Two reliable leakers seem to have confirmed a 2022 release date for Ubisoft's long-in-development pirate game Skull & Bones.Aggiornamenti Lumia, a well-known Microsoft Store dataminer, recently took to Twitter to reveal a release date for Skull & Bones: November 8, 2022. Tom Henderson, a leaker with a solid track record, seemingly confirmed Lumia's reported date, responding with a green checkmark emoji.
Skull & Bones was initially conceived as an online spinoff of the pirate-themed Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, but quickly developed into its own original IP. Lumia's leaked release date is surprisingly early, considering the relative quiet from official Ubisoft sources on the game since its initial announcement in 2017, but it aligns with recent leaks and reports which suggest that the game is further along in development than expected. One recent leak showed off gameplay from Skull & Bones' alpha, and, not long after, the game received ratings from the Australian Classification Board and the ESRB, indicating that the title is in a functional state.
Tom Henderson has proven to be a reliable source within the gaming industry, correctly reporting on the announcement of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 ahead of its official reveal in May 2022. Henderson was also one of the first to report that the remake of The Last of Us would launch in 2022, which was recently confirmed at Summer Game Fest. His stamp of approval lends a fair amount of credence to Lumia's report.
If Lumia and Henderson are to be believed, Skull & Bones will finally release this year after a considerable series of delays. At E3 2017, the game was revealed with a tentative release window of late 2018. The title missed this window and was delayed to sometime in 2019. This, too, was overly optimistic, and the game saw another delay to sometime in 2020. Complications relating to COVID-19 led to yet another delay to sometime in 2022. After five years of delays and production issues, it looks like the troubled waters may finally be calming down and allowing Skull & Bones to leave port.
Officially, Ubisoft has been tight-lipped regarding specifics when it comes to Skull & Bones, but the recent ESRB rating suggests that the title will be released for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Microsoft Windows. More information about Skull & Bones is expected at the upcoming Ubisoft showcase this August.
Source: Twitter