1 week Ago
Even accepting that players have more incredible gaming options at their fingertips than ever before, it's also fair to say that the AAA blockbuster gaming space is in a tricky spot as of late. With rampant industry layoffs, increasingly lengthy development cycles and resultingly ballooning budgets, it's tougher than it's ever been for AAA titles to enjoy massive success. Selling enough copies to keep the publisher happy isn't merely a case of making a good or great game, but at the same time, the 2020s have seen a number of shockingly poor AAA titles sent out into the wild.
The vast majority of these games were clearly a result of managerial issues, or a creatively miscalculated attempt to follow trends that fell out of favour long before they eventually came out. But even on a basic level of competence, these games failed to pass the test, serving up soullessly bland gameplay and uninspired visuals for the most part, enough that critics and players alike met them with nothing but indifference. In the modern era it takes a lot for a AAA game to stand out and become a hit, and in that respect these titles didn't stand a chance.
.. 10.
Skull & Bones It's quite the understatement to say that the deck was stacked hard against Skull and Bones long before it even came out. Mediocre marketing, countless delays, and ongoing reports of a fraught development suggested that Ubisoft's open world pirate game would wash up dead on arrival. And indeed, despite Ubisoft ballyhooing Skull and Bones as the world's first "AAAA" game, it failed to make a splash with critics or general players.
Even the basic thrill of naval combat and exploration failed to live up to the game that inspired it over a decade prior - Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Beyond this, the open world was an absolute snoozer, the gameplay loop became tired within a matter of hours, and neither the story nor the characters had nearly enough personality to maintain interest. Skull and Bones is the epitome of a bloated, over-budgeted AAA title in the modern era - so desperately trying to cut a fat slice of the live service pie that it forgets to be fun or even basically engaging.
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