Ubisoft CEO defends Skull and Bones’ $70 price despite its live service leanings, calls it ‘quadruple-A’

Been playing the closed beta and I know it's a beta but the game releases in 7 days. Not a whole lot you can do in that time.
The game is still really unpolished and feels jarring. The opening section has you in a rather large vessel but the thing turns on a dime. Only water craft able to turn like that is a jetski and even that didn't have the super tight turning radius this thing did. There was also no time in turning. It felt really jarring, especially when Black Flag did it so well.
The voice acting of the characters you start with is extremely uninspired. I don't blame the actors but the director who decided this was okay. It's so jarring and disconnected. Characters aren't even consistent on pronunciation of simple things.
The combat is hyper simplistic. It's just hold left trigger to aim and then hold right trigger to fire. A quote I said to my buddy while playing was "Huh. My pirate ship is fully automatic." The cannonballs just kept firing more and more until I needed a reload, then more and more. Everything is bulletspongey and nothing visually seems to change or update to sort of reflect the damage that you're doing. Most vessels you fight against have multiple giant red boxes where the helm is located and those boxes are explosive and almost guarantee a one hit kill. It just feels so basic and simple and boring. When you complete the opening battle and get your own small craft, you start getting attacked by sharks who are leaping out of the water to attack the boat. Not you. The boat. Because that makes sense. And you have to attack and kill the sharks by throwing harpoons at it, also super simple point and click. Think the fish fight in Resident Evil 4 Remake or even RE4 OG.
Walking around on the ground is painful. You can't sprint, for a start, and the character will either keep walking for another few feet when you stop or suddenly stop. This leads you to getting used to the trail so you stop preemptively and end up 5 feet away from the thing you need to do, forcing you to start walking again and that animation is also way too long.
One of the locations you have to go to at the start is called 'West Island'. I'm sorry but how simple and boring do you have to be at the start of the game to just lazily call it West Island because it's in the west?
This game is awful. It's a patchwork disaster which is only made more concerning by that article saying that the third creative director just left the game before it even launches.
- Jesus, can't blame the guy for ditching if that's what they came up with after 7 yrs. I never had any hopes for it anyway but the increasing price tag for these so called AAAA games are infuriating.
  
  AAAA games, these guys will just keep increasing the price and the As.
  This thing really is the future then.
- Good lawd, i genuinely feel bad for you. And they're expecting $70 for this. I'd expect more from a f2p mobile game.
  
  It felt like a f2p game. I play a decent amount of Star Trek Online and spend some time with some other free games. SnB has the same unpolished vibe. Like you're seeing the framework of the entire game with posters hung over holes in the wall
- The last I heard about this game it was another article about it being delayed again and who knows if it will ever finish. Now I hear it's out in 7 days? WUT.
  
  Fucking same. My friend told me two days ago the open beta was out and that's when I discovered the Feb 16th launch date.
- I found Sea of Thieves already quite boring, but it did get the atmosphere right. Also the ships had to be properly staffed and controlling them felt like what I expect it to fell like. Also they managed to put out new content even though it was cheaper from the start. In other words: Ubisoft can suck it.
- Oof, thanks for the review, I was looking forward to this game but didn't keep up with it past the trailer. Looks like a solid pass for me. I've been enjoying the safer seas from Sea of thieves after grabbing it on sale.
  
  Always good to see a new pirate on the sea of thieves! Safer Seas is great for a basic tutorial, but don't be afraid to jump to High Seas as soon as you are familiar with the mechanics. Do not wait until you're level 30.
  The new quest table in season 11 makes it safer and easier than ever to earn gold as a solo player, so there's no point in taking the 70% reduction from Safer Seas.
  The first thing you want to focus on is buying a captained ship. This will massively increase your convenience in selling loot, and is really the only thing you can buy that actually "upgrades" your character.
  The next thing you want to focus on is ... whatever you want! Progression is just cosmetics and getting better at the game. It's a true sandbox.
  If you want to get better at PvP, just fight every ship you see. You will sink a lot, but each time you will get a little better. Don't be afraid to lose fights and lose treasure to other players. There will always be more loot!
  For useful tips and tricks aimed at new players, I recommend Phuzzybond's guides on YouTube.
  Happy sailing!
- I only played the beta a couple months ago and I found it unbelievably boring and uninspired. I've never been so uninvested in a game's world and this is a motherfucking pirate game. How is it this dull?!

vast and complete
'It's so finished you guys!' is a fucking bragging point now.
- "We followed through on 60% of our promises, so you should pay us 200% of the value. If you want even more premium content, we'll give it to ya! For a premium..."

No thanks, pass. Games as a service with loot boxes and battle passes aren't my thing.
- Not even for a quintuple A game? Sextuple A?
  
  Pffft. Our new game is AT LEAST a TREE(3) A game!
  
