The developer attributes what happened to the team's inexperience.
The AAA game Skull and Bones took many years to release, and the final result did not particularly impress players. Recently, in a conversation with PC Gamer, Alex Hutchinson, creative director of Assassin's Creed III, spoke about the reasons for the failure of the ambitious project.
He noted that "it was strange to see the same things being released again after 14 years" (a game with naval combat mechanics from the third numbered part of Assassin's Creed).
The developer explained that ideas have an expiration date:
That's why we're trying to do everything faster now. Over time, they lose their relevance and become uninteresting. I think the [Skull and Bones] team was inexperienced. They were trying to make something like a hybrid of Black Flag and [online action game], but they just didn't have the experience. Plus, they never created a full-fledged Assassin's Creed — they were more involved in co-development. In the end, everything just got out of control.
Ubisoft Singapore was founded in 2008, and by the time work began on Skull and Bones, it had about 300 employees. This studio mainly acted as support: it helped make all Assassin's Creed games, starting with AC 2.
Sometimes Ubisoft sent developers from the Canadian and French studios to help, but Hutchinson describes these "trips" as a vacation:
For many French or Canadian developers, a trip to Singapore was more like a year-long vacation. They didn't go there to develop the studio. They just thought, "Oh, it would be cool to work in Singapore for a year." I don't think they took it seriously. And it was difficult to recruit people — there just weren't enough specialists there.
Skull and Bones reached release in 2024, and the project was actively criticized online. Nevertheless, the game is still supported and new content is being released.
