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Game Luster: Skull & Bones has restarted development, Riders Republic has "loads of microtransactions" & more Ubisoft info


Skull & Bones Has Restarted Development and Will Not Launch in 2021​

According to a source familiar with inner workings at Ubisoft who has asked not to be identified, the ship combat adventure title Skull & Bones had to restart development from scratch a second time just a few months ago. In their string of actions to combat sexual harassment allegations the past year, Ubisoft removed the managing director at their Singapore Studio, who is developing Skull & Bones. Our source has told us that around the same time, Skull & Bones was brought back to the drawing room table and had to begin work from the ground up. Game Luster was not able to confirm if these two events were directly connected. Our source has told us that the new alpha build is very similar Microsoft's popular multiplayer pirate game Sea of Thieves, and uses a first-person POV when in the ship but turns to third-person when you exit the ship. They also said that the game is in pretty early stages right now and even is using many untextured boxes, so there's no way it'll be done in time for a 2021 launch and likely not even 2022.

Riders Republic​

Our source stated that Riders Republic, the upcoming biking and skiing battle royale game, is nearly completed and will likely be announced with a very close release date at Ubisoft's E3 conference. They described it as being buried under "loads of microtransactions" with several currencies and a battle pass. It's unclear if the battle pass uses only real money or can be paid for with in-game money like Fortnite. Expect to see a yearly pass, a daily shop, and a wide variety of cosmetics in seasonal shops. Surprisingly, even with Ubisoft's recent declaration of moving nearly all games to a free-to-play system, Riders Republic will launch at full retail price, although our source stated that everything about it "screams F2P." Riders Republic will require PS Plus and Xbox Live Gold to play on consoles.

Rainbow Six Parasite​

The recently renamed project Rainbow Six Parasite is fairly far into development and will likely launch later in 2021. Our source had a hands on with a build of Parasite last year and had a rather negative reaction to it, as it seems to have taken a complete turn into sci-fi and lost the military aspect altogether. They described a mid-sized map with alien hordes that all look roughly the same. Some have different abilities, but not enough to stand out or provide much variety. Black goo appears on the floor to slow down the players who are venturing around the map to shoot eggs until a swarm comes. Exterminating the swarm finishes the map. Rainbow Six Parasite will be free-to-play and will not feature a separate campaign mode; rather, the campaign and the multiplayer are the same

Other Miscellaneous Info​

Our source stated that the upcoming Roller Derby from Ubisoft, which had a demo release last year, was "good fun" and will likely please fans. It will be free-to-play as well. Game Luster also received word that Ubisoft +, the $15/month subscription service that allows access to all Ubisoft games, is coming to consoles later this year.
 

Alandring

Member
Our source has told us that the new alpha build is very similar Microsoft's popular multiplayer pirate game Sea of Thieves, and uses a first-person POV when in the ship but turns to third-person when you exit the ship.
So disappointing.... Sea of Thieves if my favorite multiplayer game from last-gen, but I don't see the value to have another game like that...

I just want another game like Black Flag/Rogue, a game where you control a ship and do missions.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Michael Jordan Reaction GIF
 

kyussman

Member
Damn,big pubilshers are just loosing me these days,EA pretty much have nothing outside of a possible Star Wars game to interest me and Ubisoft are down to Assassin's Creed and Far Cry.....everything else they do seems like a MTX filled shared world nightmare.....and they want me to pay £15 a month to have access to it all.....Ha,Ha,Ha.Ha!
 

Roufianos

Member
They keep sinking money into shit almost nobody's interested in yet won't give us a new Splinter Cell. Fuck Ubisoft.
 

SCB3

Member
Damn,big pubilshers are just loosing me these days,EA pretty much have nothing outside of a possible Star Wars game to interest me and Ubisoft are down to Assassin's Creed and Far Cry.....everything else they do seems like a MTX filled shared world nightmare.....and they want me to pay £15 a month to have access to it all.....Ha,Ha,Ha.Ha!
At least EA are doing a few different things these days lock Knockout League and Rocket Arena, I'm not gonna play them, but theres some effort there
 

geary

Gold Member
Probably the development changed course to fit the new free to play strategy...I dont know if restarted, but heavily adjusted surely.
 

Varteras

Gold Member
I'm really not understanding how hard it was to give us Black Flag's ship combat in a multiplayer format. It was my favorite part of that game. My only complaint from what I had seen was that boarding an enemy ship was just automatic. No actual combat. No jumping over with your crew and getting into a melee with the enemy. That was all I felt needed to be better from what they had shown. Me and several of my friends have been looking forward to this game. Now it just sounds like they don't know what the hell they're doing with it anymore.
 

