Fresh from its latest delay, Ubisoft premieres 30 mins of Skull & Bones gameplay

Ubisoft has published around 30 minutes of new Skull & Bones gameplay, days after confirming yet another delay for the open-world pirate game.

The gameplay offers the first proper look at how the narrative elements of the game will work, alongside its open-world and multiplayer gameplay, via what it calls ‘investigations’.

“Investigations in Skull & Bones are really a way to tell a story via a series of steps,” explains narrative director Joel Janisse. “The player follows a trail that they think will be interesting, and likely gets a lead to some kind of treasure… but it also tells a story about our factions and our world.

“We do that, for example, by finding messages in bottles, scraps of lost journals, sometimes talking to different characters in the world, and through that we’re able to tell a story.”

On Wednesday Ubisoft announced that the game will miss its most recently announced release date of March 9, 2023, for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Amazon Luna and PC.

It said Skull and Bones will now be released “early” in its next fiscal year, which begins in April and runs until March 2024.

“Additional information regarding our new release date and upcoming test phases will be shard with you all very soon,” the company said in a follow-up statement published on the game’s Twitter account.