Remember how lackluster the Sea of Thieves launch was? There was barely any content in it, and while the social elements were there and you were able to board enemy ships or go explore islands, the gameplay loop was really bare bones. The game has received tons of content updates since then w/o any of the live-service bs. In fact, I consider it as Xbox's No Man's Sky situation.
Welp. it looks like Ubisoft decided to follow through with one of the most infamous characters from one of their characters, because Skull and Bones is EXACTLY like SoT launch, yet in a different way. You probably have read my various posts over at the general gaming news thread, criticizing every aspect of this game whenever there was news. I went in with very little expectations, and within an hour of playthrough I've seen enough. The beta has left me with a lot to say
I will give due credit to where SaB does well; The environment looks great. I think that's something Ubisoft always have done right. As much as I hate the recent AC games, they all have great-looking environments. The Islands, the wreckage, the day and night cycle, it all looks great. The hub area while shallow, seems to have lots of details going on too. And with the world so big, if you dedicate to the game you'll probably have hours of exploring the Indian Ocean.
And the soundtracks are amazing as well, especially the sea shanties that your crew sings.
The Ship-to-ship combat can be fun, but I don't think it's on the level of AC4. I'm pretty sure AC4 didn't have this bloated experience when it comes to arming your ship. Like, it gives you plenty of weapons to play around with, but it's like going to a cheap buffet to try various foods vs fine dining.
Now for the negative; When you launch the beta for the first time (at least on pc), you'll get a message regarding how BattleEye (anti-cheat software) will be collecting some data from you. I appreciate the honesty and I can see why this is necessary for an online game, but man reading that made me uncomfortable.
The story is shallow. But this is nothing new for a Ubisoft game.
Because there is no on-foot combat, boarding enemy ship is a simple action; you damage it enopugh, press a button, then the game auto-loots the ship. I seriously think this was a huge misstep. I mean FFS. even Sea of Thieves got this right at launch.
The open seas and islands, while beautiful, have barely anything to do. You have your typical resource-gathering, fort battle (which btw is no where near fun as the ones in AC4), and treasures to find, but it's a very typical live-service experience.
There is in fact, on-foot exploration and you can get off your ship, but it's done via loading screen. So unlike AC4 where that was done seemlessly, I think here there are separate assets. Also, there's barely anything to do on-foot. There will be some scenario-specific moments, but for the most of the time on-foot areas serves as a social hub or quest turn-ins.
In fact. everything seems to have a loading screen; talking to merchants, upgrading your ship, entering and exiting cutscenes, etc. Everything feels slow, disconnected, and tedious
Ubisoft continues to have its trend of having one of the most laziest character creator I've ever seen. For male character, you are forced to have a beard (I didn't see the option for the clean shave), and the texture on the facial hair looks sloppy. So you are forced to look at your ugly-ass character during cutscenes or when you're on-foot. And of course they had to make your character silent protagonist, with barely any dlaog choices to let you fully immerse yourself in the character.
As they prmoised, the live-service stuff is just for the cosmetics, but the first problem is they made sure to have all non-premium stuff look ugly whilekeeping all the cool-loking stuff behind the paywall. They argue it is none-gameplay affecting, but isn't customizing yourself in-game part of the experience? I honestly would've taken Siege/For Honor style of monetization for this. Or even the new AC games' Helix Credit shop.
Overall, don't waste your time on this game like I did. Let it fail just like bunch of other live-service games.
Even better, go play the actual AC4, and not this trash
Welp. it looks like Ubisoft decided to follow through with one of the most infamous characters from one of their characters, because Skull and Bones is EXACTLY like SoT launch, yet in a different way. You probably have read my various posts over at the general gaming news thread, criticizing every aspect of this game whenever there was news. I went in with very little expectations, and within an hour of playthrough I've seen enough. The beta has left me with a lot to say
I will give due credit to where SaB does well; The environment looks great. I think that's something Ubisoft always have done right. As much as I hate the recent AC games, they all have great-looking environments. The Islands, the wreckage, the day and night cycle, it all looks great. The hub area while shallow, seems to have lots of details going on too. And with the world so big, if you dedicate to the game you'll probably have hours of exploring the Indian Ocean.
And the soundtracks are amazing as well, especially the sea shanties that your crew sings.
The Ship-to-ship combat can be fun, but I don't think it's on the level of AC4. I'm pretty sure AC4 didn't have this bloated experience when it comes to arming your ship. Like, it gives you plenty of weapons to play around with, but it's like going to a cheap buffet to try various foods vs fine dining.
Now for the negative; When you launch the beta for the first time (at least on pc), you'll get a message regarding how BattleEye (anti-cheat software) will be collecting some data from you. I appreciate the honesty and I can see why this is necessary for an online game, but man reading that made me uncomfortable.
The story is shallow. But this is nothing new for a Ubisoft game.
Because there is no on-foot combat, boarding enemy ship is a simple action; you damage it enopugh, press a button, then the game auto-loots the ship. I seriously think this was a huge misstep. I mean FFS. even Sea of Thieves got this right at launch.
The open seas and islands, while beautiful, have barely anything to do. You have your typical resource-gathering, fort battle (which btw is no where near fun as the ones in AC4), and treasures to find, but it's a very typical live-service experience.
There is in fact, on-foot exploration and you can get off your ship, but it's done via loading screen. So unlike AC4 where that was done seemlessly, I think here there are separate assets. Also, there's barely anything to do on-foot. There will be some scenario-specific moments, but for the most of the time on-foot areas serves as a social hub or quest turn-ins.
In fact. everything seems to have a loading screen; talking to merchants, upgrading your ship, entering and exiting cutscenes, etc. Everything feels slow, disconnected, and tedious
Ubisoft continues to have its trend of having one of the most laziest character creator I've ever seen. For male character, you are forced to have a beard (I didn't see the option for the clean shave), and the texture on the facial hair looks sloppy. So you are forced to look at your ugly-ass character during cutscenes or when you're on-foot. And of course they had to make your character silent protagonist, with barely any dlaog choices to let you fully immerse yourself in the character.
As they prmoised, the live-service stuff is just for the cosmetics, but the first problem is they made sure to have all non-premium stuff look ugly whilekeeping all the cool-loking stuff behind the paywall. They argue it is none-gameplay affecting, but isn't customizing yourself in-game part of the experience? I honestly would've taken Siege/For Honor style of monetization for this. Or even the new AC games' Helix Credit shop.
Overall, don't waste your time on this game like I did. Let it fail just like bunch of other live-service games.
Even better, go play the actual AC4, and not this trash
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