Rikkori

Member

Riders Republic​

Our source stated that Riders Republic, the upcoming biking and skiing battle royale game, is nearly completed and will likely be announced with a very close release date at Ubisoft's E3 conference. They described it as being buried under "loads of microtransactions" with several currencies and a battle pass. It's unclear if the battle pass uses only real money or can be paid for with in-game money like Fortnite. Expect to see a yearly pass, a daily shop, and a wide variety of cosmetics in seasonal shops. Surprisingly, even with Ubisoft's recent declaration of moving nearly all games to a free-to-play system, Riders Republic will launch at full retail price, although our source stated that everything about it "screams F2P." Riders Republic will require PS Plus and Xbox Live Gold to play on consoles.

200.gif
 

LMJ

Member
I repeat what I stated in the other thread, if Ubisoft wants to take this "nickle and dime" approach to all of their games, then they won't get a freaking penny out of me, even if they have a game I like I will go out of my way to get it through a third party so they won't see an additional cent from me...

In short Ubisoft
go away goodbye GIF
 

Arcadialane

Member
I miss when AAA video games were video games instead of DLC malls

Go look at the way Ubisoft make those games now, it's all outsourced and done by multi teams in different countries who have probably never even met each other. It's not some geeky guys who love games and want to programme something cool for people to play anymore, these games are made in board rooms.
 
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SCB3

Member
I'm really not understanding how hard it was to give us Black Flag's ship combat in a multiplayer format. It was my favorite part of that game. My only complaint from what I had seen was that boarding an enemy ship was just automatic. No actual combat. No jumping over with your crew and getting into a melee with the enemy. That was all I felt needed to be better from what they had shown. Me and several of my friends have been looking forward to this game. Now it just sounds like they don't know what the hell they're doing with it anymore.
The issue is quite simple - Sea of Thieves and Blackwater both exist, so Skull and Bones has to do something different to those games, which I fully believe it doesn't right now
 

jigglet

Banned
Skull and Bones should have been a realistic Sea of Thieves from the get go. Remember how shocked / confused everyone was when we first learned it was just about controlling the boats. WTF. Especially after everyone was waxing poetic about how much they loved Black Flag. How did that shit even get past the approval stage.
 

GHG

Gold Member
That new skull and bones sounds fucking awful. Taking inspiration from sea of thieves? Hard pass.
 

Flabagast

Member
Who in his god damn mind is even remotely interested by anything Ubisoft has planned in the next months / years ?

It's been a long time in the making but they are surely crawling their way towards the top of the worst publishers of the industry. And I say that while being French. Believe me, that hurts. A lot.
 

kyussman

Member
It truly is.

It makes you wonder if the developers over there are happy with all this.
"Over there"......over where?.....like someone else said,Ubisoft outsource their game development to studios all over the globe these days....their games are becoming production line products to be consumed.....no desire to tell an engaging story anymore,just spend on MTX....I hope Assassin's Creed and Far Cry can somewhat continue to avoid this shit and be enjoyable as single player games....if not then they will have nothing at all for me,that's for sure.
 

ANDS

King of Gaslighting
How? How do you screw this up? This is the most basic, no thought needed spin-off game that could have ever been produced. The template was already there: "Let's take the pirating from Black Flag and inject it with steroids." I'm not in game development, but how can that idea take THIS long?

. . .something tells me UBISOFT approached this from a live-service first perspective and just haven't been able to figure out how to make the core gameplay sit on top of it, which is a damn shame.
 

SCB3

Member
So what happened with Beyond Good and Evil 2? Also rebooted or cancelled lol?
Still trying to scam artists for Exposure last I heard from E3 a few years ago, I have my doubts that its ever coming out, the following behind it is so weird, the first game was very average
 

Hargate

Member
Wait til you guy see Division Heartland...

Ubisoft has no more original ideas. They are now the dollar store version rip-off company.
 

Kuranghi

Member
Spend some fucking money and make bespoke things again instead of trying to shortcut everything you bunch of bellends. I don't give a crap about having a ginormo world to explore if theres terrible character animation mismatches/stutters literally every time you traverse mildly complex terrrain and everyone looks like a mannequin.

Motion capture must've been costing them a bomb for how much of a hit the games animations took from heavily toning down its usage, even in isolation they look like crap just don't try comparing them to older AC titles or you'll get upset by how much worse it looks.

Obviously the news of F2P focus puts the kybosh on more money being spent on animation/capture quality but I like shouting into the void.
 

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
So disappointing.... Sea of Thieves if my favorite multiplayer game from last-gen, but I don't see the value to have another game like that...

