I can't believe I'm saying this but Skull and Bones Year 2 is real, and it's live now

I had a lot of fun over the years with Skull and Bones—all before it came out, that is. It grew from a simple idea—Assassin's Creed: Black Flag's naval battles made multiplayer—into a bona fide white whale for Ubisoft, which struggled so mightily to get it released. And when it finally showed up, seven years after it was first announced, it was fine, and quickly forgotten by most of us.

But Skull and Bones is still floating, people are still playing it, and yes, the rumored second year of content is now officially underway. New features in Skull and Bones year 2 season 1 include Item Ascension, which enables players to upgrade their gear with base damage boosts and unique modifiers, as well as the addition of a new world tier, with greater challenges and better reward drops.

Endgame content is being expanded with a new Helm Upgrade Tree featuring new perks and upgrades, and players will be able to produce their own crafting materials in "manufactories." There's also a new team-based PvP mode called Death Tides on the way, with rewards and XP that will carry over to the main game, although it's not slated to go live until later in the season.

Ubisoft also shared a look at its plans for subsequent seasons in year 2, which include the introduction of the Frigate, an escalation of the war between the French and the Dutch—and yes, you will have to pick a side eventually—and, most notably, the introduction of land combat, which is slated to arrive in season 3. More information on that will be shared as the third season gets closer.

It bears mentioning, as we did in December, that some people are playing Skull and Bones, but seemingly not a lot of them. We don't have the full picture because it's also available on the Epic Games Store, the Microsoft Store, and consoles, but the concurrent player count on Steam right now (via SteamDB) is a little over 400—and that's a big jump over the sub-200 numbers Skull and Bones has put up through most of 2025 so far.

That's a far cry from other multiplayer games from Ubisoft like For Honor and The Division 2, both of which are much older but still rumbling on with a few thousand people playing simultaneously at any given moment, and it doesn't seem sustainable to me: Ubisoft might be hoping that Skull and Bones' move onto Steam, which only happened in August 2024, could eventually lift those numbers like a rising tide, but if it doesn't then I rather strongly suspect we won't see a year 3.

For now, though, I'm actually very pleased that Skull and Bones year 2 is happening. It's not a bad game—PC Gamer's Shaun Prescott said in his 68% review that it's "great within the claustrophobic parameters of what market forces allow it to be"—and given the number of modestly successful live service games that come to a premature end because they don't immediately meet whatever arbitrary goal is set for them, it's nice to see Skull and Bones getting the chance to do its thing for at least one more year. And if it does somehow manage to turn things around and become a For Honor-style low-key earner, that'd be even better.

And if it doesn't work out, well, we had some good times, didn't we?

I promise not to use this headline format again, unless Skull and Bones actually gets a year 3, in which case all bets are off.

The full patch notes for Skull and Bones year 2 season 1 are up at ubisoft.com.