Skull & Bones Release Delayed to Fiscal Year 2023

Skull & Bones, Ubisoft's pirate adventure game, has been delayed to fiscal year 2023, putting its earliest arrival in fiscal year 2023. Ubisoft announced the delay during its yearly earnings call Tuesday.

"We strongly believe in the team's creative vision, and they have been given an increasingly ambitious mandate for the game," said chief financial officer Frédérick Duguet. "Production, led by [Ubisoft] Singapore, has been advancing well over the past 12 months, and the promise is better than ever."

Duguet said the team would use the additional time to, "fully deliver on its vision." No further reasons were provided for the delay, though it's likely another symptom of the COVID-19 knock-on effect.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot reassured shareholders the Singapore studio was up to the task thanks to its experience working on the naval combat in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, released in 2013.

"What we have been doing to make sure they can really come strongly with Skull & Bones is we increased the associate studios that are working with them at the moment, so they have a good and big team now working on the game," Guillemot continued.

"We are confident they bring something really exceptional for the market."

Skull & Bones is the first game on which Ubisoft Singapore has led development. Originally revealed in 2017, it's set to feature both a single-player campaign and a multiplayer mode that incorporates live service features including microtransactions. This latest delay — the game's fourth — means the earliest the game can arrive is now March 2022.