Skull & Bones leaked footage shows NPC mutinies and ship crafting

pcgamer.com:

Ubisoft's long-expected, oft-delayed multiplayer pirate game Skull & Bones just sprung a leak. Footage of a six minute introductory video appeared on Reddit (though it was taken down just as I was writing this) and it's the type of narrated primer shown to testers or preview players before they get to try the game, rather than raw footage of someone just playing.

Since I actually played a bit of Skull & Bones back in 2018 at a preview event (and probably watched the same sort of video first), I was curious to see how much of it looked familiar and what had changed. My session took place after Skull & Bones had been delayed to 2019, but before it was delayed to 2020, and then delayed again into 2022-2023.

The footage does look fairly close to what I remember playing. Unlike Sea of Thieves, where combat can take quite a while due to ships only having a few cannons that players need to reload themselves, and a lot of time has to be spent managing sails to get into the right position, combat in Skull & Bones is much speedier and ship-to-ship skirmishes are almost non-stop. Most ships are positively bristling with cannons, with an NPC crew handling the reloading and repairs, and the sails go up and down in mere seconds to allow for quick maneuvering. As captain, you mostly just steer, shoot, and give orders to your crew.

While it's nice to have NPC crews doing all the grunt work, you can't take them for granted. According to the video, you'll need to keep your ship stocked with food and supplies or your AI-controlled minions will lose morale and eventually mutiny, bonking you on the head and removing you from power. It's not stated what the repercussions of a mutiny are, but I assume it's similar to what happens when your