Recent reviews by EPiQ

UPDATED REVIEW:
Ok so, the game simply doesn't "support triple/wraparound monitors." There are no settings that allow you enable or disable this. There are no settings that allow you to adjust your resolution to be 3x monitors. If you put it in windowed mode you can manually stretch the window across 3 screens, but there is no way to remove the border. It tries to snap to a single monitor if you do.

The ONLY way I found to even perform this wraparound (without NVIDIA Surround, which seems to be their "solution), is to use Resize Raccoon, similar to WRC. It means your left and right screens are useless aside from give you a sense of speed though, because they're a stretched mess.

Also, the current state of the game (even with nvidia drivers updated) is messy when doing Resize Raccoon (and supposedly any triples method like Surround). The game WILL CRASH 100% of the time if DLSS, path tracing, or ray tracing are on. The devs have stated they're working directly with Nvidia to address DLSS, but that doesn't really account for the other items.

I'm on a 13900K, 64GB DDR5, and 4090 GPU. My sim rig is 3x 3840x120 OLEDs. Every other sim these have worked just fine at 4K/120. F1 25 simply does not.

Granted, it DOES look great maxed out, but I'll await DLSS fixes to see if it truly helps performance. As it currently stands to run triple 4K on THE LOWEST SETTINGS the max I can get is about 50 FPS. I'd love to attempt to play with other resolutions or scaling, but FSR does absolutely nothing, and I don't want to have to make a bunch of Resize Raccoon profiles just to try it.

End of the day, there's no excuse for a racing game from such a seasoned series to not support in-game settings for custom resolutions or triple monitors. Especially when the development work for VR is done as a PC-Only feature.

I'm past my 2 hours but putting a pause on my play to see whether technical issues are resolved. If they can be, I'll likely keep it to dabble with.

All in all though, their leaps forward in scanned tracks, handling, modes, etc...all are completely sullied by not supporting one of hte core aspects of PC racing games.



ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Feels great, looks great, runs great. On a single screen...

Missing their mentioned "triple monitor support" that the PC Features article detailed. If you're here for that, wait and see if they say anything.

Will re-review after they maybe address this.

It's a lot of fun.
It is not Snowrunner, and that's ok. You can just play both of them for different experience with detailed vehicle physics.

It looks pretty great and runs amazing (4090, 13900K, 64GB DDR5, 3840x1600). This is including the optional 4K texture pack. The heat haze is the most ugly part and completely unrealistic looking and adds very little. Foilage, terrain, vehicles, structures, and ground clutter are all excellent. I perceive no degraded visuals/overly sharpened edges from DLSS, but its fairly well-optimized and I get great performance with and without (obviously better with).

Audio design is "fine". It sounds like trucks. The soundtrack is sort of awful. It comes across and super generic license free instrumental country, and is in no way dynamic to the task at hand. I muted it and listen to other music or podcasts and its far more fun that way.

Plays fine with KBM, but definitely better with controller. Anyone complaining about the "poor controller" support is likely doing something wrong, because its really on-par with their other titles. Facebuttons for key things like parking brake, AWD, Diff, and then shoulder buttons + other buttons for detailed functions. This is my BIGGEST complaint...the crane controls seem to vary by the top of vehicle with a crane. This is stupid because it means there's very little muscle memory for it. Workable, but just not very refined.

Also, there's a ton of reviews that outright claim it has NO wheel support. There's definitely wheel support with like 7 wheel presets for some of the most popular wheels, and a default wheel category where you can map everything yourself. This appears to also include haptic/FFB control. I haven't tried on my simrig yet but will update this if I do.

Looking forward to mod support.

Co-op works well so far.

Worth giving a try and seeing if its for you, and returning if not. The first few hours are very much teaching the game so you don't need to have any experience to enjoy.

Play Hours: I played around 200 hours at it's initial launch on UbiConnect.
Performance and Visuals: 4090, 13900K, 64GB DDR5, running at 3840x1600 on an NVME. I get around 90-180 with full ultra including ray tracing. DLSS looks great and keeps it in the triple digits.
Unique Things: In Ubi fashion it supports cross-progression/save, Full DualSense features, and even stuff like Tobii head+eye tracking

As a fan of Assassin's Creed games MOSTLY for their fun arcade sailing, I'm obviously the target demographic for Skull and Bones. I played around 6 playtests during its development, and even played an hour of it's Arena PVP-focused version at E3 2018. During all of this time I was excited, but also somewhat dissapointed. It had promise, but was simply missing the depth and variety to give it longevity.

