Skull and Bones is the next upcoming game from developer Ubisoft Singapore, a studio that is renowned for its support in developing the Assassins Creed games. Ubisoft Singapore was the studio behind the stunning naval combat showcased in Assassins creed Black Flag which became a staple of the franchise and now, the studio is coming out with its own game Skull and Bones featuring Ray Tracing and DLSS and FSR support.
Director Elisabeth Pelleth clarified that Skull and Bones is not intended to be a spin-off of Assassin’s creed Black Flag. From the get-go, the mandate received by the studio requested them to formulate their very own IP and game.
“Skull and Bones was never meant to be a spin-off of Black Flag,” creative director Elisabeth Pellen clarified when talking to GameSpot. “From the start, the mandate that the studio had received was to create their own IP and their own game. But we thought that it would be a good idea to capitalize on the expertise of our tenant who created specifically the naval combat for [Black Flag]. And then they wanted to bring [the naval combat] to a new environment.”
Keeping the guidelines in mind, the studio decided to integrate a game centered around ships and naval combat as they honed expertise in this matter due to their work on Assassin’s creed Black Flag. They wanted to bring the naval combat paired with their proficiency to a whole new independent IP.
The game features you, the player as the lone survivor of a shipwreck who promises himself to become a respected pirate and captain. The game is set in the Indian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy. Skull and Bones is centered around an Infamy ranking system and allows you to grow powerful by looting treasure, amassing an army, hiring crew members, and carrying out privateer contracts.
The game is pretty interesting as your crew relies on you for resources. If you feed your crew and treat them right, their morale will go up. If not, they will mutiny against you and take over your ship. Players can also customize their ships with different hulls and weapons to incorporate different kinds of playstyles. You can focus on firepower and speed at the cost of your overall hull strength and hold space, for instance.
It was today that Ubisoft gave us an update on the PC features coming to the highly anticipated Skull and Bones. The open-world sailing game has been long awaited. And it’s coming packed with visual fidelity features the likes of Nvidia Deep Learning Super Sampling DLSS, AMD’s FidelityFX Super Resolution FSR, and Ray Tracing support
A list of other features were also provided for the upcoming pirate game. Players will get to enjoy an uncapped framerate capable of providing fluid lag-free and tearing-free experiences for those that own 144Hz and 240Hz gaming monitors.
Skull and Bones will also come with HDR and SDR support along with image calibration for HDR-supported displays allowing players to enjoy better color accuracy, superior whites and darks, and overall improved image quality.
If you have a multi-monitor and widescreen display setup with an aspect ratio superior to the standard 16:9, then you’re in luck. The game has announced support for multi-monitor setups and an aspect ratio support of 21:9 for a more immersive gameplay on curved monitor screens.
The game is also packed with DLSS and FSR upscaling implementations from Nvidia and AMD. DLSS uses tensor cores in RTX GPUs to produce AI-enhanced super-sampled images. This allows players to set custom resolutions while upscaling the game to get an added bump in performance.
The implementation is by far the most superior industry super sampling solution and provides the best image quality that keeps on improving with constant updates from Nvidia. For those that don’t own RTX GPUs, they can rely on AMD’s FSR solution that allows users to get similar super sampling with similar improvements in performance on all GPUs.
For those that like to test out GPUs, CPUs, and different setup configurations, they can use the in-game benchmark that allows users to stress test their systems to figure out any software or hardware problems they run into.
Ray Tracing is also coming to Skull and Bones. The lighting solution allows users to render and simulate the physical nature of light all in real-time. This implementation allows users to experience life-like lighting, reflections, global illumination, and shadows, and it’s coming to Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones.
Ubisoft didn’t just end it there. They also offered the minimum, recommended, and maximum system requirements for running the game at a solid 30 and 60 FPS.
Users will need an AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or an Intel i7-4790, an AMD RX 570 4GB, or an Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB with 8 GB of dual-channel memory to run the game at 1080p, 30 FPS on Low settings. To store the game, players will need at least 65GB of free storage on a Solid Slate Drive.
1080p@30 FPS at Low Settings
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or Intel i7-4790
GPU: AMD RX 570 (4 GB) or NVIDIA GTX 1060 (6 GB)
RAM: 8 GB (Dual-channel mode)
Storage: 65 GB SSD
If you want to enjoy the game on a decent entry-level setup at 1080p 60 FPS at high settings, you’ll need an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or an Intel i7-8700K CPU. For graphical fidelity, players will need either an AMD RX 5700 XT 8GB or an NVIDIA RTX 2070 8GB along with 16 GB of dual-channel memory.
