There's still no release date for the Assassin’s Creed publisher’s long-overdue pirate ship game
kotaku.com
Ubisoft’s
open seas pirate fantasy from hell has lost its third creative director.
Kotaku has learned that Elisabeth Pellen, who began working with the
Skull and Bones team back in 2018, left Ubisoft Singapore to return to the French publisher’s Paris headquarters earlier this summer. The game’s long-awaited closed beta recently received mixed reactions, and
Kotaku now understands that Ubisoft Singapore faces an organized labor campaign by the country’s Creative Media and Publishing Union.
A lot is riding on the big-budget blockbuster, especially as Ubisoft cuts costs following an anemic 2022 release slate. Along with
The Crew Motorfest,
Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, and
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora,
Skull and Bones is one of
four major games Ubisoft touted at its big summer showcase to reverse recent misfortunes and strategic changes that have led a flurry of internal projects to be canceled,
including a sequel to 2020’s Immortals Fenyx Rising.
Pellen, who was previously a VP of editorial, Ubisoft’s centralized department for creative oversight and support for franchises like
Assassin’s Creed,
Far Cry, and
The Division,
oversaw Skull and Bones’ pivot from primarily a session-based multiplayer ship combat shooter to a broader exploration and survival-oriented piracy sim that drew loose inspiration from games like
Rust and
Ark: Survival Evolved. She’s now back at Ubisoft’s Paris office with the title of directeur editorial online, according to her LinkedIn profile.
“Five years ago, Elisabeth Pellen went to Ubisoft Singapore with a mission to reboot the creative direction of
Skull and Bones,” a spokesperson for Ubisoft told
Kotaku wrote in an emailed statement. “She succeeded, and the
Skull and Bones team is now fulfilling her vision to deliver a unique naval action RPG experience to our players
The publisher added that at this stage of a game’s development “it’s not uncommon for a creative director to move on to a new project or role,” though two sources familiar with the situation, who wished to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak about company business, told
Kotaku that Pellen’s tenure at Ubisoft Singapore had been expected to last at least through the end of the year.
Skull and Bones production woes
Born out of an expansion for
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (
which is now getting a remake),
Skull and Bones was originally expected to ship in 2018. The soft reboot and more ambitious vision, however, saw the game
subsequently delayed several times. It was effectively ready to come out in the fall of 2022, but was pulled at the last minute over ongoing concerns around polish and playtest feedback. While Ubisoft has once again promised to deliver the “AAAA” blockbuster before the end of its fiscal year in March 2024,
Kotaku understands that there’s still no new internal release date yet.
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