Following this week’s announcement of one more delay for Cranium and Bones, Ubisoft has shared half-hour of latest footage from its beleaguered pirate journey, specializing in what it calls the sport’s “narrative gameplay”.
It is maybe one thing of an surprising place to return after a prolonged absence, given Ubisoft insisted Cranium and Bones was “not a narrative-driven recreation” final summer season, but it surely does at the very least give gamers a greater concept of how the writer is trying to inject a little bit of selection into the motion.
As Ubisoft defined final yr, Cranium and Bones is overwhelmingly targeted on crusing and fight, with gamers solely in a position to disembark their ships and discover dry land at a restricted variety of areas, outlined as outposts. Functionally, outposts function locations gamers can commerce, money in contracts, repay factions, and meet different gamers – however, as detailed in Ubisoft’s latest gameplay devstream, they’re additionally areas the place they may discover narrative content material Ubisoft is asking “investigations”.
Investigations are a “technique to inform a narrative by means of a sequence of steps”, and could be initiated by discovering messages in bottles, unearthing scraps of misplaced journals, or just by speaking to characters on the planet, and can present clues to discovering a selected treasure.
The investigation Ubisoft selected to demo in its newest devstream informed the story of a brother and sister who each believed themselves to be the rightful inheritor to the throne within the coastal African area the sequence was set.
Somewhat than taking gamers on a grand, cinematic narrative journey, investigations – whose story parts are relayed fully by means of on-screen textual content and accompanying narration – are extra of a easy framing machine, guiding them by means of a number of normal seafaring actions. On this occasion, gamers should first sail to the placement the place the brother is alleged to have absconded with the crown, whereupon they’re required to finish a single stage of a settlement plunder (a core mechanic of Cranium and Bones, as we realized final yr) to obtain one other message resulting in a brand new location.
Upon arrival, it is merely a case of parking up alongside a shipwreck and hitting a button to retrieve the subsequent clue, which then factors gamers to a closing location – on this case, a port the place they will disembark and find some buried treasure, bringing the sequence to a detailed.
Every investigation, Ubisoft explains, will fill in a bit extra backstory of a key character in Cranium and Bones’ lore, Captain Freeman, who was mentioned to have taken half within the greatest heist ever seen on the planet’s fiction. In the end, by piecing collectively clues, gamers may be capable to discover the placement of Freeman’s lacking treasure.
The total 30-minute livestream additionally discusses a few of Cranium and Bones’ different options, together with shanties and the variations seen in several elements of the in-game world.
Ubisoft is but to share a brand new launch date for Cranium and Bones following its most up-to-date delay, however says it’s going to have extra information “very quickly”.
