Was linked to this video. Great recap BUT I really want to know where did you get those glass display towers that are behind you housing the LEGO Giza?
I think something you failed to realize/mention is the business model of Ubisoft+ and its integration into Amazon Luna and Xbox Game Pass can make this not a game people buy outright but adds a little value to their subscription. A good example for me is Sea Of Thieves for me. I don't think it is good enough to buy outright myself but it adds value every time I sub to a month of Xbox Game Pass. I get to check out what's new and going on in the game and get to play and then when I get done with my sub that is slightly less wanting to drop due to the game included then I stop until next time. I think if they position this game as an add on to their subscription service that is can be successful enough. Weather this is a good or bad thing is something different altogether but I do think that it is worth bringing up the angle of subscription service they have and games that can add value to that and make people consider not turning off the auto sub. Also in terms of games that launched not great but they keep development going on and improving would be For Honor.
Ubisoft ignored what the players wanted, and they're giving players... what Ubisoft wants. You can go back from the time of it's first trailer release... and all the feedback mentioned that players wanted another Black Flag in game concepts... but with multiplayer. Come on Ubisoft... this was a no brainer on your end, that you very well could have delivered to dedicated Black Flag fans. Pirates do a lot of fun and exciting other things than just be aboard a Pirate Ship. No Treasure Hunting, no sword fighting, no exploring vast beautiful euphoric landscape Caribbean mysterious undiscovered islands, no diving the ocean for shipped wreck treasures...no looking for maps to hidden buried treasure?! And where the hell are the crafting items to upgrade your characters swords, pellets to increase the players pouch bullet capacity for the guns, animal hides to pimp your "ON FOOT EXPLORATION SWASH BUCKLING PIRATE" out? What if I want to explore this new world on foot, rather than by on just boat alone... just like you could with an older Edward Kenway Pirate... transitioning into England? Or just please bring us all another Black Flag game... just without the Assassin's Creed storyline please... A Pirates Game Franchise... on it's own terms. Copy and paste Black Flag... and make it a separate stand alone title... called "Black Flag." Get some good writers together, some good story boards together... a good game design team... that is PASSIONATE about having the desire to see this franchise a franchise worthy to be called its very own.... without the lengthy following 30 plus minute missions please. It's really a no brainer... if they follow all these guidelines.
Tbh, if they took that, polished it some more and added other areas like Rogue’s Ice Seas, it would have gone better. Maybe add in options to have Base vs Ship mechanics similar to taking over Fortress Ports in Black Flag and Guilds could have their own bases where the Defenders can manually use defensive systems to fight back against attacking ships.
Even the last CGI trailer got my hyped, because it felt emotional, like it want's to tell a captivating story. That young boy stumbling around the streets of London, seeing the fancy high society, not feeling like he belongs to anyone - becoming a pirate building his own society for others who don't feel like they belong. That's a story you can tell, that's where I want to spend my time with. Only to find out that its basically random multiplayer ship battle where NPCs only have standard answers. And boarding ships is automated? What? Why Ubisoft? :(
The fact that it seems to be comprised only of "your ship can do this, your ship can do that, your ship can do this," I immediately knew it won't be the pirate game people were initially excited for it to be. AC4 was so fun because it had so much exploration and combat and boarding. And Skull and Bones seemingly has *very* little of that. It won't have the heart of a pirate game.
@@awdrifter3394 To be fair, Singapore has the best cache of programmers in the world, and almost everyone who wants the best high-end programmers get them from Singapore.
@@randomcheese1719 That's very true. It ultimately just needs a lot of cohension. But it really does depend on who they hired from Singapore and for what positions.
Yeah I can't imagine anything forced into completion under penalty of law is going to be complete, polished and thoroughly play tested. I look forward to the bugs and glitches vids.
That's the natural end-point of endless corporate mergers; because they account for such a large part of an industry, you are basically required to bail one out if they fail as doing so is cheaper then letting them collapse. Don't like it? Then don't allow endless mergering.
A narrative pirate game written by rockstar would be insane. With how they handled the gangs relationship and characters in rdr2, what they could do with various different pirates crews would be very interesting to see. And they’ve gone the 10 year production time nailed down as well.
There are dozens of great games about pirates, but ubisoft is a AAA developer, and could have brought something to the table few of the Indie or AA productions could have, engaging ship boarding and land exploration in a massive gorgeous world. The level of fidelity they could have brought to the table was immense. Assassins creed 4 already had the winning formula, I have no idea why they stripped so much away while spending way more money. From what I've seen this game makes ATLAS look good by comparison.
I mean, look at ALL of Ubisoft's recent games. They still haven't made a game with a parkour as good as AC: Unity; they still haven't made a game with a combat system as deep and as procedural as AC: III; and they still haven't made shipboarding as good as AC: IV. So you're right, they had a winning formulae, but then they've had winning formulas in a BUNCH of different genres and just let them fall by the wayside. It's ironic, but I've had the BEST boarding actino fun in Star Citizen lately -- disabling ships, boarding them via EVA (or checking out their wreckage in atmosphere) and looting them. At this point, Skull & Bones is so late to the party there's nothing they have that I'm interested in at this point.
@@billywashere6965 Can second the boarding in SC, it was absolutely fantastic back when the patch was stable. It's a shame AAA studios don't want to take the time to create that level of emergant gameplay, a halfway between star citizens features and sea of thieves would be the perfect pirate game. as much hate as SC gets it's the only big budget game trying to innovate and push the medium forward.
@@tinymanjones3119 I know right?! I've logged like 7 hours in that game the last two days just doing basic stuff. The most impressive thing I've seen is that MASSIVE ship graveyard at Port Olisar. I've NEVER seen anything like that in a game before. It looks like a space hulk of husks. I was tempted to get out and EVA around but I was doing my bounty hunter certs and wanted to complete them before I got sent to the shadow realm or the servers failed. Anyway, you're absolutely right... SC gets a ton of hate but they really are doing what every other AAA studio could have done ten times over in the last ten years. I think I just get really angry thinking about Ubisoft because they have SOOOO many awesome design mechanics already, yet they just don't use them the way that they could. Ghost Recon, for instance, has some of the best open-world art design in an open-world game, but they didn't do anything with it; just filled the entire world with the exact same copy-paste missions over and over again for 100+ hours. It's just so... disheartening. But yeah, the good and bad part is that I've at least had a blast with 3.18, and until Ubisoft/EA/Activisoin get their act together, I'll just stick with SC and my back catalog of indie games.
@@billywashere6965 I think the problem is that Ubisoft doesn't want to "make the same game twice" and that's why they try to change the concept of the AC games constantly. And you just know that's a valid critique, as franchises like CoD and Battlefield have been accused of doing just that: producing games that are "more of the same." So while it's commendable that they try to make the effort, it is kind of a hit-and-miss strategy. If people really like AC: III and then start playing AC: IV, they might be diappointed, as IV is much different from III. On the other hand players might prefer IV over III, because it IS so different and a fresh breath into the tried-and-trusted formula of AC I to III. In efforts to please everyone, you'll always end up displeasing some, that's just a fact.
My question is why did we go from everything we saw in 2017 (decent gameplay, an actual story, etc) to the crap we're dealing with now (mini missions that take forever for you to build yourself up from a castaway to a pirate)
Literally everyone shits on Ubisoft and way better and more in depth than this....they are a garbage clueless company and will be bankrupt with a few more flops
Hard not to think of nautical clichés, but interest in this game is underwater by now. As for the chance to launch it and do well - that ship has well and truly sailed. They blew it, frankly.
Also, didn't know about the Singapore angle. Singapore can make as many glossy tourism ads as it likes - but it remains a repressive police state that crushes citizen rights. Of all the countries to have potential legal and police problems in, Singapore ain't one of them that you want to be caught having issues with.
Those deals with governments is what killed 38 Studios. Rhode Island got nervous about the studios financial situation, panicked, pulled out their money, killed the studio.
I waited four hours to play this game when it was first announced at E3. It was really fun and the devs seemed so nice. Feel bad the game got stuck in limbo.
Possibly the most game ever made! (Actually, if you take into account the development reboots and all of the work and content scrapped during that process, this may be true.)
Don't hold your breath on that just yet. They're still busy trying to sugar coat and rewrite the history of pirates to fit with current politics and to make it no longer pirate-like I'm sure.
As far as I am concerned, Ubisoft is that one company that keeps re-making the same two games time and time and time and again for years now, with each new iteration becoming more shallow, dull and stupid. So I would be surprised to see anything original from Ubisoft, let alone something that is actually _good._
If insanity is doing the same while expecting different results, what do you call Ubisoft for doing something different than Black Flag while expecting the same levels of success? lol
Unsoundness of mind sufficient to render a person unfit to maintain a contractual or other legal relationship or sufficient to warrant commitment to a mental health facility.
