Challenge Skull & Bones is a long awaited game. Now, for the first time, players and content creators will be able to sail their first nautical miles toward a great adventure in the closed beta from 25th to 28th August.
But no pirate takes to the sea without preparation; our job was to share early information about the game, the closed beta and the content creator program to introduce, frame and promote the game and the stakes properly. It’s a lot of information and we wanted as many players as possible to take it on board before the closed beta launch.
Our challenges were twofold: Offer a unique experience to invited content creators and players to celebrate the first public handover of the game. Showcase meaningful content and information (10min+ of videos) for them to enjoy the closed beta in the best way.
Our Approach
An immersive, interactive and informative experience
Our first discussions with Ubisoft led quickly to the ambition of an immersive and interactive experience that players could access before the closed beta started. The objective was to bring players into the game before they could actually get their hands on it… while also being playful rather than passive. We needed to create the best conditions for them to enjoy the content we wanted to share.
We created Ubisoft’s first ever open world on Discord.
From there, we sailed forward creating a Discord bot that would generate a deep narrative experience. Users were welcomed by Stubb, an old timer pirate, who guided them through different places and introduced other characters to help them find what kind of pirate they are. We cut each piece of content into small, digestible videos and wrapped it all up in an immersive narrative with an abundance of choices to make throughout.
Did we stop there? Of course not. After these first steps, we handed a map to the player. By typing the command /sail and any map coordinates, they would be led to a new destination. Beautiful islands, weird foes, strange creatures, sea shanties… and an encounter with a ghost ship? There was a lot to discover but, as with any pirate voyage, the most important thing of all was the treasure. We hid a stash of closed beta keys somewhere on the map, and challenged users to find them among a host of other easter eggs. Once found, they could share them with their community.
A narrative bot with around 30-40 minutes of experience if you wanted to go through the whole story and the 3 mini-game bots. Around 35 videos, gifs and pictures to support the adventures of our pirates.
An adaptable, scalable and community friendly tool.
Audience wise, content creators and core players are already heavy Discord users (65.7% of Discord users are gaming at least 4-5 times a week). It was natural to use a tool they’re already familiar with rather than creating a website from scratch.
Discord also offers the opportunity to be scalable. We can add/remove features in the future without compromising the experience. Better still, we can decide to open it to everyone, without the need for adjustments, for onboarding or a future community activation.