Imagine a Sea of Thieves with better (existent) enemy AI, larger islands with increased complexity, more interesting quest design, and the ability to build permanent Pirate hideouts.

Sea of Thieves felt like Donkey Kong. Mario Bros is next.
 
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CuNi

Gold Member
I looked forward to Parasite so much. If these leaks turn out to be true then I don't know what else to say except that Ubisoft sure seems to have a talent in taking good ideas and promising plots and just turn them into something so unplayable that they end up scraping it.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
According to a source familiar with inner workings at Ubisoft who has asked not to be identified, the ship combat adventure title Skull & Bones had to restart development from scratch a second time just a few months ago.
Trying to tag onto the Sea of Theives bandwagon.

If it restarted a few months ago, this game isn't coming out till 2024. Perhaps if it's a total bargain binny kind of game, maybe they can churn it out in two years for 2023?
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned

Skull & Bones Has Restarted Development and Will Not Launch in 2021​

According to a source familiar with inner workings at Ubisoft who has asked not to be identified, the ship combat adventure title Skull & Bones had to restart development from scratch a second time just a few months ago. In their string of actions to combat sexual harassment allegations the past year, Ubisoft removed the managing director at their Singapore Studio, who is developing Skull & Bones. Our source has told us that around the same time, Skull & Bones was brought back to the drawing room table and had to begin work from the ground up. Game Luster was not able to confirm if these two events were directly connected. Our source has told us that the new alpha build is very similar Microsoft's popular multiplayer pirate game Sea of Thieves, and uses a first-person POV when in the ship but turns to third-person when you exit the ship. They also said that the game is in pretty early stages right now and even is using many untextured boxes, so there's no way it'll be done in time for a 2021 launch and likely not even 2022.

Riders Republic​

Our source stated that Riders Republic, the upcoming biking and skiing battle royale game, is nearly completed and will likely be announced with a very close release date at Ubisoft's E3 conference. They described it as being buried under "loads of microtransactions" with several currencies and a battle pass. It's unclear if the battle pass uses only real money or can be paid for with in-game money like Fortnite. Expect to see a yearly pass, a daily shop, and a wide variety of cosmetics in seasonal shops. Surprisingly, even with Ubisoft's recent declaration of moving nearly all games to a free-to-play system, Riders Republic will launch at full retail price, although our source stated that everything about it "screams F2P." Riders Republic will require PS Plus and Xbox Live Gold to play on consoles.

Rainbow Six Parasite​

The recently renamed project Rainbow Six Parasite is fairly far into development and will likely launch later in 2021. Our source had a hands on with a build of Parasite last year and had a rather negative reaction to it, as it seems to have taken a complete turn into sci-fi and lost the military aspect altogether. They described a mid-sized map with alien hordes that all look roughly the same. Some have different abilities, but not enough to stand out or provide much variety. Black goo appears on the floor to slow down the players who are venturing around the map to shoot eggs until a swarm comes. Exterminating the swarm finishes the map. Rainbow Six Parasite will be free-to-play and will not feature a separate campaign mode; rather, the campaign and the multiplayer are the same

Other Miscellaneous Info​

Our source stated that the upcoming Roller Derby from Ubisoft, which had a demo release last year, was "good fun" and will likely please fans. It will be free-to-play as well. Game Luster also received word that Ubisoft +, the $15/month subscription service that allows access to all Ubisoft games, is coming to consoles later this year.

I sincerely loved Ubisoft: AC games, Prince of Persia, HAWX, Far Cry and many other games. They've been always the most innovative 3rd party publisher, although most of their games are undercooked and never meet their full potential. But this is just really bad.

Welcome to the F2P bullshot.
 
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Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
Trying to tag onto the Sea of Theives bandwagon.

If it restarted a few months ago, this game isn't coming out till 2024. Perhaps if it's a total bargain binny kind of game, maybe they can churn it out in two years for 2023?

Sea of Thieves has perpetually been the 20th - 30th most played game on SteamCharts and XBox Lives charts. I'm not sure we can call it a bandwagon when it seems more appropriate to call it an unrealized (good) idea for a multiplayer game.
 

Alandring

Member
Imagine a Sea of Thieves with better (existent) enemy AI, larger islands with increased complexity, more interesting quest design, and the ability to build permanent Pirate hideouts.

Sea of Thieves felt like Donkey Kong. Mario Bros is next.
It would be fun, but only if PvP is optional (maybe in a specific area, like The Division). Yes, the PvE of Sea of Thieves is really simple, but I think it's necessary for a game where you can always been attacked and loose all your loot.

I have finished all Tales, but this isn't the kind of content I want in Sea of Thieves. I don't see the value to loose hours of game time just because someone has decided to attack you.
 
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