• Ubisoft has opened the Skull and Bones open beta, allowing anyone to play the much-delayed pirate adventure title right now.
• The beta will be available from 8th to 11th February, and players can only progress to a certain level before being capped.
• Despite the publisher offering early access, we suggest those considering buying the main game wait a few days and read a few reviews before dropping R1 369 ($70) on it.

After years of delays, Ubisoft says that its Golden Age of Piracy multiplayer game Skull and Bones is now in a playable state, and has invited anyone to come and get some game time in the title from 8th to 11th February ahead of its locked-in 16th February release date.

The publisher released a Billie Eilish-flavoured trailer on Wednesday showing off some of the gameplay, including exploration both on-land and in-sea, ship-to-ship combat and some of the customisation features. In Skull and Bones, you create your own pirate adventurer and then have to strive and claw your way to success in an open world that virtually recreates a portion of the Indian Ocean.

You can either team up with other players or take on the world by yourself in a single-player campaign.

The initial kernal of the game was drawn from the ship gameplay of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag and then expanded and refined by a number of Ubisoft branches, finally landing in the hands of Ubisoft Singapore.

How to get into the Skull and Bones open beta

Ubisoft has made it simple to get into the four-day beta window. Players will have until the 11th to get in as much gameplay as they can but cannot continue past the in-game character level of Infamy Brigand (Tier 6 Rank 1).

The open beta can be accessed on PC via Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

First head to the open beta’s official website and choose your platform. Different platforms will require you to sign into your respective accounts. If on PC through Ubisoft Connect, you will have to sign in there or create a new account. If on PlayStation 5, you will have to sign in with your PlayStation account and add the beta to your library.

You will need about 50GB of space on whatever machine you wish to install the open beta on. Ubisoft says that despite the short time of the beta, all progress made will be carried forward if you decide to purchase the full game on the 16th.

Additionally, the company is also offering players a chance to get into the game three days earlier if you pre-order the more expensive premium edition, which comes with some other goodies. We don’t generally recommend you do this, as the game might not be in the most stable state then.

Last month, some early access players for Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League logged into their game clients and immediately experienced a bug that completed the entire main story and unlocked all story-locked content, essentially ruining the game. Developers Rocksteady Studios had to quickly pull the game offline to fix the issue.

It’s always best to wait a few days before buying any AAA game (standard edition Skull and Bones retails for R1 369 on PS5). Wait for other players to provide feedback and read a few reviews before spending your money. Players who bought The Day Before could have been spared a lot of irritation if they had waited for the game to exit early access before considering a purchase.

[Image – Ubisoft on X]