Skull and Bones review: I paid $80 for this 'AAAA made-in-Singapore' game so you didn't have to, and I can't believe we had to wait 10 years for this

I really want to like Ubisoft's Skull and Bones. After all, I'm Singaporean, and I want a game that I could be proud to tell others that "look, this was made in SG and it's awesome".

Unfortunately, it looks like I have to turn my head away and deny its very existence when asked.

With over ten years of development hell, Skull and Bones has had many ups and downs. While originally designed to be a spin-off of the Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag naval battles, there was even a land-based version once upon a time.

The game had gone through multiple directors, and was also probably impacted, at least indirectly, by accusations at Ubisoft of a toxic workplace and sexual harassment. Meanwhile, Sea of Thieves, a similar pirate-based game, was released in 2018 while Skull and Bones languished in development.

Fast forward to 2024, and after US$200 million spent, some of which were eased by a grant from the Singapore government, Skull and Bones is finally available and playable.

Be prepared for lots of travelling time

While the game felt easier to play compared to my Closed Beta experience, probably due to you doing a bit more damage to enemies now, it's still the same sleep-inducing experience. Sail to a location, do things, sail back.

Skull and Bones is huge, so expect to spend a lot of time travelling. I managed to locate Singapore in the East Indies and travel there, where it's known as a pirate den called Telok Penjarah, but getting there took me almost 15 to 20 minutes of listening to shanties and trying to stay awake.

With lots of fetch quests, expect to be sailing a lot doing absolutely nothing. Of course, you can probably skip the tedium of doing so by getting outposts in advance so you can fast travel, but again, that also requires you to make it to the outpost in the first place.

And once you get to an outpost, there's naught to do on land, though if you have a treasure map, you can run around to try and find it. That itself is not very fun, and I'd rather just remain on ship and never have to go on land.

Ship combat is fun.... but only in small doses

Speaking of ships, they all handle the same (at least it felt that way to me). You fire a variety of weapons, try to down enemy ships, and press a button to do a boarding action that automatically loots the ship.

This is unlike in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, where you can engage in hand-to-hand combat.

To be fair, the ship to ship combat is fun in small doses, but gets tedious after a while.

I do like that there are various choices of weapons to pick from, which have different effects and tactics to use them. You can also be precise with your aim, hitting vulnerable parts will let you do more damage.

And where possible, you should try to do board and loot, since you can get more loot than if you were to sink them. But that's about all the nice things I have to say of this game.

After playing the Open Beta and buying the game, I decided to give up after almost hitting rank 5, because at that point, I felt that I was just repeating what I did in the Closed Beta.

In fact, I feel like I'm just repeating what I wrote in my original Closed Beta review.

However, there is one thing new, though, that wasn't in the Closed Beta.

It's the introduction of a Singaporean-ish pirate that accompanies you on your journey to become pirate king and find the one pi– sorry wrong game.

Now, don't get me wrong, I honestly enjoy hearing our local accent, but it is terribly out of place in the game. The audio for it also sounds unpolished, like it was a last minute addition.

Furthermore, most of the early game characters you meet have European or African accents, so she sounds completely misplaced.

I thought I'd hear more Singaporean accents at Telok Penjarah, but despite having some characters looking local, they spoke with a faux clipped almost-Chinese accent.

Even Admiral Rahma, who stays in Telok Penjarah, doesn't sound Singaporean – more Filipino to me, to be honest. And it's not like there wasn't already a video game character that sounded Singaporean.

Skull and Bones doesn't deliver

For a quadruple A – that's AAAA – game, it doesn't deliver even A gameplay or enjoyment.

You're better off spending your money on other games to play, such as Tekken 8, Helldivers 2, or even the upcoming Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth.

Skull and Bones could have been great, but it's unfortunately a dud. I'm sure no one working on this title wanted to create a bad game, but the final product has all the hints of homework that was submitted for the sake of meeting a grading requirement.

The sooner we get it to walk the plank and move on instead of pretending otherwise, the better.

Aloysius Low is an ex-CNET editor with more than 15 years of experience. He's really into cats and is currently reviewing products at canbuyornot.com