When it finally launched, I had fun. The world was huge, It looked and ran amazing, and it was fun to find new blueprints for ships and weapons and progress through the "ok" story. The endgame was grindy, but I enjoy a good business sim and it felt unique considering 1) how few pirate/sailing games there actually are 2) how few of the pirate games actually even bother with trade routes despite it being core to the history. I played a lot to get what I wanted, did some PVP, made some friends in the small but passionate community, and dabbled with the first season and it's boss fight. Ultimately I'd felt I got my money's worth and went on to play other things.

Hopping into Year 1 Season 3, I didn't find much had changed. Some good QOL but ultimately I wasn't drawn back in for more than an hour or 2.


Its 2025 and I still occasionally think about Skull and Bones. Sea of Thieves is a certain type of fun, but that fun is only one "part" of the history of piracy. Every couple of months I search online for a good naval game of any sort, especially one with co-op or PVP, just as a break from Sea of Thieves. Something with good RPG mechanics. I'm constantly left with dissapointment.

Then out of nowhere, Skull and Bones Year 2 plans drop, outlining their next 4 seasons and committing to support even beyond that. I expect the same seasonal boss and story they've put out, but check it out anyways.

- Ok cool, they've added some crazy new sea monsters
- Oh wow, I missed a couple of ships they added
- Is that a DRAGON?
- wait, that UI looks totally different
- IS THAT A SKILL TREE?
- IS THAT ANOTHER SKILL TREE FOR YOUR EMPIRE?
- IS THAT AN ARENA PVP SIMILAR TO THE ORIGINAL PVP-ONLY BUILD?
- OMG...no way...LARGE SIZE SHIPS?!?!
- CREWMATES WITH STATS?
- LAND COMBAT?!
- A DEEPER CRAFTING SYSTEM THAN PATH OF EXILE 2 HAS?!?!

So I said for $20, I'll pick it up on steam. I'll get another $20 of fun. In true Ubi fashion, all my progression came over without any addtional work, and I got a billion steam achievements as the transfer happened.

I was INSTANTLY impressed with the polish the game had since I last played. Things I never felt were that bad have been refined and feel "just right" now. The UI is clearer with more information. Things are even snappier. Clicks are reduced.

The game itself has ramped up options for fast travel to events. The economy feels very fair and balanced. There's a PVE/PVP toggle for open world (PVP events still auto flag you). Difficulty was....VERY HARD?!

Turns out with the new ship and weapon progression, they did a huge balance pass at some point. I head back to a port and start digging into ship upgrades and weapon ascension. Only then did I realize just how many more weapon talents options there were and i started thinking build crafting.

Build crafting. In a pirate game.

Anyways, while much of Year 2 is still to come, I was shocked with where Skull and Bones has landed. I think the important thing to remember is while its a Pirate RPG, you are more of your Ship than your captain. That seems to be changing somewhat, but your ship is you, your crew, and your weaponry.

So whether you're Co-op barraging forts, attacking trade routes, fighting the paranormal during a storm, defending against sea monsters, or battling players for PVP event loot...the bulk of it will always be your ship.

It is NOT a sailing simulator. The combat is NOT simulation. It IS arcade. That said, there is absolutely a reason to buildcraft, swap ships and builds, and pursue more and more loot. Which at the end of the day...is about as Pirate as I can imagine.

They're putting out a new game soon, so "Eternal" was sorta false advertising. I can't endorse this.

I need to go to bed but I could be growing.

The most fun I've had with AC since probably Odyssey.

Its hard to not draw comparisons to Ghost of Tsushima, but I think Shadows does a good job at carving out it's own gameplay niche. While Facial capture and animation are lacking compared to GoT, Ubi has done an excellent job at building a gorgeous world with visually stunning seasons.

The almost "western" flair to elements of the game are also a welcome surprise, and the dual narrative has already been unfolding nicely.

Combat has been satisfying in the first few hours, and I have yet to even touch ANY of the skill trees really.

My first play session was 5 hours and I literally had to FORCE myself to go to bed, which bodes well for the fun.

Performance on a 13900K, 4090, 64GB DD5, SSD running at 3840x1600 has been fantastic for the quality. I have everything maxed including ray tracing and its a visual feast. I'm running DLSS on Quality and haven't noticed any sharpness artifacts or ghosting. Averaging a range of 90-120 FPS. Without DLSS it was around 40-60 so if you for some reason are a native resolution fanatic you can likely find a performant group of settings that suits you.