Multiplayer games are hard to make. Multiplayer games on the ocean are 10 times harder to make. + a game that has good graphics when most people computers suck is even harder. + Physics simulations + all the mechanics. And management has to keep interest. A lot of new games are either stale or buggy for a reason. The average quality of games and movies dropped 10-fold because people care more about hype than quality anyway. 120 million for game like this is normal. Adding new features like crafting is not starting over its just adding a new thing. Making it open world is, however, is starting over. Ubisoft is still a 3-billion-dollar gaming company regardless that people talk badly about it. It's kind of idiotic to say the company is bad then keep buying their games. Their code is not bad their games are just way more complex than 98% of the games out there. And when you do that, you often get into situation where you can't get it done. People just have 0 idea how difficult it is to make these things happen, but those same people can't code something in a game following a step-by-step tutorial. The idea is cool, doesn't matter how old it is. The question is, are they able to solve the issues that delayed the game in the first place. Maybe they wanted it to be co-op, but now as it took a long time to make, technology progressed to the point they can make it open world, and they decided to take that risk, because well it's really cool for this game to be open world. And by technology, I mean the average people's computers.
A Rockstar pirate game? From 2023 Rockstar? Nah no thanks. They'd make you row out from the boat and back every time you dock and painstakingly load every cannon for a minute and a half between shots. They they'd make you do a mission where you follow a parrot for ten minutes before you find your drunk matey to bring him back to the ship. And if you try to do anything off-script you instantly fail the mission. Maybe 2004 Rockstar, now they could make a fun game. Old Rockstar before they became over obsessed with details over fun.
I'd love a pirate game from rockstar in the rdr2 era (I'm saying era because the trilogy deluxe or whatever was shocking). Red dead redemption 2 is fun becuase of it being hyper realistic, I could understand why some people wouldn't like it though as it has the role playing kind of fun rather than unrestricted crazy fun. I can just imagine imagine sailing through a detailed realistic ocean in a life size pirate ship sloop, galleon, or man o' war.
@@kieran5476 Well, RDR 2 Rockstar is exactly what OP was talking about. In RDR 2, even the slightest deviation during a combat mission insta-fails you. Hopped onto a different part of the roof you're on? Fail. Walked into a hallway? Fail. Move a foot backward after the end of a cutscene? Fail.
@@nousername2942 yeah that's fair, I also think the missions do need a lot more freedom and I mainly just enjoy the open world parts of the game and the story😅
The part where you talk about their deal with the Singapore government, is extremely eye opening. It seems like thats the only reason its still in developmemt. I personally was really excited for this game but as you say, its been about 10 years 😅
@Flare I've worked in the singapore game dev sphere for quite a few years. One thing I've noticed is that the same people keep cycling through the companies and a lot of them are completely incompetent, arrogant and massive credit hogs. my suspicion is that a few of these guys have sweet talked their way into the ubisoft singapore studio management and are seriously messing stuff up.
I'd love a pirate game from rockstar in the rdr2 era (I'm saying era because the trilogy deluxe or whatever was shocking). Red dead redemption 2 is fun becuase of it being hyper realistic, I could understand why some people wouldn't like it though as it has the role playing kind of fun rather than unrestricted crazy fun. I can just imagine sailing through a detailed realistic ocean in a life size sloop, galleon, or man o' war
Everyone praises black flag, but even that wasn't a true pirate game and it was still pretty basic. I want a real triple A pirate game and then I can die happy
But then you wouldn't have a fully manned crew or it would be an AI Crew, so basically in truth captain vs captain. Or a few key positions manned by humans, the rest by AI. And most people don't have the patience for real ocean sizes. I know one game that does something similar, though entirely without combat, it is called Sailwind and an Indie Game. You're a sailing trader in a fictional set of archipelagos (one arabic themed, one East Asian themed and one European themed), and you have to sail from A to B utilizing several navigational tools and methods. And there are two islands that kind of are outliers of existing archipelagos, but even when you sail to these you'll find yourself on open ocean, without any land in sight, fighting high waves and getting truly the feeling of being lost at sea, in a huge ocean. Sea of Thieves doesn't do this, filled with islands and rocks. It is more like sailing in the Ha Long Bay, but "sold" as Open Ocean. You only remotely get that open Ocean feeling in SoT when you're nearing the edge of the map and just don't see any islands when you look outward. And Black Flag also didn't deliver this either, it was a miniature carribean. We can't expect such a game from Ubisoft. Recently, out of Curiosity while playing AC Origins, I read about Krokodilopolis IRL, it is an actual city (of cause nowadays bearing a different name) with ancient origin and how far it actually is away from Alexandria on the Egyptian Coast IRL, something about 250 kilometers. Then I got curious and checked ingame and set a waypoint in Alexandria while being in Krokodilopolis and it was ingame 10 kilometers away. So they worked for that game with a 1:25 scale and I guess they did the same (more or less maybe with slightly differing scales) in all of their AC games to have casual-friendly travel distances.
I mean a pirate game in the 1880s-1910s could pretty much take place only in the Straights of Malacca or the islands around Hong Kong and the Philippines. But for the odd Pacific Blackbirder still roaming around the Pacific, that's pretty much it. Remember this is the era of steamships, steel armor, and breach loading (and by 1905 - modern battleships once Dreadnought launches). Pirates in this era are just dudes in Sampans and Junks hoping they didn't run into the Royal Navy's smallest warship in the era lol
They just needed to find a way to have sword fighting inside the ships and the game could be interesting. I do not doubt that they can get it right in the matter of naval battles. At least they were epic in the Assassin games.
I might be wrong but given that this is the studio that invented on-ship fighting for Assassin's Creed - you know the boarding, the way to go stealthy in from the water, the way you can do parkour on ship sails - couldn't they even port a lot of these gameplay concepts over to Skull & Bones? Even the animations were quite strong, so you'll mostly need high-res textures and the whole graphical thing.
@@DerDudelino but maybe all of this IS possible. People just like to focus on the negative. Even if Luke is right, I'm kind of disappointed he indulges in such narratives ahead of the game's proper release. For all intents and purposes this is still an in-dev game.
@@StefanConstantinDumitrache Yea if it was other game maybe, but there is a reason this game was started in 2013 and haven't released, they never had a clear vision, it has changed so many hands, and most people testing it have been pretty harsh on it, so yea if this was some indy game maybe. But this is a game that was supposed to be a multi player expansion for Black flag. It is kind of a joke now with all the delays,they have pivoted so many times and not really stuck with idea's it seems, now they have some port area like the destiny tower since people wanted on feet exploration and other pirate stuff, but it was just a cutscene of a dude digging up a treasure chest for example or for cosmetids. and the head of the game or some lady saying:" forget everything you know about pirate games(but we want a pirate game), were going dark and gritty" and it was nothing like that at all :D. So i agree with your sentiment but this game is just a disaster it looks like atleast for UBI.
honestly boarding being actual combat instead of a cutscene is the stupidest thing people keep sugesting, it worked in AC because AC was ... you know.. SINGLE PLAYER, there are 2 theoretical ways to do it and both SUCK option 1: both ships are completely vulnerable while boarding/being boarded, that would lead to NO ONE ever using the feature because youre just a big target, there you are doing your sword fighting and suddenly you and your enemy are blown out of the water but a guy looking for quick loot option 2: both ships are completely INVULNERABLE while boarding/being boarded, now its just an easy get out of jail free card that leads to people prolonging the boarding part as long as possible to either be a dick to the other guy or to hide from the big warship around the corner generally i am in favor of sword/gun play aswell but not in this format because as i said both options suck, i personally would integrate it into the resource gathering aspect, specifically the hunting aspect, instead of going around on your tiny ship throwing spears at animals there are dozens of dedicated hunting zones on land where you can actually hunt animals, for that you have specific tools, gameplay wise i would borrow alot from for honors combat system, but only the basics, three attack directions with, block/parry, light and heavy attacks, the attacks properties (speed, damage etc) depend on the melee weapon of your choice, you also have a ranged weapon slot for pistols, rifles, blunderbusses etc the gunplay would differ between pve(hunting) and pvp, when you have a pvp flag i.e you have engaged in pvp in the last X seconds your reload time for your guns is increased DRAMATICALLY to the point that you will get one shot of in a pvp fight, which does decent damage, after that pvp flag has expired your reload time will be alot faster to make hunting more fun and engaging, generally if you are on a pvp server these open hunting zones are the same as the ocean: its a free for all pvp wise, on a pve server there is no pvp here so you can focus on hunting, i think this would be a good way to incorporate CQC elements, without introducing features that either wont ever be used or will be abused from start to finish
About the studio opening of Ubisoft : they did open a studio in Morocco linked with a video game school. If you go to the school and pay, you get training but only to work with Ubisoft. The Moroccan studio worked on some DS title, then they closed everything and left all those brilliant developpers and artist. Such a shame.
