Skull and Bones season one is giving players a sinking feeling

It's utterly underwhelming.

Ships attacking a sea monster.
Image via Square Enix

Two weeks after its release, Skull and Bones is already submerged in more content with season one, Raging Tides—but players have no risk of drowning in it. Many consider the new update to be seriously underwhelming.

Recommended Videos

Bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements aside, the main focus of the season one’s content is the addition of a new enemy fleet led by Philippe La Peste. Ships leave a cloud of poison behind them when they sink, and they’re new deadly opponents throughout the seas.

There are also challenges to complete for rewards in the new Smuggler Pass. But most of the content is staggered, so players must be patient to test out each new fight in Skull and Bones.

A male character standing close to a disguised cat.
That cat is definitely a highlight. Screenshot by Dot Esports

But the update seems to have fallen flat with the community. In the patch notes’ Reddit thread, players mostly expressed disappointment, saying developer Ubisoft missed a trick by not includimg highly-requested features and changes that would drastically improve the player experience.

Some player pet peeves include events popping up on the screen that you have no way to dismiss without leaving your current menu and the deactivation of Fast Travel when carrying Pieces of Eight. “I see they are working hard to improve the game, but it also looks like they are kind of oblivious to player feedback, not such a good sign,” a top-voted comment reads.

Some changes brought with the update are controversial, such as a balance tweak that makes Legendary Heist and Helm Wager events more challenging by adding more enemy ship spawns. “Spawning more in Heists will be rough, I guess we’ll see how bad it gets. They really need to despawn when the Heist or Wager is over though,” reads another comment.

Skull and Bones‘ first season will last for 12 weeks, so players will have to wait quite some time before seeing new features introduced to the game. Still, two Sea Monsters will be added later this season: Zamaharibu on March 5 and Rode Maangodi three weeks later. 

Author
Image of Eva Martinello
Eva Martinello
Eva is a Staff Writer from Paris. Her part-time job is charging into walls with Reinhardt. She has been covering League of Legends esports and other titles for six years. She still believes in a Moscow Five comeback. She also fell into the MMO pit and covers FFXIV and Genshin.