Ubisoft Delays Skull And Bones, Cancels Games And Adjusts Forecasts Due To Recent Sales
In a recent earnings call to investors, Ubisoft have revealed they are scaling back on their game line up by cancelling a number of projects, as well as once again delaying their highly anticipated pirate-em-up Skull and Bones. The business is set to focus on creating a more stable income via ‘live service’ games.
The French company has seen it’s fair share of issues surrounding how it treats its staff and in the latest report, shows that the top Ubisoft executives are expecting a fall in sales. The Q3 2022-23 net bookings target was set for approximately €830m in game sales. The revision sees that number now expected to be around the €725m mark. The revision has been attributed to a lower than expected results for both Just Dance 2023 and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope over the Christmas period. Exact sales numbers haven’t been revealed – these are set to be announced in Ubi’s Q3 earnings call in February.
As a result of these estimated results, Skull and Bones has seen a delay from it’s 9th March date to ‘early 2023-24’, which in the context of this report would pit it somewhere between April-June. This doesn’t appear to be down to the development of the game, the report directly states they want to give players the opportunity to see the game before taking the leap:
Players will be able to discover the beauty of Skull and Bones in the upcoming beta phase. The additional time has already paid off and brought impressive improvements to its quality, which has been confirmed by recent playtests. We believe players will be positively surprised by its evolution. We have decided to postpone its release in order to have more time to showcase a much more polished and balanced experience and to build awareness. Skull and Bones will now be released early 2023-24.
Ubisoft Jan 23 Earnings Call
Ubisoft delaying Skull and Bones to redouble marketing efforts is significant as it seems Yves Guillemot and the rest of the team has a lot banking on the game’s success, and since it’s first reveal in 2017, not a lot is known about the game apart from it’s numerous delays and restarts but players will be setting sail on the high seas in some form. The last significant trailer for the game came back in July and although we’ve had short clips peppered on YouTube since, there is no information whatsoever to showcase what state the game is currently in.
If that wasn’t enough, Ubisoft also announced that three games, that have not been revealed, will be scrapped. Quite what they were is anyone’s guess but we would assume that both the Prince of Persia Sands of Time Remake and Beyond Good and Evil 2, which are suffering from development issues, are unaffected by this. This is on top of the four games it halted development on last year, again for similar reasons.
Despite this shift in resources, Ubisoft still seem to be a profitable company, with reports of paying back a $500m bond, and still having well over $1.5b in the bank, but what these numbers mean for gamers is that after Skull and Bones, Ubisoft will be focusing on their efforts on established franchises; Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy in order to keep the investors happy. If you’re waiting for a new Rayman or something unique like the excellent Child of Light, you will sadly be waiting a while.