch Dogs 2 was the last Ubisoft game I actually enjoyed
Black flag still rains supreme as the best pirate game and it’s the same company that produced this garbage
“We listened to fans along the way”
And then apparently made sure to do the opposite of what they said they wanted.
They listened to the desk fans in their office. That's why owning a desk fan is more enjoyable than this game.
@@Mac_Omegaly
All they heard was "brrrrrrrrr", which is like the noise I hear when the characters speak
Been waiting for this one! The first ever angry review of a AAAA game!
A what?
@@TrickyTalon23 Ubisoft Called this thing a "AAAA Game"
@@TrickyTalon23 they call it the first "quadruple A" game. so yes. it's the first 4A crap.
@@TrickyTalon23did he stutter?
@@01oo011sigh….its a joke that went over your head,
50% WOMAN all over the place? Even on the ship?! LOOOOL!!!!
Ughhhh i cant stand this misoginee!!! Woman can be priates too!!!! Inclusivity!!!! Remove all men from the gmae!!!!!
This game got one thing right. As a cyclist living in Scotland I can confirm that the wind is sentient and hates us.
Whoever thought up Skull and Bones and didn't think instantly of just making Black Flag Online should never be allowed in a Studio ever again.
That's modern gaming with those higher ups. They get paid big bucks to fuck everything up.
Passion clearly doesn’t pay. Just ignore Baldurs Gate 3, all of the pre-online Elder Scrolls games, Call of Duty from 2007-2012, the original Halo trilogy, pre-Unity Assassins Creed, the Red Dead Redemption games, all of the Soulsborne games, etc
@@connorodum6710exactly, just give the majority what they want n they'll make ya success no matter what & this game isn't one of them anymore
joke's on you. those that made black flag not even working there anymore kekw
Funny thing is, the project was originally intended to be a Black Flag multiplayer expansion focused on the ships. The project then appearantly grew so much it was supposed to be it's on spin off game and eventually it's own stand alone game
"We cant even go on the island to see if there are cool indigenous people to kill"
That would've definitely been dark and gritty. They missed the mark with that one
how much you wanna bet if a dev pitch that idea to ubisoft, not only will the dev be fired but also be sued for racism.
@user-ld3ol5kr9n only if the cool indigenous people were slaves and not white british navy soldiers somehow still stranded.
Ubisoft is so ESG and DEI right now they can't do offensive stuff anymore. All their new games are all watered down, inoffensive and soulless.
@@conyo985 shhhh, Joe agrees with all that stuff. Hes voting for our downfall
Risen 2 let's you do that.
Been playing Black Flag past couple days, I've had fun walking around on my boat during ship combat, jumping off my ship to explore islands, fighting enemies in hand-to-hand combat, boarding enemy ships to take their loot then sink their ship, etc.
Boy, what a fun game.
All they had to do is take black flag, remove the animus and futuristic simulation shit, and boom a 10/10 pirate game.
But no, Ubishit mathematically calculated the worst possible pirate game they can think of and put so much money into it you'd think this game was an excuse to funnel money into shareholders pockets. AAAA my ass.
It’s well aware that most of those devs who made AC4 and so on are gone, they can’t even recreate and copy and paste what was already there ☠️
Your *AAAASS*
They just didn't care after many years of mismanagement. They had to ship this game just because they recieved govt (Singapore?) funding. Ubisoft needs a massive change in leadership.
@@EternalNightingaleso it was doomed to fail cause thats what we were toldwe were gettin for years…… 🏴☠️
"a darker, grittier approach" Must be talking about the color palette and how physically dirty the pirates are because there isn't much dark and gritty about skull and bones. As far as I am aware no death is shown, no disease, no sexual assault; you know the actual dark and gritty parts of pirate life. All there is is drugs, alcohol, strong language, and discussion of murder. Its like they purposely were seeking an M rating to cater to an older audience, so they added strong language and drug references that sometimes would be removed to lower the rating.
Darn 32:00 missed a perfect shot at a joke:
"What is this, a crowbar?"
"Even better, it's a drawing of a crowbar!"
Lol 😂
Ohh, that's a throw back, isn't? Which review was this from?
@@FunZies.It's from the beginning of the 2nd Pirates of the Caribbean movie
Yawn, let them make them make jokes and keep yours to yourself
lol :D
28:43 "That was _EXTENT_ OF MY *SWASHBUCKLING?!!?!"*
Kills me every time. 😭
32:25
"It's a stick."
"No, it's much more better. It's a drawing of a stick"
Man imagine finding crew mates with their own strengths and weaknesses and own names. One is a drunk but a sharpshooter, the other is sometimes sea sick but great at handling the cannons. Choosing your crew, boarding other ships, fighting with swords and / or pistols, choosing a speciality, finding treasure maps and searching for the treasure on the picture with actual rare loot like new swords or a hat, keep morale high on your team.
Imagine a game not having an ingame shop.
"Imagine a game not having an ingame shop. " I am trying, but it is really hard... /sadge
Fuck, that sounds so damn amazing. What the hell...
Funny thing is that Pirate101 a kids game from 2012 will let you walk around your ship as it travels.
That’s a name I haven’t heard in years
I love how you put Sid Meier's Pirates in the background. Still one of the best pirate games.
I already hate when stamina slows you down in non combat scenarios in other games for running or climbing, but stamina bars on a vehicle is an absurd level of content padding.......
At least it would make sense if it was a paddle ship and not one powered by the sails ..
FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT PIRATES! ARRRGGG!!!
ARRRRRGGG
Arrg!!
Argggg!!!
Arrrrggg, me matey!!
No sir, I don't like it.
