Ubisoft will finally show Skull and Bones gameplay this week

Ubisoft will finally show some Skull and Bones gameplay on Thursday, July 7 at a dedicated mini Ubisoft Forward.

The publisher announced the show today. The big reveal kicks off at 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST, while a pre-show "full of surprises" will start 15 minutes earlier. Ubisoft is promising "new gameplay, our unique take on piracy, and exclusive behind the scenes with developers." 

The description for the show's YouTube placeholder notably includes a new, currently dead link to "register for future live tests." Ubisoft has talked up the Skull and Bones insider program before with regards to beta access (which has yet to materialize), but the fresh link and wording for these "live tests" suggests we may get a chance to try the game out in the wild in the months ahead. We'll likely learn more about this at Thursday's show.

This reveal will hopefully confirm (or debunk) the many rumors swirling around Skull and Bones. Just last month, it was said to be getting a big July reveal complete with a release date. We're still waiting on the latter, but with the show now official, a date looks likelier than ever. 

Whether Skull and Bones is indeed November-bound, as another rumor claims, remains to be seen. Previous rumors, which followed leaked and now-removed gameplay footage, also suggested a fall launch was in the cards but were light on specifics. 

Skull and Bones has been languishing in development for several years. As of July 2020 it had reportedly been rebooted to be more of a live service game and help set it apart from the other games in Ubisoft's stable. In July 2021, on the heels of a report detailing the game's troubled development, Ubisoft confirmed the game had passed the alpha state. So it's only fitting that July 2022 will, hopefully, give us a meaty slice of gameplay and – if we're lucky – a release date. 

Skull and Bones was recently rated by the ESRB, among others, which lines up with all the talk of an impending launch.