And let’s just remind everyone… Ubisoft announced this game while still riding on the success and hype of Assassins Creed Black Flag… ya.. I think we’re a little past that game at this point 😅
I think destiny deserves some credit for game companies thinking all games need to be games as a service. Unfortunately it’s still the only good service game. 10 years later.
It's good that the beta I played was under NDA, because otherwise I would have blasted them all over the internet for how bad that game is. From 20 minutes of literally cutscenes that aren't even rendered in-game to my mouse not staying inside the window (i.e. I could only turn a little over 180 degrees), it's a horrible mess and should have just been cancelled instead. Not to mention that it was just not fun (literally 'sail here to get items, sail back, teleport back to shore' repeatedly), and worst of all, it's a pirate game where you can't swim. So it does not surprise me that they put their tests under NDA and had annoying highly obstructive watermarks all over the screen for it, because one video of the actual gameplay would kill this game before it's even released. Edit: To add to this, they really took everything that was good about Black Flag (fun ship navigation, smooth movement and parkour, feeling of freedom to go places, great performance) and removed it from the game. What's left is some kind of half-assed MMO that feels like it was made in Unity by a bored student with no more than a few days worth of work.
Nothing new, CDPR get 26 000 000 PLN from Polish government and EU 2014-2020 culture and innovation program "Program Inteligentny Rozwój 2014-2020", with only one condition, release the game before 2020 end, breathtaking 😂
Good video. Really identified a big problem in the video game space in the last few years. Here’s who leads any game creation, the designer. Managers should have no control over game direction, that’s not their skill set. They are there to organise processes. Admittedly I am biased because I design table top games, but I see so many games that are badly designed these days. If you are a small indie team, I do not expect you to be able to hire a designer. But if you’ve pumped over $120 million into a game and it didn’t occur you to put a designer in charge of the process of designing a game.
You're looking at it wrong. Ubisoft for sure had game designers on the team. They're just not in total control because the ones in total control are the "monetization designers" They don't just want a game that's good and what people want. They want a game that's designed at its core to pump money as a live service. Typical game designers (who are still passionate at their job) just don't cut it anymore for big companies. At the end of the day these designers will be posed with the question "So how does this game make us $60 each month from each player ?" As to how you can answer that, I'll leave that to you designers to agonize about. As a player, I just want a fun game.
A company can fire its own CEO/Founder if he starts making too many bad decisions....when can we fire a company from the production of a game they can't seem to get right?
Do we really need a complete Ubisoft history lesson in every drip feed video about some Ubisoft game news? Sometimes I feel like being subscribed to your channel and watching all your content is actually not what you want people to do. It's like "do I really want to hear about this for the fifth time to get to the few morsels of new content?"
ubi just dont listen to their fans if only they would pay attetion instead of trying to squeeze every cent out of my pocket all they had to do was copy and paste black flag, swap some characters, remove the assasins and write a new story and they would have made millions but nooooooooo.... they want to create a shitty microtransactions game so that they can keep squezzing money . is millions not enough ?
Frankly, Ubisoft is a garbage Triple A developer. Most of their games are copy and paste mechanics with a reskin of the environment (in fairness, a big reskin usually). Still though, if youve played one Assassin's Creed or Far Cry then youve played them all. I had hoped that this game would be different and showcase how Ubisoft can still develop a new, quality product. At worst, I figured itd be a reskin of Black Flag...which was a good game. But Ubisoft cant even follow their usual reskin and repackage formula. I think that says everything you need to know about them.
I just hope the naval system of the game is not under copyright like the Nemesis system from the Shadow of Mordor/War games, becouse it's actually the greatest single-player naval system that is not a point-and-click gameplay, and for it to die like that drowned buy Ubisoft's utterly incompetence would be so fucking sad... they had one job: take Black Flag, remove the AC elements, pump the pirate fantasy and aesthetic by a thousand, elaborate the personalization and combact aspect of it and boom, you have a great game... really unbelivable...
I would guess they own patents on some of the nice UI features. But they also need to release games using the systems to keep extending whatever patent they have, which may be part of why this game isn't cancelled.
The sad thing is that I actually want this game to succeed. I've always loved pirate history, so a new pirate game that would be set in Madagascar and not the Caribbean sounded really cool to me! I hope that over time they fix it so it's better.
In my opinion, the ship customization looks amazing with all the awesome weapons you can have on your ship. But I feel it greatly needs third person combat where you can hop on ships and fight people. Only being able to do combat as a ship and not sword fight and use guns yourself is pretty dumb.
@@marc-andrerenaud1394 Where it was already fairly casual and dumb (why did your vessel handle as well as a modern zodiac ? Why did chained shots create an explosion on impact and why were they useless at slowing down your opponents, since they still could maneuver just fine without sails ? Why tf did you need to pound on a enemy ship until it was on fire in order to board it ? etc)
I was so amped for this game, every thing I hear kills me a bit more. EVERY GAME THEY TOUCH! They even ruined For Honor somehow by listening to the worst players and just nerfing whatever gets cried about the most. If you want something done right, don't let the French do it.
All they had to do was take their combat/mechanics from Black Flag, clean up/balance to combat a little, add more customization, and boom they had their game. But nope, that would’ve been too easy.
I find it funny that the best Pirate game ever is from 2002 Sea dogs 2. That game has realistic navigation, sea battles, side quests an interesting and creepy main story, roleplay, factions and almost complete freedom over everything.
Maybe if they had decided to make this a single player game with an online mode they'd be able to focus on finding an actually fun gameplay loop and without spending a ridiculous amount of money.
Major Naval Action player here. Most of us are fucking nuts about sailing ships and pirate stuff and whenever this game is mentioned people just reply with negativity. I know this ONE guy who beta tested it and loved it. But he's as you said, one fish in the sea. I will myself eventually buy it and play it because i have the money aand time to spare and i can see myself liking this game, but you're probably right when you say it won't live more than a year.
Unfortunately even if this game were to come out ok or a little empty but somthing to build on (like sot at launch) this game will still be a flop to Ubi, there's no way this game which is a new IP, will be able to recoup 6+ years of dev costs with little to no advertising either
Scalding hot take here, but I think Ubisoft gets waaaay too much shit from people. They have been making very good games for decades. They deserve criticism for their scummy monetization schemes, definitely for even suggesting nft implementation. But there aren't many massive AAA developers out there, and EA is one of them. If you have any love for franchises like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, The Division, etc, you should be rooting for them to succeed. I dunno. I feel like it's the cool thing to do to shit on Ubisoft, but I'm over here just hoping we continue to get these big games we've come to love over the years. I know I sound like a corporate bootlicker, but my point is that Ubi has given us some of the best games ever, and I for one hope they succeed going forward. Also, I'm interested in skull and bones but won't go near it til reviews are in, as people should do.
I was so looking forward to this game when it was announced... like 10 years ago lol. I was really hoping ut was just gonna be a pirate themed MMO. Like New World was trying to be, but without magic and stuff. Red Dead Online but the 1700s in the Caribbean. With rum. And skull-duggery. Maybe one day they will listen to what gamers want.
I’m confused. The peopl😂 who’ve played it speak well of it, but we should assume it bad because those who dislike Ubisoft say it will suck? What happened to “they should take their time?”
I was so excited for a new pirate game and more particularly pirate ship game. It's just a shame it was not done by Rockstar or something... (Would be sick tho.)
It’s so interesting to me that video games is the only sold media that companies will blatantly lie about production and development of said projects and on top of that it’s always just forgotten and swept under the rug and developers and publishers are never held accountable like imagine if the Hollywood movie big wigs did this regularly to there fans I feel like whoever it was would get “cancelled” for a lack of better terms and it honestly still never fails to amaze me as I feel they are just getting more blatant with there lies due to lack of consequences
The reason Hollywood can’t get away with it is cause most movie/tv shows r consumed by women. Most video games r consumed by men but the difference is that men don’t really voice their opinions that much
Well, to be fair, video games are also the most complex, most expensive and most time consuming media to produce. Its probably also the most difficult form of entertainment to market. The direction changes more often, you can have good game on your hands, but then someone releases slightly better game similar to yours and your sales are going to tank. There is much more things that can go wrong.
We'll likely see gameplay in a few days at Ubisoft Forward, so, I'll wait and see how it looks. I'm not exactly optimistic, but I love Black Flag's gameplay. That's all that gives me hope.
At this point, we all know Ubisoft desperately wants to cancel it, but they signed an contract that said otherwise. Considering they went around cancelling other games, including an Splinter Cell game, it’s a goddamn shame that Ubisoft’s been in a death spiral ever since.
Actually when they announced this game I thought it was a cool idea, then in 2018 I saw videos of Sea Of Thieves and I thought that was the Ubisoft game 😅 until they talked about it a couple of years ago and I was confused.
