A new report alleges Ubisoft’s upcoming pirate game Skull and Bones cost roughly $200 million to produce, and the company doesn’t think it’ll make all that money back.
This is according to Insider Gamer, which claimed to have spoken with several Ubisoft employees to discuss the current state of the company and its plans. If this $200 million figure is accurate, it would make Skull and Bones the most expensive video game ever made, at least as far as the general public knows. Development budgets aren’t typically shared but, considering officially known figures, Cyberpunk 2077 is the most expensive game ever developed at the time of writing, as it cost around $174 million—not including marketing.
To say Skull and Bones’ development has been tumultuous is a severe understatement. There have been multiple behind-the-scenes reports about its troubled history; just last September, Kotaku reported the game had lost its third creative director. Even without these reports, it’s obvious that progress has been far from smooth, considering Skull and Bones was announced nearly seven years ago and Ubisoft has publicly delayed it no less than six times.
Insider Gaming’s report claims these delays were caused by upper management and constantly shifting visions for the game. As a result, developers were routinely confused about what they were supposed to be doing on a daily basis. One former Ubisoft employee admitted they spent some days just watching YouTube videos.
If Ubisoft really doesn’t expect Skull and Bones to break even, let alone turn a profit, then the company likely just wants to get it out the door so it can move on. It’s certainly too expensive to cancel—not that that’s an option, since Ubisoft reportedly has to launch the game due to a deal the developer struck with the Singaporean government (via Kotaku).
Ubisoft’s supposed pessimism isn’t unfounded thanks to the sordid reputation Skull and Bones has earned itself. The multiple delays alone make it an easy punching bag, but when it finally received a closed beta test last month, many players slammed Skull and Bones for being boring to play. Unless the upcoming open beta makes a remarkably good first impression and generates strong word of mouth, Skull and Bones seems doomed to sink into irrelevancy once it launches on Feb. 16—and that’s assuming it isn’t delayed a seventh time.