1080p@60 FPS at High Settings
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel i7-8700K
GPU: AMD RX 5700 XT (8GB) or NVIDIA RTX 2070 (8 GB)
RAM: 16 GB (Dual-channel mode)
Storage: 65GB SSD
For enjoying the game at a superior 1440p at 60 FPS at High Settings, players will need some better hardware to fully immerse themselves in Skull and Bones. Users need to make sure they have an AMD Ryzen 5 5600x or an Intel i7-9700K CPU. As for the GPU, you’ll need a beefy AMD RX 6800 16GB or an NVIDIA RTX 3070 8GB. To ensure a stutter-free and lag-free experience, players will need 16 GB of Dual Channel memory.
1440p@60 FPS at High Settings
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600x or Intel i7-9700K
GPU: AMD RX 6800 (16 GB) or NVIDIA RTX 3070 (8 GB)
RAM: 16 GB (Dual-channel mode)
Storage: 65GB SSD
To go all out, for a glorious 4K 60FPS at Ultra Settings with DLSS and FSR set on a balanced preset, players will need an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X CPU or an Intel I5-11600K CPU. For the graphics card unit, users must have an AMD RX 6800 XT 16GB or an NVIDIA RTX 3080 10 GB along with 16 GB of dual-channel memory to get an experience worth dying for.
4K@60FPS at Ultra Settings (DLSS/FSR Balanced Preset)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600x or Intel i5-11600K
GPU: AMD RX 6800 XT (16GB) or NVIDIA RTX 3080 (10 GB)
RAM: 16 GB (Dual-channel mode)
Storage: 65GB SSD
Ubisoft also made sure to inform future players of Skull and Bones of the anti-cheat implementation for PC
The game promises a balanced match-making system that ensures players will face minimal load times. Players will be ranked according to their infamy level and preferences for PVP. If other players are disrupting gameplay and promoting toxicity, they can be blocked and reported.
The anti-cheat solution, BattleEye, monitors gameplay in real time and determines whether players are using cheating software or trainers tailor-made for the game. The game promises to permanently ban players on their first offense if they detect any cheats.
This ensures cheaters and hackers don’t rejoin the game on another account that is if they purchase another copy of the game. This seems much more effective than Activison’s mediocre anti-cheat implementation for Call of Duty: Warzone to disrupt hackers that can easily make another account, that is if they’re found out.
But will the anti-cheat solution prove effective against determined and stubborn hackers found throughout the gaming community? Will they bypass BattlEye’s claimed superior anti-cheat methods? We’ll find out when the game finally comes out.
Player tooling: a balanced matchmaking system to hop into Skull and Bones world. Players will be placed into servers based on their Infamy level and PvP preference. Players can also report or block others for disruptive behaviour in the game.
Game servers: powerful physical servers with modular redundancy and cloud servers complement one another during spikes of high activity to limit wait times. Ubisoft dedicated server sites in North and South America, Europe, Asia, South Africa, and Oceania.
Anti-cheat solutions: BattlEye monitors the game in real-time. It permanently bans players on the first offense if any cheats have been deployed and detected to gain an unfair advantage.
– Ubisoft
The game also is a life-service game. So, if you think microtransactions are a feature, then you came to the right place. Skull and Bones is intended to feature microtransactions and will consist of post-launch DLCs as well. The post-launch roadmap plans to flesh out the gameplay and content by adding a variety of crew members that have different sets of behaviors and nature and an expansive recruitment mechanic.
“We have a post-launch roadmap with some content coming–some features such as a new activity that should be a game-changer for the players,” Pellen told GameSpot. “We will add a new part of the world, a new character–we started to work on it already so we’re ready to inject new content.”
Skull and Bones is set to release on November 8, 2022, and the game looks promising so far. The game is coming on Xbox Series S|X, PS4, PS5, Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and Microsoft Windows. Skull and Bones seem like a promising game with its naval combat, exploration, ship navigation, and open-world gameplay.
We hope the game features tons of content with future event updates consisting of in-game content, cosmetics, weapons, and prizes. Fans are hyped for Skull and Bones. We don’t know if the game will turn out as good as it seems. We’ll just have to wait and find out.
So, are you excited for the upcoming Skull and Bones and is your setup ready to obliterate or barely play the game? Let us know in the comments below. We upload daily on Appuals, so stay tuned for more. Till then, see you later and goodbye!