What is crazy is that if Ubisoft adds more budget to ongoing games like For Honor, they'll get more money, and if they actually continue popular series they have (Prince of persia, Splinter Cell, OG Rainbow Six, and etc) then they might actually do well, but then again the current Ubisoft CEO is actually horrible
This situation is a classic example of a captain-less ship... instead of having someone at the top _leading_ their people in a single, cohesive direction you have a bunch of individuals running around, each _managing_ their own team. There needs to be someone (or a group of someones) who will make the tough calls & the unpopular choices... who set targets & reign in anyone who's straying too far. This whole thing smacks of middle-management bloat & too many inexperienced or uninterested people making it into leadership roles. Sad, because it seems like a fun game.
I see your point but I can’t help but be bothered by Ubisoft’s total lack of imagination. It all feels like a mass produced game with a different skin.
@@JaxBizarre the tragedy for them is if this was 2013 we’d probably let it go because live service games were so new we might not have noticed. Also I generally felt good will towards Ubisoft since AC Black Flag was pretty recent. Time was not their friend.
'people will find fun and enjoyment regardless of quality' - Some might...but not enough to sustain a 'live-service'...and a game like that lives and dies by its content and the updates that arrive to provide an ongoing reason to stick with it. That's where so many of these games have failed...in that they have struggled to release content at a cadence that keeps players engaged. As soon as content dries up people move on to something else...and getting them back is no easy feat. There is nothing to suggest that, if by some miracle people actually find something to like about it, that they will be able to provide the support to the game that a live service requires given that it's taken them 10 years plus to launch it in the first place. There's no way this lasts any more than a year. I'd bet there's 2 or 3 hundred max playing it a month after release...and if that happens there's no way Ubisoft are going to throw even more money at a dead game to make 'live-service' type content for it.
There was a pc game a long time ago where you played as a ship and you traded and you could collect a fleet.. i thinknit was sid meiers. I cant remember. If it is like that it might be pretty good. It still wont sell great though
One of the feature that I absolutely love in one of the pirate games I played, Pirates of the Caribbean (Sea Dogs II), was the ability to steal ship and the ability to build your own fleet and assign your mates as that ship's captain. The freeing feeling of being able to take everything for yourself is what make a pirate game, a pirate game. Other features were great as well like goods in one area sells for more, encouraging traders. Politic with multiple factions. That game was made in 2003 and it's still top 3 pirate game ever on my list.
Idk y games now a days have drifted away from creating a good story with a well fleshed out character with personality and charisma. I dont like how almost every game is pulling the YOUR the hero, whos nameless emotionless and dull. Customize this character to oblivion that you dont care about cause we dont care we just like RPG mechanics cause we can add micro transactions. I cant remember when we had a new very captivating protagonist with good dialogue and great voice acting. Everything just feels lazy now a days and its kinda sad.
It's the surfing reference for me. The swell already came through, winds went onshore, buoys have dropped and Ubisoft is still paddling out for leftovers that aren't there.
The click bait title suggests Luke has already played it. But he hasn't. It would have been more appropriate to have the title say "may be worse". Not a fan of click bait. So thumb down
Rainbow six siege, despite being vastly successful marked the downfall of Ubisoft. They took a "hardcore" tactical series, advertised it as such and launched it as COD with smaller maps and sent it out as a cash grab. It was a very successful cash grab but it marked the day that Ubisoft lost their way and traded creativity for easy lazy cash. Notice that every Tom Clancy game Ubisoft made before he died was a semi hardcore tactical game. Then when he died in 2013 every game after that with his name on it became an arcade shooter with heath bars, leveled loot, or insane over the top gadgets. (With the exception of splinter cell, though it did manage to maintain suspension of disbelief being a spy game. Oh and Ubisoft simply killed it in 2013 when Tom Clancy died). Then to top that off it seems like every game since 2017 they've touched has had "RPG elements" which i guess just means health bars and leveled loot, i love when my .44 magnum does less damage than this 9mm pistol just because this one had a blue background on it and not a white one. Before I get comments talking about how good rainbow six is; yes its a very fun, very good game, but it should not have tom Clancy's name on it. It is quite literally everything he did not want in his games.
If you want a realistic pirate/age of sail game you should check out the Sea Legends project by the guys who made naval action. There's also some light mobile games with mechanics copied from naval action that have a steam port and are singleplayer open world. The Pirate: Caribbean hunt and it's sequel Plague of the dead. Sandly they seem abandoned as of now as it's more of a hobby project for the devs but I think it's worth covering.
@@sauceless6666 It's over simplified but authentic for what it is. Ships have 3 health types (crew, hull and sail), each of which respond to different canon ball types. Sails adjust with wind and it is an actual factor in combat and you can destroy individual canons if they are loaded. After boarding a ship you can even remove all the canons and it'll be reflected accordingly.
at this point they could have made black flag 2 with a different character and it would have slapped hard... but no, we get development hell discount bin sid meiers pirates
This will probably get lost in the 1k comments and, even more likely, is just a pet peeve of me personally buttttt: can you please please stop with the influencery laugh cut in your videos? It doesn't come of as sincere and it irks me to no end. Love everything else you do
Luke, the fact that you said “million” like Dr Evil is one of the very many reasons I love your content. I’m interested in this game but skeptical. For Honor turned out great.
I'm LIVE right now. Join the stream or I'll delay S&B again: www.youtube.com/@LukeStephensLive/join
Was linked to this video. Great recap BUT I really want to know where did you get those glass display towers that are behind you housing the LEGO Giza?
I think something you failed to realize/mention is the business model of Ubisoft+ and its integration into Amazon Luna and Xbox Game Pass can make this not a game people buy outright but adds a little value to their subscription. A good example for me is Sea Of Thieves for me. I don't think it is good enough to buy outright myself but it adds value every time I sub to a month of Xbox Game Pass. I get to check out what's new and going on in the game and get to play and then when I get done with my sub that is slightly less wanting to drop due to the game included then I stop until next time.
I think if they position this game as an add on to their subscription service that is can be successful enough. Weather this is a good or bad thing is something different altogether but I do think that it is worth bringing up the angle of subscription service they have and games that can add value to that and make people consider not turning off the auto sub.
Also in terms of games that launched not great but they keep development going on and improving would be For Honor.
Development he'll like Star Citizen?
Ubisoft ignored what the players wanted, and they're giving players... what Ubisoft wants. You can go back from the time of it's first trailer release... and all the feedback mentioned that players wanted another Black Flag in game concepts... but with multiplayer. Come on Ubisoft... this was a no brainer on your end, that you very well could have delivered to dedicated Black Flag fans. Pirates do a lot of fun and exciting other things than just be aboard a Pirate Ship. No Treasure Hunting, no sword fighting, no exploring vast beautiful euphoric landscape Caribbean mysterious undiscovered islands, no diving the ocean for shipped wreck treasures...no looking for maps to hidden buried treasure?! And where the hell are the crafting items to upgrade your characters swords, pellets to increase the players pouch bullet capacity for the guns, animal hides to pimp your "ON FOOT EXPLORATION SWASH BUCKLING PIRATE" out? What if I want to explore this new world on foot, rather than by on just boat alone... just like you could with an older Edward Kenway Pirate... transitioning into England? Or just please bring us all another Black Flag game... just without the Assassin's Creed storyline please... A Pirates Game Franchise... on it's own terms. Copy and paste Black Flag... and make it a separate stand alone title... called "Black Flag." Get some good writers together, some good story boards together... a good game design team... that is PASSIONATE about having the desire to see this franchise a franchise worthy to be called its very own.... without the lengthy following 30 plus minute missions please. It's really a no brainer... if they follow all these guidelines.
Luke’s done more marketing for this game than Ubisoft has
🤣
For real though. I keep forgetting about it until this man brings it up.
I was wrong about promoting Skull & Bones endlessly until release
I forgot it existed until he mentioned it😂
FOR ANY GAME HE TALKS ABOUT** 😂
They literally just had to take Black Flag and put another set of characters in there in an open sea map. It was nearly perfect!
Ubisoft is in such a downfall that they can't even copy and paste their own games 😂
They could have just remade Black Flag, it would have sold like hotcakes!
@@HANKTHEDANKEST I know man… Black Flag with Valhalla level graphics 🤤
I mean.. isn't that just AC Rogue?
Tbh, if they took that, polished it some more and added other areas like Rogue’s Ice Seas, it would have gone better. Maybe add in options to have Base vs Ship mechanics similar to taking over Fortress Ports in Black Flag and Guilds could have their own bases where the Defenders can manually use defensive systems to fight back against attacking ships.
When it was announced, I was _extremely_ excited for _Skull & Bones._ After all of this time, though, I just couldn't care less anymore.
I remember it, a few years ago I was in 9th grade, n I was excited for it, now I’m in 12th, saw the footage and don’t like it, disappointed
It's been 82 years, and no sign of Skull & Bones being released 👴👵
They missed the easiest layup ever with this game. People just wanted an evolution of Black Flag and they couldn't even pull that much off.
They pitched Black Flag with a focus on the naval stuff, and I'm still all for it. But what's going to be released is not that at all.