  What's that about sex in my A?
  
  The extra "A" makes it extra AWESOME!

“People will really see how vast and complete that game is”
The fact that the CEO has to argue that the game is "complete" says so much about the whole debacle.
- Well, it seems like this interview is for investors, not gamers. In that context I think it makes more sense.

[x] Doubt

"Quadruple-A" lmao
Just the other day there was an article with the previous creative director saying that they had to axe the Single-player campaign because they just didn't have the team to do it

Remember: Only you can help make 2024 the year of the Live Service graveyard.

They can barely make AAA these days though
- They've been copy/pasting the same games over and over, a typo was bound to happen.
- They can barely make ~~AAA~~ A these days though
  FTFY

Where is Ubisoft getting all this unearned confidence from? Their games have just been circling the toilet for the past 5 years or so.
- Probably cocaine.
  
  It's called Confiance Blanc in France.

That's a quadruple paaaass from me, dawg.

70 bucks AND i don’t get to own it? sign me up!
- "You get to own the experience! By which I mean 'lease'. Money, please!!!"

Of course he would. Screw Ubisoft.
- Quadruple A is the coke talking

If this dude was a real gamer, he would have called it "S-tier".

Leave it to Ubisoft to add an extra A to the already shitty landscape that is AAA gaming.

They make The Crew unplayable in a month, without any chance to ever play it again.
And they expect me to pay 70 € for this? What?
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, oh, no, you won't!
- People should have stopped buying ubisoft games a long time ago

This game will be $40 in 6 weeks and discounted to $25 during a summer sale.

Lol
I played the closed beta. For 20min. I couldn't continue because it felt so incredibly boring. Insanely uninspired. Even Blackwake, the buggy mess with the simplest game loop was more interesting.

If their game was that good, we would read about it up and down the net. The fact that I read about it here for the first time tells a different story.
- Eh, judging by the games we do read about "up and down the net", I'm dubious of your claim...

I want whatever Ubisoft is smoking. First they're telling people that we don't truly own their games and now they're making AAAA games? I wish I had that confidence in myself.

Just because the Ubisoft CEO comes up with new flashy words to describe something, it still won’t make up for the fact that this is an awful, unpolished, and unfinished game, just like pretty much anything else Ubisoft released in the last decade, as a first-party developer

Dang that's crazy. Anyway opens up Monster Hunter World
- Ubisoft can't even fathom how Capcom manages to put out unique quality games consistently. Completely different universe of game design philosophy.
  
  And yet Capcom is currently fucking over said unique quality games by adding shit drm to those games that are several years old.

In case you needed another reason not to by this collage of shite, here's a reminder that Ubisoft is a hateful company run by a hateful man and no one should be buying their games anyway: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/ubisoft-has-reportedly-made-minimal-changes-following-abuse-allegations
- I wish I gave a shit about any of their games so I could boycott properly.

Another A is crazy af lol. Ubisoft lives in their own world I guess.

Quadruple A must mean when you spend so many years in development hell that the game costed another A's worth of budget.

- LMAO 👽

Ubisoft is ubisofting

Halo 3, Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Mass Effect 2 were all triple A games. Whatever this game is that they are trying to peddle, is not better than any of the previous games I listed.
- In fairness, there are tons of shittier games that are considered AAA. this statement isn't meant to defend Skull and Bones, it's meant to show how this rating system has been diluted to useless marketing.

I saw Ubisoft in the title and realized I don't care. It could be duodecillion-A and I still wouldn't give a flying fuck.

Never heard of this title before.
Can confidently say that we're winning the battle on this front.
- It's basically them trying build a game around the funnest part of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, but somehow taking a decade to actually do it.
  I'm only renting it off Gamefly because there aren't many other new games right now. I'll probably return it within a week.
  
  They just had to remake Black Flag for next gen and PC with all the bells and whistles, and they would have sold fuckloads.
  
  Nah I'm good no thanks

Hey guys, I'm developing a quintiple A game! It's real because I just said so! Also the price point for AAAAA games will be $145 cause that's how awesome it will make you feel.
p.s. - planned DLC releases during early access for only $99, what a bargain!

The extra "A" stands for "Asshole"

Game is boring. Ubisoft somehow eclipsing EA at shitting the bed in every aspect.

So it has potential to be a quadruple fail and sink the company?

As a cannabis enjoyer, I feel in this case, as is usually the case in my world, quad claims are bullshit.

This game is a collab with the Singaporean government, their workforce has terrible salaries plus benefitting from generous federal subsidies. Is that not enough for you Yves?

More A's

I haven't bought a game in years.

Bring back AA games
- They never went away. They just aren't advertised as much.
- I honestly miss the era of "okay" movie games. They were never great, but games don't need to be "great" to be fun
  
  Excuse me, battle for bikini bottom and the shrek 2 game were FIRE.