Game Luster received exclusive updates from a source familiar with Ubisoft's inner workings on Skull & Bones, Rainbow Six Parasite and Riders Republic.
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Skull & Bones Has Restarted Development and Will Not Launch in 2021
According to a source familiar with inner workings at Ubisoft who has asked not to be identified, the ship combat adventure title
Skull & Bones had to restart development from scratch a second time just a few months ago. In their string of actions to combat sexual harassment allegations the past year,
Ubisoft removed the managing director at their Singapore Studio, who is developing
Skull & Bones. Our source has told us that around the same time,
Skull & Bones was brought back to the drawing room table and had to begin work from the ground up. Game Luster was not able to confirm if these two events were directly connected. Our source has told us that the new alpha build is very similar Microsoft's popular multiplayer pirate game
Sea of Thieves, and uses a first-person POV when in the ship but turns to third-person when you exit the ship. They also said that the game is in pretty early stages right now and even is using many untextured boxes, so there's no way it'll be done in time for a 2021 launch and likely not even 2022.
Riders Republic
Our source stated that
Riders Republic, the upcoming biking and skiing battle royale game, is nearly completed and will likely be announced with a very close release date at Ubisoft's E3 conference. They described it as being buried under "loads of microtransactions" with several currencies and a battle pass. It's unclear if the battle pass uses only real money or can be paid for with in-game money like
Fortnite. Expect to see a yearly pass, a daily shop, and a wide variety of cosmetics in seasonal shops. Surprisingly, even with Ubisoft's recent declaration of moving nearly all games to a free-to-play system, Riders Republic will launch at full retail price, although our source stated that everything about it "screams F2P."
Riders Republic will require PS Plus and Xbox Live Gold to play on consoles.
Rainbow Six Parasite
The recently renamed project
Rainbow Six Parasite is fairly far into development and will likely launch later in 2021. Our source had a hands on with a build of
Parasite last year and had a rather negative reaction to it, as it seems to have taken a complete turn into sci-fi and lost the military aspect altogether. They described a mid-sized map with alien hordes that all look roughly the same. Some have different abilities, but not enough to stand out or provide much variety. Black goo appears on the floor to slow down the players who are venturing around the map to shoot eggs until a swarm comes. Exterminating the swarm finishes the map.
Rainbow Six Parasite will be free-to-play and will not feature a separate campaign mode; rather, the campaign and the multiplayer are the same
Other Miscellaneous Info
Our source stated that the upcoming
Roller Derby from Ubisoft, which had a demo release last year, was "good fun" and will likely please fans. It will be free-to-play as well. Game Luster also received word that Ubisoft +, the $15/month subscription service that allows access to all Ubisoft games, is coming to consoles later this year.