Even the last CGI trailer got my hyped, because it felt emotional, like it want's to tell a captivating story. That young boy stumbling around the streets of London, seeing the fancy high society, not feeling like he belongs to anyone - becoming a pirate building his own society for others who don't feel like they belong. That's a story you can tell, that's where I want to spend my time with. Only to find out that its basically random multiplayer ship battle where NPCs only have standard answers. And boarding ships is automated? What? Why Ubisoft? :(
The fact that it seems to be comprised only of "your ship can do this, your ship can do that, your ship can do this," I immediately knew it won't be the pirate game people were initially excited for it to be.
AC4 was so fun because it had so much exploration and combat and boarding. And Skull and Bones seemingly has *very* little of that. It won't have the heart of a pirate game.
Sure it will. The heart of a corporate pirate game where they steal people's happiness
The fact that Ubisoft legally had to release this game is already a sign that let’s you know this game was gonna be bad😂
Also they are required to hire people from Singapore. That means they are hiring to fill a quota, not finding the best talent.
@@awdrifter3394 To be fair, Singapore has the best cache of programmers in the world, and almost everyone who wants the best high-end programmers get them from Singapore.
@@billywashere6965 game design is only a tiny amount of programming. Most of game design is level design, art, and 3d modeling as well as scripting.
@@randomcheese1719 That's very true. It ultimately just needs a lot of cohension. But it really does depend on who they hired from Singapore and for what positions.
Yeah I can't imagine anything forced into completion under penalty of law is going to be complete, polished and thoroughly play tested.
I look forward to the bugs and glitches vids.
Ubisoft is like a person who has a paper due in 30mins but just ends up doing the laundry
so basically ADHD
they're doing stuff, just not the right stuff.
@@IStMl beat me to it
But doing the laundry means burning the laundry and everything that is in the closet as well.
"It's too big to fail, just like the banks in the U.S." is a fucking HILARIOUS quote!
They must not have seen the movie the big short
SVB has entered the chat.
It means nothing lol
That's the natural end-point of endless corporate mergers; because they account for such a large part of an industry, you are basically required to bail one out if they fail as doing so is cheaper then letting them collapse.
Don't like it? Then don't allow endless mergering.
@@gamerk316 what do you mean by "don't allow"? What should i do, blow up the building before it can be bought?
A narrative pirate game written by rockstar would be insane. With how they handled the gangs relationship and characters in rdr2, what they could do with various different pirates crews would be very interesting to see.
And they’ve gone the 10 year production time nailed down as well.
The guarma section felt brilliantly piratey
There are dozens of great games about pirates, but ubisoft is a AAA developer, and could have brought something to the table few of the Indie or AA productions could have, engaging ship boarding and land exploration in a massive gorgeous world. The level of fidelity they could have brought to the table was immense. Assassins creed 4 already had the winning formula, I have no idea why they stripped so much away while spending way more money. From what I've seen this game makes ATLAS look good by comparison.
I mean, look at ALL of Ubisoft's recent games. They still haven't made a game with a parkour as good as AC: Unity; they still haven't made a game with a combat system as deep and as procedural as AC: III; and they still haven't made shipboarding as good as AC: IV. So you're right, they had a winning formulae, but then they've had winning formulas in a BUNCH of different genres and just let them fall by the wayside.
It's ironic, but I've had the BEST boarding actino fun in Star Citizen lately -- disabling ships, boarding them via EVA (or checking out their wreckage in atmosphere) and looting them. At this point, Skull & Bones is so late to the party there's nothing they have that I'm interested in at this point.
@@billywashere6965 Can second the boarding in SC, it was absolutely fantastic back when the patch was stable. It's a shame AAA studios don't want to take the time to create that level of emergant gameplay, a halfway between star citizens features and sea of thieves would be the perfect pirate game. as much hate as SC gets it's the only big budget game trying to innovate and push the medium forward.
@@tinymanjones3119 I know right?! I've logged like 7 hours in that game the last two days just doing basic stuff. The most impressive thing I've seen is that MASSIVE ship graveyard at Port Olisar. I've NEVER seen anything like that in a game before. It looks like a space hulk of husks. I was tempted to get out and EVA around but I was doing my bounty hunter certs and wanted to complete them before I got sent to the shadow realm or the servers failed.
Anyway, you're absolutely right... SC gets a ton of hate but they really are doing what every other AAA studio could have done ten times over in the last ten years.
I think I just get really angry thinking about Ubisoft because they have SOOOO many awesome design mechanics already, yet they just don't use them the way that they could. Ghost Recon, for instance, has some of the best open-world art design in an open-world game, but they didn't do anything with it; just filled the entire world with the exact same copy-paste missions over and over again for 100+ hours.
It's just so... disheartening. But yeah, the good and bad part is that I've at least had a blast with 3.18, and until Ubisoft/EA/Activisoin get their act together, I'll just stick with SC and my back catalog of indie games.
All they had to do honestly is take black flag and take out the "assassin" themed items and boom, would've been great
@@billywashere6965 I think the problem is that Ubisoft doesn't want to "make the same game twice" and that's why they try to change the concept of the AC games constantly. And you just know that's a valid critique, as franchises like CoD and Battlefield have been accused of doing just that: producing games that are "more of the same."
So while it's commendable that they try to make the effort, it is kind of a hit-and-miss strategy. If people really like AC: III and then start playing AC: IV, they might be diappointed, as IV is much different from III. On the other hand players might prefer IV over III, because it IS so different and a fresh breath into the tried-and-trusted formula of AC I to III.
In efforts to please everyone, you'll always end up displeasing some, that's just a fact.
My question is why did we go from everything we saw in 2017 (decent gameplay, an actual story, etc) to the crap we're dealing with now (mini missions that take forever for you to build yourself up from a castaway to a pirate)
@twerkingbollocks6661 Whoa whoa whoa guy, that would've been a genuinely good game and Ubisoft appears to be entirely allergic to those.
I believe before it was just 5v5 games and then they changed it to an open world story game
The way Luke casually shits on ubisoft in such an articulated way is so satisfying
It’s the cleanest pleasure
All the while sitting in a Assassins Creed themed chair
@@vonstreckerz he wants them to do better. Ubisoft needs to start listening to us.
Literally everyone shits on Ubisoft and way better and more in depth than this....they are a garbage clueless company and will be bankrupt with a few more flops
What’s sad is that I would absolutely love a fleshed out open world pirate RPG with both naval and on-foot combat. It’s such an amazing game concept.
I think rockstar should make a game like that .
Then play sea of thieves
@@WhiteXcellence Not at all what I’m talking about. I’m talking about pirate Skyrim or pirate Kingdom Come Deliverance.
@@aaronhumphrey3514 pirate skyrim sounds nice
Sea of Thieves is really satisfying to play, specially with a friend or two.
Hard not to think of nautical clichés, but interest in this game is underwater by now. As for the chance to launch it and do well - that ship has well and truly sailed. They blew it, frankly.
Also, didn't know about the Singapore angle. Singapore can make as many glossy tourism ads as it likes - but it remains a repressive police state that crushes citizen rights. Of all the countries to have potential legal and police problems in, Singapore ain't one of them that you want to be caught having issues with.
Just cancel it and stop wasting the money, it has a 95% chance of flopping anyway...
@@stannisbaratheon6637 They cant. They got funding from Singapore Gov. They HAVE to release it.
@@jaywerner8415what is singapore gonna do? Arrest them?
@@gewuerzwanze5627 Probably not, but they sure as shit are gonna want their Grant money back.
"It's too big to fail, just like the banks in the U.S."
Oh boy do i have news for you Mr. Developer.
timing is perfect
But that was the joke
I don’t understand why Ubisoft doesn’t try and make the money back by grinding out some wins in the hippodrome.
Those deals with governments is what killed 38 Studios.
Rhode Island got nervous about the studios financial situation, panicked, pulled out their money, killed the studio.
I waited four hours to play this game when it was first announced at E3. It was really fun and the devs seemed so nice. Feel bad the game got stuck in limbo.
then redesigned over and over.
skull and bones will definitely be one of the games of all time
Possibly the most game ever made!
(Actually, if you take into account the development reboots and all of the work and content scrapped during that process, this may be true.)
@@BucklingSwashes LOL literally
Sid Miers Pirate > Skull and Bones.
I'd definitely get more bang for my buck buying a visual novel...
Don't hold your breath on that just yet. They're still busy trying to sugar coat and rewrite the history of pirates to fit with current politics and to make it no longer pirate-like I'm sure.
As far as I am concerned, Ubisoft is that one company that keeps re-making the same two games time and time and time and again for years now, with each new iteration becoming more shallow, dull and stupid. So I would be surprised to see anything original from Ubisoft, let alone something that is actually _good._
Ubisoft should know the definition of insanity
If insanity is doing the same while expecting different results, what do you call Ubisoft for doing something different than Black Flag while expecting the same levels of success? lol
Unsoundness of mind sufficient to render a person unfit to maintain a contractual or other legal relationship or sufficient to warrant commitment to a mental health facility.
