This is not a review of Ubisoft's 2024 game Skull and Bones. I'm sorry its on the review tab for the game, but I've got nowhere more appropriate for this. I have no idea if this game has merit of any kind and I have no intention of finding out.

This is a discussion of marketing. Thank you, thank you, but I must ask you remain seated and save your applause for the end. The campaign for this game has been one of the most spellbindingly confused in recent memory. From the Michelle Rodriguez co-sign (no she's not involved in the game at all, no I don't know what they're going for either), to the obtuse and ill-fitting pop song licensing (I get the joke but you should see me in a crown is about as far from 'pirate' as music can aesthetically be), the whole thing stinks of panic. Of a project that sounded great in the pitch meetings but careened off course some time in the intervening 10 years and multiple creative leads before release.

But even that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the last refuge of the craven triple A publisher. The final gambit, when you're nose deep in development of a gazillion dollar property that you've just realised has no real audience and nothing new to offer players. The last gasp of video game marketing departments before they crumble into dust. I do not want to talk about Skull and Bones, video game. I want to talk about Skull and Bones, "quadruple a game."

Funnily enough this isn't even the first announced 'first AAAA game'. Back in 2020 Microsoft was parroting around that same term regarding their brand new first party studio, The Initiative, and their first game, a reboot of Perfect Dark°. Mere months later, a fledgling publishing company named Ubisoft decided to borrow this concept. They earmarked two long gestating continuations on some of their most beloved properties with the term. One was the still unreleased Beyond Good and Evil 2. The other? A spiritual sequel to a warmly remembered pirate-based Assassin's Creed game, entitled 'Skull and Bones.'

That's right! They've actually been trying to get the AAAA thing to stick to this game for years. But why? Well, Ubisoft says its an inevitable term nessecary to describe a whole new level of quality gaming experience, but they did say that in awfully close proximity to a question about why an open world mutiplayer game with a microtransaction / battle pass (No sorry, "smuggler pass", jfc) model is launching at 70 usd. You be the judge.

No, to actually find the meaning, we need to observe the context of when its been employed. Between the Perfect Dark reboot, BGE2 and this, there is obvious overlap. These are massive money sinks, attempts by our most oversized and corporate publishers to cash in acclaimed (kind of cult) IP by just throwing as much time and development at them as possible. A flagrant and unsuccessful attempt to supplement the lack of the creatives that helped make these games so beloved (as is true for Rare's lack of involvement in Perfect Dark and BGE2 after Michel Ancel's retirement in 2020). In each case, the new teams have not only been unable to tap into what worked about the original games, they've been completely unclear on what game they're making at all. It is, to no-one's great surprise, quite difficult to jerry-rig idiosyncratic (and in some cases actively financially unsuccessful) games from years past into blockbuster franchise pieces. Let alone to try and recapture the spark that made them special to the people that loved them to begin with (if you do even care to try, which I continue to optimistically / naively assume is at least a lower-tier secondary goal of these studios).

So the games get stuck in development hell for even longer and the budgets balloon even higher. What do we do now? We invested so much in these games, and we fundamentally have nothing to show for it but a bland and sanitised repackage of ideas done better decades ago and promises of above average quarterly profits to our enormous swathe of shareholders. Simple, we invent a new term that cannot be disputed (since its an extension upon a term that already has no real meaning°°), that hints at some kind of an innovation or massive level of polish, but doesn't actually promise it. Now we can advertise our games as boundary pushing next-gen experiences without ever having to worry about being called out for malicious marketing. We'll sucker in all kinds of unsuspecting fools expecting something 'new' (or even just something where you play as a pirate to a more immersive degree than the other game we made where you play as a pirate), and they'll be met with overpriced slop where you can role-play as a boat. Genius!

I don't think anyone has actually fallen for this, but its an important lesson for the future. If you remember anything of what you've just read, let it be this; if you see a game advertised as AAAA in the future, recognise it for the last resort ploy it is. They're entertaining the idea only because they've sunk millions of dollars and hours of labour into it, and arrived at nothing. It is a term signifying an artistic husk so overstuffed the publisher simply cannot afford to abandon it. Spot it and perhaps you'll be less tortured by the intensely lame marketing gimmicks they will push your way in their desperate attempts to sell it. Including Michelle Rodriguez! Stay away from her you fucks! She's too good for your dumb shit pirate game!

Or maybe she's not. I don't know. I didn't play it. Maybe this is the best game of 2024. Who could say.


° Which can I just say might be an even more interesting story than what I'm telling you today. Great IGN piece about the lay offs and how the original 'supergroup' dev team has basically been replaced by the head dev's past studio, Crystal Dynamics, the developers of the Tomb Raider reboot series and the much loved Marvel's Avengers. The only thing I'd add to it is the LinkedIn accounts of ex-employees point to the game at some point being conceived as a live service game. Who knows if that's true or if plans have changed but if Perfect Dark becomes Microsoft's Destiny competitor, I will be pissed. Tangent over.

°° In gaming that is. It comes from the world of finance, triple A bonds being the safest investments, the most likely to give required returns and meet quotas. Really puts the term as used into perspective.

The art direction and character designs are the best they’ve ever been and even work to the limitations of the Wii.

