Does Skull and Bones have Melee or Sword Combat?

If you are also confused about how the combat would play out in the brand-new IP from Ubisoft, “Skull and Bones”, keep reading to be confused no more.

What Kind of Combat Does Skull and Bones Feature?

Unfortunately, Skull and Bones does not feature Melee or Sword combat. In fact, you cannot possibly start a conflict if you are on land. You can only fight against other ships and explore the waters for objectives like hunting sharks. To be fair, it makes sense because it is not Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, which this game is a spiritual successor of. For Skull and Bones, Ubisoft focuses on pure naval battles and other various activities concentrated around the sea.

For a game that has been in development for some time now, it is hard to grasp why Ubisoft has not tried integrating some variety of combat, be it hand-to-hand or shooting, out of the sea. But if we look on the bright side, it means that the Indian Ocean, where this game takes place, would probably have many opportunities and provide for an interesting campaign. This also gives us hope that due to the lack of melee and sword combat, the ship wars would improve gameplay options over the ones that Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag had, as developers did not need to worry about that aspect.

Ubisoft has made the first-year plans of Skull and Bones publicly available, and they do not say if there will be land combat in the game. So, it is unlikely you will be fighting on land, at least not this year. Players will be doing most of the work from the helm of their ships. That does not mean you cannot explore that solid ground. You can harvest materials on islands, interact with NPCs, barter with other players, and more. Let us hope the naval battles make up for the lack of land combat.

The game has been in Open Beta since February 8. Here is how you can play the Open Beta to get used to the games system.