Multiplayer games are hard to make. Multiplayer games on the ocean are 10 times harder to make. + a game that has good graphics when most people computers suck is even harder. + Physics simulations + all the mechanics. And management has to keep interest. A lot of new games are either stale or buggy for a reason.
The average quality of games and movies dropped 10-fold because people care more about hype than quality anyway.
120 million for game like this is normal.
Adding new features like crafting is not starting over its just adding a new thing.
Making it open world is, however, is starting over.
Ubisoft is still a 3-billion-dollar gaming company regardless that people talk badly about it. It's kind of idiotic to say the company is bad then keep buying their games.
Their code is not bad their games are just way more complex than 98% of the games out there. And when you do that, you often get into situation where you can't get it done.
People just have 0 idea how difficult it is to make these things happen, but those same people can't code something in a game following a step-by-step tutorial.
The idea is cool, doesn't matter how old it is. The question is, are they able to solve the issues that delayed the game in the first place.
Maybe they wanted it to be co-op, but now as it took a long time to make, technology progressed to the point they can make it open world, and they decided to take that risk, because well it's really cool for this game to be open world. And by technology, I mean the average people's computers.
A Rockstar pirate game? From 2023 Rockstar? Nah no thanks. They'd make you row out from the boat and back every time you dock and painstakingly load every cannon for a minute and a half between shots. They they'd make you do a mission where you follow a parrot for ten minutes before you find your drunk matey to bring him back to the ship. And if you try to do anything off-script you instantly fail the mission.
Maybe 2004 Rockstar, now they could make a fun game. Old Rockstar before they became over obsessed with details over fun.
I'd love a pirate game from rockstar in the rdr2 era (I'm saying era because the trilogy deluxe or whatever was shocking). Red dead redemption 2 is fun becuase of it being hyper realistic, I could understand why some people wouldn't like it though as it has the role playing kind of fun rather than unrestricted crazy fun. I can just imagine imagine sailing through a detailed realistic ocean in a life size pirate ship sloop, galleon, or man o' war.
@@kieran5476 Well, RDR 2 Rockstar is exactly what OP was talking about. In RDR 2, even the slightest deviation during a combat mission insta-fails you. Hopped onto a different part of the roof you're on? Fail. Walked into a hallway? Fail. Move a foot backward after the end of a cutscene? Fail.
@@nousername2942 yeah that's fair, I also think the missions do need a lot more freedom and I mainly just enjoy the open world parts of the game and the story😅
The part where you talk about their deal with the Singapore government, is extremely eye opening. It seems like thats the only reason its still in developmemt. I personally was really excited for this game but as you say, its been about 10 years 😅
It's gona be bad
@Flare I've worked in the singapore game dev sphere for quite a few years. One thing I've noticed is that the same people keep cycling through the companies and a lot of them are completely incompetent, arrogant and massive credit hogs.
my suspicion is that a few of these guys have sweet talked their way into the ubisoft singapore studio management and are seriously messing stuff up.
I hate that I clicked on this video thinking that review copies had been sent out. I hate that clickbait video titles are almost necessary now
These days the train wrecks conducted by AAA studios are more interesting than the games they fail to make.
I'd love a pirate game from rockstar in the rdr2 era (I'm saying era because the trilogy deluxe or whatever was shocking). Red dead redemption 2 is fun becuase of it being hyper realistic, I could understand why some people wouldn't like it though as it has the role playing kind of fun rather than unrestricted crazy fun. I can just imagine sailing through a detailed realistic ocean in a life size sloop, galleon, or man o' war
Rockstar could make an awesome pirate game after seeing the Guarma chapter in red dead.
Everyone praises black flag, but even that wasn't a true pirate game and it was still pretty basic. I want a real triple A pirate game and then I can die happy
But then you wouldn't have a fully manned crew or it would be an AI Crew, so basically in truth captain vs captain.
Or a few key positions manned by humans, the rest by AI.
And most people don't have the patience for real ocean sizes.
I know one game that does something similar, though entirely without combat, it is called Sailwind and an Indie Game.
You're a sailing trader in a fictional set of archipelagos (one arabic themed, one East Asian themed and one European themed), and you have to sail from A to B utilizing several navigational tools and methods.
And there are two islands that kind of are outliers of existing archipelagos, but even when you sail to these you'll find yourself on open ocean, without any land in sight, fighting high waves and getting truly the feeling of being lost at sea, in a huge ocean.
Sea of Thieves doesn't do this, filled with islands and rocks. It is more like sailing in the Ha Long Bay, but "sold" as Open Ocean.
You only remotely get that open Ocean feeling in SoT when you're nearing the edge of the map and just don't see any islands when you look outward.
And Black Flag also didn't deliver this either, it was a miniature carribean.
We can't expect such a game from Ubisoft.
Recently, out of Curiosity while playing AC Origins, I read about Krokodilopolis IRL, it is an actual city (of cause nowadays bearing a different name) with ancient origin and how far it actually is away from Alexandria on the Egyptian Coast IRL, something about 250 kilometers.
Then I got curious and checked ingame and set a waypoint in Alexandria while being in Krokodilopolis and it was ingame 10 kilometers away. So they worked for that game with a 1:25 scale and I guess they did the same (more or less maybe with slightly differing scales) in all of their AC games to have casual-friendly travel distances.
Spacebourne 2 dev should take a crack at this genre just to troll ubisoft
I mean a pirate game in the 1880s-1910s could pretty much take place only in the Straights of Malacca or the islands around Hong Kong and the Philippines. But for the odd Pacific Blackbirder still roaming around the Pacific, that's pretty much it. Remember this is the era of steamships, steel armor, and breach loading (and by 1905 - modern battleships once Dreadnought launches).
Pirates in this era are just dudes in Sampans and Junks hoping they didn't run into the Royal Navy's smallest warship in the era lol
I really want a good single player pirate game too! Black Flag was and is a masterpiece
They just needed to find a way to have sword fighting inside the ships and the game could be interesting. I do not doubt that they can get it right in the matter of naval battles. At least they were epic in the Assassin games.
I might be wrong but given that this is the studio that invented on-ship fighting for Assassin's Creed - you know the boarding,
the way to go stealthy in from the water, the way you can do parkour on ship sails - couldn't they even port a lot of these gameplay concepts over to Skull & Bones? Even the animations were quite strong, so you'll mostly need high-res textures and the whole graphical thing.
@@DerDudelino but maybe all of this IS possible. People just like to focus on the negative. Even if Luke is right, I'm kind of disappointed he indulges in such narratives ahead of the game's proper release. For all intents and purposes this is still an in-dev game.
@@StefanConstantinDumitrache Yea if it was other game maybe, but there is a reason this game was started in 2013 and haven't released, they never had a clear vision, it has changed so many hands, and most people testing it have been pretty harsh on it, so yea if this was some indy game maybe. But this is a game that was supposed to be a multi player expansion for Black flag. It is kind of a joke now with all the delays,they have pivoted so many times and not really stuck with idea's it seems, now they have some port area like the destiny tower since people wanted on feet exploration and other pirate stuff, but it was just a cutscene of a dude digging up a treasure chest for example or for cosmetids. and the head of the game or some lady saying:" forget everything you know about pirate games(but we want a pirate game), were going dark and gritty" and it was nothing like that at all :D. So i agree with your sentiment but this game is just a disaster it looks like atleast for UBI.
honestly boarding being actual combat instead of a cutscene is the stupidest thing people keep sugesting, it worked in AC because AC was ... you know.. SINGLE PLAYER, there are 2 theoretical ways to do it and both SUCK
option 1: both ships are completely vulnerable while boarding/being boarded, that would lead to NO ONE ever using the feature because youre just a big target, there you are doing your sword fighting and suddenly you and your enemy are blown out of the water but a guy looking for quick loot
option 2: both ships are completely INVULNERABLE while boarding/being boarded, now its just an easy get out of jail free card that leads to people prolonging the boarding part as long as possible to either be a dick to the other guy or to hide from the big warship around the corner
generally i am in favor of sword/gun play aswell but not in this format because as i said both options suck, i personally would integrate it into the resource gathering aspect, specifically the hunting aspect, instead of going around on your tiny ship throwing spears at animals there are dozens of dedicated hunting zones on land where you can actually hunt animals, for that you have specific tools, gameplay wise i would borrow alot from for honors combat system, but only the basics, three attack directions with, block/parry, light and heavy attacks, the attacks properties (speed, damage etc) depend on the melee weapon of your choice, you also have a ranged weapon slot for pistols, rifles, blunderbusses etc the gunplay would differ between pve(hunting) and pvp, when you have a pvp flag i.e you have engaged in pvp in the last X seconds your reload time for your guns is increased DRAMATICALLY to the point that you will get one shot of in a pvp fight, which does decent damage, after that pvp flag has expired your reload time will be alot faster to make hunting more fun and engaging, generally if you are on a pvp server these open hunting zones are the same as the ocean: its a free for all pvp wise, on a pve server there is no pvp here so you can focus on hunting, i think this would be a good way to incorporate CQC elements, without introducing features that either wont ever be used or will be abused from start to finish
@@vhaelen326 😂😂😂😂
About the studio opening of Ubisoft : they did open a studio in Morocco linked with a video game school. If you go to the school and pay, you get training but only to work with Ubisoft. The Moroccan studio worked on some DS title, then they closed everything and left all those brilliant developpers and artist. Such a shame.