Skyward Sword has my favourite version of link and zelda, and the best unique characters (groose!!! Ghirahim!!!). The charisma of the characters and their designs also contribute to Skyloft being the most warm and delightful hub world.

I like the motion control combat in all its simplicity. It’s not amazing but i wouldn’t accuse any 3D zelda game of having great combat, I think they’re holistic games that try to be greater than the sum of their parts.

All of the dungeons are really cool and, I’d argue, just uncontroversially good among 3d zeldas, especially the well known standouts like the Ancient Cistern and Sand Ship. Bosses are similarly mostly pretty awesome as moments of spectacle with a few exceptions.

The silent realm challenges are absolutely peak, and I love any challenge in a game that forces you to remember that the levels are spaces, and think of them as such, rather than filtering out things that are uninteractive or seemingly irrelevant.

Lastly, the premise of being a DISTANT prequel means that the game isn’t slavishly devoted to all the same zelda iconography and world building, which makes it a little pocket of fresh air in the same way that, say, Pokemon White 1 feels to return to.

I could write a list about as long of the things that don’t kick ass about this game but I think it’s more interesting to focus on why Skyward Sword is uniquely special, it genuinely is my favourite zelda that I’ve played.

Returning to the original Risk of Rain, my go-to class procrastination game since I was 12, really highlights how one of a kind the project is even compared to its sequel.

I don't like roguelikes/lites/whatever! I don't want to play games which are designed around less authorship and more grinding. This game will always be an exception.Risk of Rain has vibes out the goddamn wazoo, from its still flawless soundtrack to its weird little items to its newly souped up spectacular pixel art. Risk of Rain has a sense of place and atmosphere that almost every other game of its kind - including its sequel - wish they had. The sense of a deeply hostile, complicated ecosystem with an underlying sense of lost, bloody history. There is a sinister tension to every moment, ratcheting up as the difficulty level scales in time from easy, to hard, to I SEE YOU. That creepypasta ass moment still hits.

I also still appreciate how Risk of Rain's pacing, both for a single playthrough and its meta-progression of unlocks, does not waste your goddamn time. It's not going to ask 100 hours of you to get all the toys, it might not even ask 10 if you're a returning player like myself.

On that last note - if you already own the original, why play this one? Well, because your friends are checking it out and you want to play with them. That's probably why. However, just between you and me, I think it's all worth it for the final boss, which has become so spectacular that Mithrix looks like a puppy.

Showing my hand here as a particular kind of freak because the last quarter had me screaming about danganronpa v3. Big fan of the emotional core of the story, the actual theme/message i can kind of take or leave because i don't really respect the darwinian fixation enough to be impressed by them proposing an alternative i guess lmao but it's still neat.

Gameplay wise much less cruel as the first game for the most part, although the advancements in enemy AI and gradual rollout of the map regularly creates unfair situations where the easiest move is to just let you die.

Fatman is an icon

I want so badly to love rain world. People talk about it in the same almost religious terms as they do Outer Wilds, which gave me everything I anticipated and more. I love every individual thing that Rain World does: its strange platforming that conveys a real sense of embodying an animal, its complex simulated ecosystem, the quiet desolation of its landscape, the methodical way you move through the world and the fact that the main source of power you have is just knowledge and instinct.

But I don't love Rain World.

Not unlike some other incredible simulational games like Dwarf Fortress, the reality of this game is that for every in-game day you spend exploring this beautiful world or discovering something new or successfully surviving a ridiculous scuffle between three types of lizards and scavengers, you spend 5 days just getting food from the place you already know food is, 5 days dying due to no fault of your own, and 5 days getting yourself killed because enemies have parked their asses right on the other side of a pipe and haven't moved for ten minutes. I can appreciate that for some people, this is not an issue and maybe even adds to the overall sensation, but for me, this meant that I would get entirely sick of my surroundings before moving on to a new area and realising I wasn't actually enthusiastic about going through the same routine again but in an even more hostile place.

I think if you're going to love this game, you will know in the first couple hours (especially if you look up some vague beginner's tips and aren't afraid to turn on a few of the remix accessibility options). Unfortunately, I did not, and I will forever be a poser and a hack.

Nearly a decade after my first time playing the trilogy, I'm finding new appreciation for the unraveling of its mysteries, the warmth of its characters, and particularly in Justice For All, the ambition of its final chapter. While the finale of the trilogy and the later great ace attorney Saga both present a much more interwoven and ambitious overall plot, Farewell, My Turnabout is still the most densely packed, nail biting roller coaster of a case we've had the privilege of enjoying. It's always special when a game series decides to flip even its most core conceit on its head.

Beton Brutal's focus on precision platforming results in a tough, tense experience that should very well resemble drinking Dayquil for the flavor to anyone not looking to speedrun it. I disagree with that notion. If you have the patience for it, Beton will reward your curiosity. The timer in the corner and set-dressing of all attempts as runs are both illusions. You can take as long as you want to complete this, and there's no shame in that. There's an enthrallingly visceral joy in finally understanding how the game wants to proceed. Sometimes, it comes to you naturally, and sometimes, the game can work like a bit of a puzzle box focused on climbing. I still haven't reached the top of the tower yet, I keep falling. But I feel content with that because it's been a lot of fun so far.

I totally understand that this won't be to everyone's taste. But I've been having a blast with it.