Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones Has a $120+ Million Budget, Former Project Manager Confirms

Skull and Bones, Ubisoft’s troubled pirate sim, has a budget of more than $120 million, a former project manager has confirmed.

A lot has been said about the game that has been in development ever since 2013. What initially started as some sort of an expansion to Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag became a full-fledged standalone title, but following a development cycle of more than 8 years, and multiple delays, we can safely say that development has been rather rocky. Back in 2021, it was reported that back in 2021, Ubisoft totally rebooted the game’s development from scratch.

“According to a source familiar with inner workings at Ubisoft who has asked not to be identified, the ship combat adventure title Skull & Bones had to restart development from scratch a second time just a few months ago”, the report from 2021 reads.

Later that year, Kotaku also wrote about the troubled pirate game and reported that various sources said that the game had already cost Ubisoft more than $120 million. From the looks of it, this budget was quite accurate (in 2021 that is) as the resume (via Timur222) of Ubisoft’s former project manager indeed mentions the same budget.

“support teams in the lead development studio for Skull & Bones, a brand-new AAA video game IP ($120 million project)”, the resume of the former project manager reads.

Of course, Kotaku’s report was from 2021 and the project manager left Ubisoft in 2022. As such, with the game’s development still ongoing, development costs will have increased further.

While a $120 million budget is an enormous amount of money, games such as Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, GTA V, Modern Warfare II, and God of War Ragnarok as well, all had budgets greatly exceeding that of Skull and Bones.

Some days ago, Ubisoft announced that the game will get a closed beta from August 25th to August 28th 2023. Those interested in the beta can register via the game’s official website here.