Ever since its announcement in 2013, Skull and Bones has been in the doldrums. Despite confirmation of a closed beta for the tactical pirate game at the Ubisoft Forward event, reports from players who participated in the recent playtests have done little to generate enthusiasm for the game.

According to Insider Gaming's Tom Henderson, a large number of players who tried the game for the first time ended up leaving its Discord channel.

90% of the people I asked if they were still in the Skull & Bones discord for its testing phases said they left after they played for the first time. Wow.

High retention game? Probably not...

Despite the numerous promises and delays, it appears that Skull and Bones is destined to be a complete failure upon its release, assuming it even gets released at all. The only thing preventing Ubisoft from scrapping this disastrous game is their obligation to the Singapore government.

Even within the ranks of Ubisoft, developers themselves acknowledge the magnitude of this debacle, as one former developer candidly stated, "If Skull & Bones were at a competitor, it would have been killed 10 times already."

To be fair, Ubisoft dug itself into this hole when it created high expectations for Skull and Bones by presenting it as an expansion of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Eventually, the project had to be separated as an independent title, mainly due to the outdated technology it was built on.

However, Ubisoft couldn't resist the urge to create buzz for a game that was barely functional and clearly in need of more development, leading to the ill-fated E3 2017 reveal that pushed the French publisher beyond the point of return.

Now all that's left for Ubisoft to do is batten down the hatches and stem the tide before Skull and Bones becomes the anchor that sinks Yves Guillemot and his ship once and for all.