And let’s just remind everyone… Ubisoft announced this game while still riding on the success and hype of Assassins Creed Black Flag… ya.. I think we’re a little past that game at this point 😅
Totally man they totally hype Skull amd bone DURING everyone was playing ac4
I think destiny deserves some credit for game companies thinking all games need to be games as a service. Unfortunately it’s still the only good service game. 10 years later.
It's good that the beta I played was under NDA, because otherwise I would have blasted them all over the internet for how bad that game is. From 20 minutes of literally cutscenes that aren't even rendered in-game to my mouse not staying inside the window (i.e. I could only turn a little over 180 degrees), it's a horrible mess and should have just been cancelled instead. Not to mention that it was just not fun (literally 'sail here to get items, sail back, teleport back to shore' repeatedly), and worst of all, it's a pirate game where you can't swim.
So it does not surprise me that they put their tests under NDA and had annoying highly obstructive watermarks all over the screen for it, because one video of the actual gameplay would kill this game before it's even released.
Edit: To add to this, they really took everything that was good about Black Flag (fun ship navigation, smooth movement and parkour, feeling of freedom to go places, great performance) and removed it from the game. What's left is some kind of half-assed MMO that feels like it was made in Unity by a bored student with no more than a few days worth of work.
Nothing new, CDPR get 26 000 000 PLN from Polish government and EU 2014-2020 culture and innovation program "Program Inteligentny Rozwój 2014-2020", with only one condition, release the game before 2020 end, breathtaking 😂
They could probably find an audience if they'd actually tell people what the game is supposed to be.
Do you know why they don't care ??? Cause most zombie consumers will PRE ORDER, so money in the pocket and all gamers can go cry in the Internet
Good video. Really identified a big problem in the video game space in the last few years. Here’s who leads any game creation, the designer. Managers should have no control over game direction, that’s not their skill set. They are there to organise processes.
Admittedly I am biased because I design table top games, but I see so many games that are badly designed these days. If you are a small indie team, I do not expect you to be able to hire a designer. But if you’ve pumped over $120 million into a game and it didn’t occur you to put a designer in charge of the process of designing a game.
You're looking at it wrong. Ubisoft for sure had game designers on the team. They're just not in total control because the ones in total control are the "monetization designers"
They don't just want a game that's good and what people want. They want a game that's designed at its core to pump money as a live service.
Typical game designers (who are still passionate at their job) just don't cut it anymore for big companies.
At the end of the day these designers will be posed with the question "So how does this game make us $60 each month from each player ?"
As to how you can answer that, I'll leave that to you designers to agonize about. As a player, I just want a fun game.
A company can fire its own CEO/Founder if he starts making too many bad decisions....when can we fire a company from the production of a game they can't seem to get right?
Ubishit went to hell after the PS3 generation so I don't know what you were expecting 😮
Ubisoft cancels projects which are expected not to be profitable? How dare they make good business decisions lol.
Do we really need a complete Ubisoft history lesson in every drip feed video about some Ubisoft game news? Sometimes I feel like being subscribed to your channel and watching all your content is actually not what you want people to do. It's like "do I really want to hear about this for the fifth time to get to the few morsels of new content?"
ubi just dont listen to their fans if only they would pay attetion instead of trying to squeeze every cent out of my pocket all they had to do was copy and paste black flag, swap some characters, remove the assasins and write a new story and they would have made millions but nooooooooo.... they want to create a shitty microtransactions game so that they can keep squezzing money .
is millions not enough ?
The thing I found most interesting in the first trailer was the giant sea monster, which we haven’t seen since.
Frankly, Ubisoft is a garbage Triple A developer. Most of their games are copy and paste mechanics with a reskin of the environment (in fairness, a big reskin usually). Still though, if youve played one Assassin's Creed or Far Cry then youve played them all.
I had hoped that this game would be different and showcase how Ubisoft can still develop a new, quality product. At worst, I figured itd be a reskin of Black Flag...which was a good game.
But Ubisoft cant even follow their usual reskin and repackage formula. I think that says everything you need to know about them.
I just hope the naval system of the game is not under copyright like the Nemesis system from the Shadow of Mordor/War games, becouse it's actually the greatest single-player naval system that is not a point-and-click gameplay, and for it to die like that drowned buy Ubisoft's utterly incompetence would be so fucking sad... they had one job: take Black Flag, remove the AC elements, pump the pirate fantasy and aesthetic by a thousand, elaborate the personalization and combact aspect of it and boom, you have a great game... really unbelivable...
I would guess they own patents on some of the nice UI features. But they also need to release games using the systems to keep extending whatever patent they have, which may be part of why this game isn't cancelled.
Ubisoft deciding it would be Multiplayer focused was the biggest mistake
The sad thing is that I actually want this game to succeed. I've always loved pirate history, so a new pirate game that would be set in Madagascar and not the Caribbean sounded really cool to me! I hope that over time they fix it so it's better.
In my opinion, the ship customization looks amazing with all the awesome weapons you can have on your ship. But I feel it greatly needs third person combat where you can hop on ships and fight people. Only being able to do combat as a ship and not sword fight and use guns yourself is pretty dumb.
And even then, the ship combat is a step back (as in, harder to control and aim) than in Black Flag.
@@marc-andrerenaud1394 Where it was already fairly casual and dumb (why did your vessel handle as well as a modern zodiac ? Why did chained shots create an explosion on impact and why were they useless at slowing down your opponents, since they still could maneuver just fine without sails ? Why tf did you need to pound on a enemy ship until it was on fire in order to board it ? etc)
I was so amped for this game, every thing I hear kills me a bit more. EVERY GAME THEY TOUCH! They even ruined For Honor somehow by listening to the worst players and just nerfing whatever gets cried about the most. If you want something done right, don't let the French do it.
Random note, ubisof released a 60fps update to far cry 5, the last one i enjoyed
I love 5! I'll jump back in for 60fps!
All they had to do was take their combat/mechanics from Black Flag, clean up/balance to combat a little, add more customization, and boom they had their game. But nope, that would’ve been too easy.
I find it funny that the best Pirate game ever is from 2002 Sea dogs 2. That game has realistic navigation, sea battles, side quests an interesting and creepy main story, roleplay, factions and almost complete freedom over everything.
Maybe if they had decided to make this a single player game with an online mode they'd be able to focus on finding an actually fun gameplay loop and without spending a ridiculous amount of money.
Major Naval Action player here. Most of us are fucking nuts about sailing ships and pirate stuff and whenever this game is mentioned people just reply with negativity. I know this ONE guy who beta tested it and loved it. But he's as you said, one fish in the sea. I will myself eventually buy it and play it because i have the money aand time to spare and i can see myself liking this game, but you're probably right when you say it won't live more than a year.
they would need at this point around half a million people super into this game to even break even and at this point that seems highly unlikely
Unfortunately even if this game were to come out ok or a little empty but somthing to build on (like sot at launch) this game will still be a flop to Ubi, there's no way this game which is a new IP, will be able to recoup 6+ years of dev costs with little to no advertising either
...and indie dev should just come along and make a dope ass pirate RPG over 2-3 years and show how it's done.
I love this idea!^
Scalding hot take here, but I think Ubisoft gets waaaay too much shit from people. They have been making very good games for decades. They deserve criticism for their scummy monetization schemes, definitely for even suggesting nft implementation. But there aren't many massive AAA developers out there, and EA is one of them. If you have any love for franchises like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, The Division, etc, you should be rooting for them to succeed. I dunno. I feel like it's the cool thing to do to shit on Ubisoft, but I'm over here just hoping we continue to get these big games we've come to love over the years. I know I sound like a corporate bootlicker, but my point is that Ubi has given us some of the best games ever, and I for one hope they succeed going forward. Also, I'm interested in skull and bones but won't go near it til reviews are in, as people should do.
I was so looking forward to this game when it was announced... like 10 years ago lol.
I was really hoping ut was just gonna be a pirate themed MMO.
Like New World was trying to be, but without magic and stuff. Red Dead Online but the 1700s in the Caribbean. With rum. And skull-duggery.
Maybe one day they will listen to what gamers want.
I’m confused. The peopl😂 who’ve played it speak well of it, but we should assume it bad because those who dislike Ubisoft say it will suck?
What happened to “they should take their time?”
