PLAY

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Singapore), Format PC, PS5 (tested), Xbox Series Release Out now

Prior to your maiden voyage in Skull And Bones, there is a moment that premonishes just how fundamentally misguided this whole enterprise is.

Before you’re allowed to disembark, you must agree to ‘play nice’ and ‘play fair’, assenting to a code of conduct that is essentially the antithesis of the value system of the profession it depicts. But then, as you ‘press any button to rule the seas’ – a prompt that itself speaks to the hollow power fantasy many blockbuster videogames have become – you discover that this is not, in fact, the pirate simulator (sans stealth) that players of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag have been eagerly anticipating. Rather, it is an MMORPG in which you play as a boat.

For a brief flicker, that vessel is a mighty galleon, as Ubisoft pulls off the timeworn Metroid trick of teasing you with a full suite of powers before swiftly taking them away, as you’re ambushed by the entire British fleet. Before you’re swallowed up by Davy Jones’ locker, you’re dragged out and onto a dhow, where you define the look of your captain as they gaze at their reflection in a puddle of bilge water – as creative a flourish as you’ll encounter here. Eventually, you steer your dilapidated craft to shore, sporting a thousand-yard stare as you alight to cartoonish jeers from the watching mob. If you think we’re beyond pointing out the obvious metaphor for the game’s troubled development and belated release then we’re sorry to disappoint you, but then disappointment goes with the territory here.