Sid Meier's Pirates! from *2004* is still the pre-eminent pirate game
*THAT WAS 20 YEARS AGO!*
I just checked the Steam forums for that game, and the top topic is "why are there no trans pirates" where someone is demanding the devs add trans pirates to the game. The 20 year old game.
$3.5 at the moment on steam
@@Isnogood12Probably rage bait or they're just plain stupid lol
@@Isnogood12ummmm excuse me sweaty, trans people existed for 25000 years. They literally dug up gender fluid dinosaurs
If they ever re-mastered that game with new textures and refined features, I’d pay $40-50 for that. Give it a true remake and not just updated graphics
I decided to watch this video before I bought it at BB for $10. You saved me $10 and drive space! Thnx Joe.
12:46 In Skull and Bones, your ship...
GETS TIRED!!!
wait the ship is not a living being!
@@Dullsonic3 Is an SCP actually.
Yeah, somehow stamina affects the wind that push the ship 🤣
@@pax1217 then that explains everything
Is it like the living ship from far scape?
I'll never forget the old days of Ubisoft. They made such masterpieces, that when I would go into Blockbuster I would literally rent their games knowing nothing about it, because Ubisoft was on it. That's how good they used to be.
Oh how far they've fallen.
Look at pictures of the dev room then and look at the pictures of the dev room now. Glaring differences, almost like hiring devs that are actually great devs matters, not what other boxes they check for the company.
Blame corporate greed. You think these devs WANT to make shitty MTX infested live service games? It's all about shareholders wanting to make a quick buck, no matter what
@@bw7754 bro mad there’s diversity in the room 💀 get over yourself. Those devs have little to no say, it’s the corpos you should dislike goofy
@@Wulfen109No, it's also about devs being incompetent morons who aren't able to make a good game to save their life. They put a stamina bar on a ship. And a wind system that exclusively fucks the player in the ass. No shareholder made those decisions.
@@Wulfen109 i blame the consumers. eating up every turd they been served, more. if it wouldnt be profitable, it wouldnt happen.
Bad game reviews>>>>>>>>Goty’s
To this day, I remember the hype and magic of that Ride to Hell review!
Studio: “What do players want”
Devs: “Assassin’s Creed Black Flag”
Studio: “Ok. So let’s do something else.”
Remember optional 4 legendary ships in Black Flag? Even they have short cutscene and battle theme.
5:22 Six...!?
SIX FACES!?
R U telling me, after 8 years in development, you gonna gave me a choice between Six Faces!?!
4 Naggers, 1 asian,, and rest almost white lol..
the one time madden is better at something
@@itsdragomanlowest bar imaginable when you can’t even match madden lol
For me, the thing that stood out wasn't just the limited number of faces, but that the only choices of hair colour are dark hair and blonde hair. No red hair option.
thats the quadruple A special
Even Pirates of the Caribbean Online was better than this. So apparently like their skit said: ya can't loot as the captain? Ya done fucked up
I literally thought the same thing lol
Ouch lol
Can I fight with swords? No
Can I fight with guns on land? No
Can I explore the islands? No
Should anyone ever play or pay for this trash? NO
Arrowhead (Helldivers) said it beautiful: "A game for everyone, is a game for no one".
That's not a new thing, they didn't say anything there as it's an old saying. Also it's not necessarily always true.
@@voidoxyou sound fun
@@ItsAlpacaMan aww, fanboy mad at facts and reality.
@@voidox I don't think his point was to "glaze" the helldivers studio, it is just a very recent well received videogame. The main point he was trying to get at is that big developers make these games that cater to all types of people but in the end, they often fail to fully understand and the wants and needs of their consumers.
😂😂😂 What the fuck, a ship has stamina. I'm crying. You can't make this shit up.
Reminds me of that shitty Harry Potter mobile game where you need to spend energy to take a break between lessons.
I know it😅@@CaptainTitforce
Pirate game? nah this is Ship simulator =)))
@@mr.q337ship simulator? With stamina? No man 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Surprised they didn't include gas. "You have run out of gas, please wait 3 hours or purchase Pirate coins for more gas"
25 bucks for a ship skin? Found the pirates lmao
Damn. Ubisoft are the real pirates with them prices.
How does Kingdom Hearts 3 have a better pirate system than this
Never knew about the game's mechanics, but when joe mentioned "Healing cannon balls" as an actual mechanic in the game, I rolled on the floor dying of laughter. xDDD
Torpedoes?!
Look, I'm all for suspending my disbelief but torpedoes in the 19th century is f'ing stupid.
You may as well include 50 cal machine guns or blasters. They're all equally out of place in the 19th century.
I know right?! I get it’s a made up setting etc but it’s so silly to see something like that. Especially when they ignore stuff like grape shot. I don’t even know how that would work. Do they have underwater fixed tubes like early Dreadnoughts? Or turreted launchers? It’s hilarious to think about it.
If this takes place in the age of piracy it's more like the 17th century, not the 19th. But I can't guarantee it isn't set in the 19th century, because I wouldn't play Skull & Bones if I got paid for it. What a joke of a pirate game.
Personally, I think the free-aiming canons are worse, btw.
Edit: Had to look it up, but early torpedos did exist throughout the 19th century.
I hate/love when companies say "forget everything you know about..." or "you're not ready for..." because that is a massive sign to me to NOT BUY IT.
Oh! It's not what I was expecting, so I should pass and look elsewhere for what I want? Thanks for the warning!
Oh! I'm not ready yet? Thanks for the warning and telling me to pass on your product for now and wait!
On a side note. Did anyone honestly expect this game to be good? After the development hell it went through and HORRIBLE advertising campaigns.
They thought it was going to be so good, they had an open beta.
@@jasomon2115 Did any consumer expect this to be good?
“Forget everything you know about the traditional pirate fantasy.” Those are words they chose to market a f**king pirate game.