Ubisoft is gearing up for its first AAA launch of 2024 with Cranium and Bones. The pirate-themed co-op open-world motion RPG is coming to consoles and PC over a decade after it was initially conceived as an enlargement for Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag.
After six delays throughout six years, Cranium and Bones is lastly on the discharge schedule for mid-February. For these interested by Ubisoft’s pirate journey, we’ve acquired all the things you must learn about Cranium and Bones under.
Cranium and Bones Launch Date
Cranium and Bones will likely be launched on February 16. Those that buy the Premium Version or subscribe to Ubisoft+ can play three days early (February 13).
Cranium and Bones Platforms and Worth
Cranium and Bones will likely be launched for PS5, Xbox Collection X|S, and PC. It prices $70 USD on consoles and $60 on PC.
Cranium and Bones Particular Editions
Along with the usual model of Cranium and Bones, Ubisoft is providing a Premium Version for $90. The Premium Version, as detailed by Ubisoft, consists of the next:
- Cranium and Bones base recreation
- Three days early entry
- Premium bonus pack: Bloody Bones Captain outfit & Ashen Corsair Ship Set with 11 totally different ship vainness objects
- Two further missions: The Ashen Corsair and Bloody Bones Legacy
- 84-page digital artwork ebook
- Digital soundtrack
- Smuggler go token (unlocks a battle go)
Cranium and Bones Gameplay
Cranium and Bones is an motion RPG that may be performed solo or with as much as two others. Its major gameplay system is naval fight, although you’ll spend time on land as effectively gathering contracts and making ready to your subsequent seafaring journey.
Naval fight seems to be a way more strong model of that present in Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag and Murderer’s Creed Rogue. In Cranium and Bones, ships could be custom-made in nice element to match your aesthetic and sensible needs. There will likely be 10 ships at launch, every with totally different perks that strengthen particular points of your ship, from offense and protection to navigation and smuggling. Inside every of these ships, you’ll be capable of customise your weaponry, armor, and furnishings — all of which have an effect on a ship’s stats. Weaponry consists of cannons, ballistae, mortars, rocket launchers, and torpedoes. On the beauty aspect, you’ll be capable of customise the colour of your ship’s hull; the colour, sample, and emblem of your ship’s sails; and your ship’s figurehead. It’s also possible to select from quite a lot of pets to maintain you firm at sea — cats and lemurs are two animals Ubisoft has named.
Smaller, but notable open-sea gameplay mechanics embody a spyglass, which lets you establish a ship’s rank and loadout from a distance, and flares, which you’ll be able to shoot into the sky to rally close by gamers to your support. Naval fight is essentially PvE, although PvP battles could be initiated by selecting up legendary treasure maps.
Along with doing battle with different pirate ships, you’ll encounter settlements, manufacturing websites, outposts, and forts. Settlements could be pillaged or utilized as commerce hubs. Manufacturing websites are a particular sort of settlement the place supplies and items could be purchased and bought. Outposts are impartial areas the place you may restore your ship, purchase provides, decide up contracts, and/or fast-travel. Forts are massive settlements of civilized life the place pirates aren’t welcome. These areas are closely defended, that means the encounters will likely be among the many recreation’s most tough. Places are tiered from 1 to fifteen; the upper the quantity, the higher the sources (and the better the resistance).
These totally different settlements are run by totally different factions, all of which can observe your conduct all through the open world. Angering a faction could make them hostile, probably closing off commerce alternatives and resulting in extra fight encounters.
Development is framed by means of Cranium and Bones’ infamy system. The extra you make a reputation for your self at sea, the extra alternatives you’ll have to enhance your ship, settle for contracts, and acquire beneficial treasure. When you attain Tier 6 of the infamy rank, the sport opens up in a serious means, introducing you to a secret smuggling ring known as The Helm and granting you the flexibility to create your individual pirate lair and start your individual smuggling operation.
Not all the things in Cranium and Bones occurs at sea. On foot, from a third-person perspective, you’ll be capable of discover pirate dens corresponding to Sainte Anne. These are protected zones stuffed with distributors corresponding to shipwrights and blacksmiths, in addition to characters who can flip you on to new contracts or tall tales, which might result in encounters with supernatural enemies.
Whereas it is comprehensible to be skeptical about Cranium and Bones given its troubled growth, we got here away from December’s closed beta impressed. IGN’s Travis Northup stated Cranium and Bones’ strong ship customization made it “really feel like a real naval RPG.”
Cranium and Bones Story
Cranium and Bones shouldn’t be a story-driven recreation though it exists on the Murderer’s Creed timeline. There is not any correct marketing campaign, no overarching plot to observe. It’s as a substitute a live-service recreation by which you start as a shipwrecked captain who embarks on a “rags to riches” journey in hopes of creating a reputation for themselves within the brutal world of piracy. From right here out, your gameplay experiences are “the story.”
Nevertheless, there are narrative components. Cranium and Bones recreation director Ryan Barnard instructed IGN there are “pivotal characters” on the earth that “could have bits of story and background that it is possible for you to to [learn through] jobs or the contracts.”
These on the lookout for extra story content material can try Darkish Horse’s three-issue comedian collection, Cranium and Bones: Savage Storm. Right here’s the official synopsis:
A service provider vessel on the excessive seas is besieged by a vicious crew of pirates, however the combating is interrupted by a devastating hurricane. When the storm crashes in, it leaves predator and prey stranded on an island someplace within the Indian Ocean. Uncover the mysteries and hazard that can betide all of them. A gritty story set within the cruel world of Ubisoft’s upcoming pirate recreation.
Ubisoft additionally started a tie-in podcast collection in 2024 known as Gangsters of the Sea (revealed within the Ubisoft Echoes of Historical past podcast feed). Narrated by Michelle Rodriguez (Quick and Livid), the collection explores “the sordid historical past of the Indian Ocean’s most horrible pirates.”
Cranium and Bones Growth
Cranium and Bones has undergone some of the tumultuous growth cycles in trendy gaming. What started in 2013 as an enlargement for Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag advanced into an MMO spinoff which in the end grew to become the standalone recreation Cranium and Bones.
It was revealed at E3 2017 with a Fall 2018 launch window, although it might miss that window — and plenty of others — as a consequence of six delays, in the end touchdown on February 16, 2024. Along with modifications in course, Ubisoft attributes the delays to making too many video games without delay.
Cranium and Bones is the primary unique recreation by which Ubisoft Singapore served as lead developer. The studio beforehand assisted on the event of each mainline Murderer’s Creed recreation since AC II. Ubisoft Singapore was assisted by the writer’s studios in Belgrade, Berlin, Chengdu, Kiev, Montreal, Mumbai, Paris, the Philippines, Pune, and Shanghai.
The undertaking has churned by means of three artistic administrators, most lately shedding Elisabeth Pellen in September.
It was developed utilizing the Ubisoft Anvil engine, which has beforehand been used to create Ubisoft’s Murderer’s Creed and Tom Clancy video games (except The Division and XDefiant).
Cranium and Bones TV Present
In 2019, Ubisoft introduced a live-action Cranium and Bones TV collection. Set in the course of the Golden Age of Piracy, the Cranium and Bones present is described as a “female-driven drama set within the lawless frontier of the Indian Ocean on the finish of the golden age of piracy within the 1700s.”
The undertaking is a collaboration between Ubisoft and Atlas Leisure, which beforehand helped produce DC’s Marvel Girl and Suicide Squad, in addition to SyFy’s 12 Monkeys.
There’s been no replace on the collection within the 5 years since its announcement.
Jordan covers video games, exhibits, and films as a contract author for IGN.