I played it also and i liked it also. I will buy it for sure
I was so excited for a new pirate game and more particularly pirate ship game. It's just a shame it was not done by Rockstar or something... (Would be sick tho.)
It seems pretty simple to me. Do what the fans and audience wants, open world offline single player, then execute.
The deal with Singapore makes this story make so much sense
This is why you take the money you'd waste on this wreck and spend it on Sea of Thieves.
It’s so interesting to me that video games is the only sold media that companies will blatantly lie about production and development of said projects and on top of that it’s always just forgotten and swept under the rug and developers and publishers are never held accountable like imagine if the Hollywood movie big wigs did this regularly to there fans I feel like whoever it was would get “cancelled” for a lack of better terms and it honestly still never fails to amaze me as I feel they are just getting more blatant with there lies due to lack of consequences
The reason Hollywood can’t get away with it is cause most movie/tv shows r consumed by women. Most video games r consumed by men but the difference is that men don’t really voice their opinions that much
Hollywood, you say? The one with so many cancelled tv series and movies and billions of dollars wasted/debt? That one?
Well, to be fair, video games are also the most complex, most expensive and most time consuming media to produce. Its probably also the most difficult form of entertainment to market. The direction changes more often, you can have good game on your hands, but then someone releases slightly better game similar to yours and your sales are going to tank. There is much more things that can go wrong.
Don't worry guys, the CGI will get better after the movie is out for a while
We'll likely see gameplay in a few days at Ubisoft Forward, so, I'll wait and see how it looks. I'm not exactly optimistic, but I love Black Flag's gameplay. That's all that gives me hope.
I predict that Ubisoft will end up having the same fate that the old Telltale Ganes had.
I’d love to know what Luke’s thoughts on Ubisofts For Honor are
I was super stoked for skull and bones....6 years ago. When I thought it was going to be like a black flag pt 2....
Ubisoft is GREAT!
….at making powerpoints of future projects but not at making the games…..
Luke and ubisoft is a love story for the ages
At this point, we all know Ubisoft desperately wants to cancel it, but they signed an contract that said otherwise. Considering they went around cancelling other games, including an Splinter Cell game, it’s a goddamn shame that Ubisoft’s been in a death spiral ever since.
Speaking of clickbait title lol.
I'm going to laugh so hard at the people shitting on this game if this turns out to be an amazing game.
It's fun watching Ubisoft go bankrupt in slow motion.
damn this does look fine tho. If it's a live services game tho i wouldn't touch it. Ubisoft are Ubisofts biggest predator.
Actually when they announced this game I thought it was a cool idea, then in 2018 I saw videos of Sea Of Thieves and I thought that was the Ubisoft game 😅 until they talked about it a couple of years ago and I was confused.
What is crazy is that if Ubisoft adds more budget to ongoing games like For Honor, they'll get more money, and if they actually continue popular series they have (Prince of persia, Splinter Cell, OG Rainbow Six, and etc) then they might actually do well, but then again the current Ubisoft CEO is actually horrible
Its funny because i always thought that Skull & Bones would have made an interesting RTS.
This situation is a classic example of a captain-less ship... instead of having someone at the top _leading_ their people in a single, cohesive direction you have a bunch of individuals running around, each _managing_ their own team. There needs to be someone (or a group of someones) who will make the tough calls & the unpopular choices... who set targets & reign in anyone who's straying too far. This whole thing smacks of middle-management bloat & too many inexperienced or uninterested people making it into leadership roles. Sad, because it seems like a fun game.
If the combat has a loop and something to strive for... people will find fun and enjoyment regardless of quality
I see your point but I can’t help but be bothered by Ubisoft’s total lack of imagination. It all feels like a mass produced game with a different skin.
@@jamiekamihachi3135 100% this game missed the point of it's life 10 years ago
@@JaxBizarre the tragedy for them is if this was 2013 we’d probably let it go because live service games were so new we might not have noticed. Also I generally felt good will towards Ubisoft since AC Black Flag was pretty recent. Time was not their friend.
'people will find fun and enjoyment regardless of quality' - Some might...but not enough to sustain a 'live-service'...and a game like that lives and dies by its content and the updates that arrive to provide an ongoing reason to stick with it. That's where so many of these games have failed...in that they have struggled to release content at a cadence that keeps players engaged. As soon as content dries up people move on to something else...and getting them back is no easy feat.
There is nothing to suggest that, if by some miracle people actually find something to like about it, that they will be able to provide the support to the game that a live service requires given that it's taken them 10 years plus to launch it in the first place. There's no way this lasts any more than a year. I'd bet there's 2 or 3 hundred max playing it a month after release...and if that happens there's no way Ubisoft are going to throw even more money at a dead game to make 'live-service' type content for it.
I'd really like a single player pirate game that's just like a Mount and Blade meets Black Flag doesn't look like it's going well for the game though
There was a pc game a long time ago where you played as a ship and you traded and you could collect a fleet.. i thinknit was sid meiers. I cant remember. If it is like that it might be pretty good.
It still wont sell great though
Swashbucklers
One of the feature that I absolutely love in one of the pirate games I played, Pirates of the Caribbean (Sea Dogs II), was the ability to steal ship and the ability to build your own fleet and assign your mates as that ship's captain. The freeing feeling of being able to take everything for yourself is what make a pirate game, a pirate game. Other features were great as well like goods in one area sells for more, encouraging traders. Politic with multiple factions. That game was made in 2003 and it's still top 3 pirate game ever on my list.
Idk y games now a days have drifted away from creating a good story with a well fleshed out character with personality and charisma. I dont like how almost every game is pulling the YOUR the hero, whos nameless emotionless and dull. Customize this character to oblivion that you dont care about cause we dont care we just like RPG mechanics cause we can add micro transactions. I cant remember when we had a new very captivating protagonist with good dialogue and great voice acting. Everything just feels lazy now a days and its kinda sad.
It's the surfing reference for me. The swell already came through, winds went onshore, buoys have dropped and Ubisoft is still paddling out for leftovers that aren't there.
i just came home from a shitty day at work and saw that you just uploaded. i am happy again
Its such a shame these dev's today don't make something like that old snes game Uncharted Waters it was one of my fav's on the snes lol .
The click bait title suggests Luke has already played it. But he hasn't. It would have been more appropriate to have the title say "may be worse". Not a fan of click bait. So thumb down
Rainbow six siege, despite being vastly successful marked the downfall of Ubisoft.
They took a "hardcore" tactical series, advertised it as such and launched it as COD with smaller maps and sent it out as a cash grab. It was a very successful cash grab but it marked the day that Ubisoft lost their way and traded creativity for easy lazy cash.
Notice that every Tom Clancy game Ubisoft made before he died was a semi hardcore tactical game. Then when he died in 2013 every game after that with his name on it became an arcade shooter with heath bars, leveled loot, or insane over the top gadgets. (With the exception of splinter cell, though it did manage to maintain suspension of disbelief being a spy game. Oh and Ubisoft simply killed it in 2013 when Tom Clancy died).
Then to top that off it seems like every game since 2017 they've touched has had "RPG elements" which i guess just means health bars and leveled loot, i love when my .44 magnum does less damage than this 9mm pistol just because this one had a blue background on it and not a white one.
Before I get comments talking about how good rainbow six is; yes its a very fun, very good game, but it should not have tom Clancy's name on it. It is quite literally everything he did not want in his games.
If you want a realistic pirate/age of sail game you should check out the Sea Legends project by the guys who made naval action.
There's also some light mobile games with mechanics copied from naval action that have a steam port and are singleplayer open world. The Pirate: Caribbean hunt and it's sequel Plague of the dead. Sandly they seem abandoned as of now as it's more of a hobby project for the devs but I think it's worth covering.
mobile game + realistic LOL
@@sauceless6666 It's over simplified but authentic for what it is. Ships have 3 health types (crew, hull and sail), each of which respond to different canon ball types. Sails adjust with wind and it is an actual factor in combat and you can destroy individual canons if they are loaded. After boarding a ship you can even remove all the canons and it'll be reflected accordingly.
your titles confuse me man lmaooo
This game will do better than people think it will. Especially if there is a single player component.
at this point they could have made black flag 2 with a different character and it would have slapped hard... but no, we get development hell discount bin sid meiers pirates
they need to just make black flag 2. Make it Haythems game, show how he became a templar
The title made me think he actually played this game…😢
Fair enough. Title shouldve been “the skull and bones SITUATION is worse than you thought”
This will probably get lost in the 1k comments and, even more likely, is just a pet peeve of me personally buttttt: can you please please stop with the influencery laugh cut in your videos? It doesn't come of as sincere and it irks me to no end. Love everything else you do
Idk what the future holds for Ubisoft but time will tell
Luke, the fact that you said “million” like Dr Evil is one of the very many reasons I love your content. I’m interested in this game but skeptical. For Honor turned out great.
How a reskin of AC Black Flag can be bad?