Ubisoft's beleaguered pirate adventure Skull and Bones is getting a free week-long trial

Skull and Bones – Ubisoft’s extraordinarily long in the works (and not particularly good) open-world pirate adventure – is getting a free week-long trial next week, and it’ll coincide with the launch of the live-service game’s second season of post-launch content.

When Skull and Bones released in February – some 11 years after its troubled development started – Ubisoft trumpeted “record player engagement”, but did not share sales figures. It’s unclear just how well the pirate game has done for the publisher, then, but Ubisoft evidently believes it needs a bit of a boost given its impending week-long trial.

That’ll take place across all platforms – Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC (via Epic and Ubisoft Connect) – from Thursday, 30th May until Thursday, 6th June. During that time, players can sail as much as they like with access to the whole thing, and progress will be carried over should they decide to purchase the full game. And to tempt those wallets out, Ubisoft is slashing the price of Skull and Bones by 50 percent across all platforms for a “limited time”.