Haven't tried on Steam Deck yet, but will update if I do.

I'm not sure this is the Assassin's Creed that will make you a fan if you've never enjoyed them, but if you've ever enjoyed the series this has the makings to be one of the more memorable/impactful ones.

But also it just holds me over until Ghost of Yotei.

An absolute blast with friends, and fun with randoms...so long as they don't screech into the microphone constantly. Runs great, looks great "when your light is on", and the game modes are surprisingly varied.

The Guest Pass and ability for a single host to invite up to 5 friends who can play free makes it an AMAZING option for a social game night.

The only negatives seem to be people complaining about PSN sign-in for the crossplatform game published by PlayStation. But as usual the store page literally lists it as a requirement before you buy the game so the shocked pikachu faces are just looking for reasons to find outrage.

Highly suggest picking it up and giving it a go, especially if you have friends you game with. They don't even need to be hardcore shooter fans as the strategy definitely outweights pure aim. The new experimental Wildcard mode where each player adds a modifier has made every round feel different and fresh, and each round completion adds a card permanently to your deck for future options.

I skipped 6 so my view is quite fresh...but I really enjoy the changes to the formula. Enough that I sat down at 430pm to play a bit before dinner and then suddenly it was 3am and I hadn't drank any water or eaten any food.

Civ curse is alive and well.

Some really strange UI choices, couple odd bugs where dead units remain, and a lot of the tutorials and help journal are fairly lacking...but it generally runs great.

I'd say more but my brain isn't braining because I barely slept.

EVO in it's current state is "Fine"

Settings/UI suck (like only ACC and AC Evo will assume all of my pedal axis are inverted. No other game does this)

Swapping audio output once the game had launched would not change the audio output despite the ingame settings giving the option

Graphics are...good but the lighting is strange so it felt flat. Almost like it was trying to HDR without HDR on...or DLOG on a camera.

Runs good on my system with max settings and DLAA (4090, 13900K, 64GB DDR5, 3840x2160 OLED TV)

Assists were wonky AF. Turned off all and tried to manual clutch...kept just stalling out and wouldn't leave the pit no matter what I tried to do with clutch. So I turned assists back on then off and got it to work erratically. Ended up turning auto clutch back on for the time being.

FFB is still excellent. Easily ACC and AC Evo's strongsuit

But even once it has more content, it seems like it will be PC Gran Turismo. Don't get me wrong, I love Gran Turismo 7 and still regularly play it. GT7 currently has 522 cars and 39 tracks with 118 configurations. It feels like EVO will take a decade to get there.

This is very likely to eventually be an easy recommend, but in its current state don't worry about rushing to pick it up unless you're wanting to financially support Kunos' efforts. You will play it and then go back to other titles while you wait for updates.

It's....fine. Marking as Recommended but with some caveats. If you're looking for a new title to drift in and progress through...it is that, and at a budget price. If you want a full polished game though, it's not that yet.

Feels like the start of something, but comes across as a mobile or budget console port. Being keyboard-first UI there's small things like being able to click "retry" with a mouse...but then you can't start a run without pressing enter.

The game also only defaults to my primary monitor, and only shows resolution ratios for it. (3840x1600). I have to use Win+Arrow to get it to my sim racing monitor which is 16:9 4K as there's no video option for monitor. It then doesn't offer 3840x2160.

Binding a wheel, shifter, handbrake, pedals worked relatively well, but there doesn't appear to be any way to control ranges.

FFB controls are extremely basic (one setting for intensity, one for center force), but functional enough.

Physics seems pretty solid.

Graphics feel a bit hit or miss. I wouldn't say unoptimized like others...but its lacking some visual polish considering I'm only getting 60-70FPS on a 4090, 13900K, 64GB DDR5. I run Star Citizen at 100-120FPS for example.

Could be I'm a noob, but there's times the car simply isn't in gear (lets say in third), but is accelerating like it's in first. Stopping and going back up through gears fixes it, but something about shifting through neutral seems to lose the gear engagement, as it's less common with paddleshifters. Even dumping clutch has no effect. There appears to be a weird blend of Manual an Automatic going on where it's shifting for me sometimes, and then unsure of gear once I shift. Could be a settings error on my part but I couldn't figure it out.

For $15 on sale there's something here to support their vision which they obviously are continuing to invest in, but I wouldn't recommend it wholeheartedly in it's current state to friends without a lot of stage setting. With so many great free options and community support in AC, the landscape is tough for this title.