Skull and Bones’ newest season, Shattered Seas, kicks off today, bringing a renewed focus on naval combat to the Indian Ocean.
Naval combat is the heart of Skull and Bones, and Shattered Seas opens Year 3 with a deeper, more meaningful power progression, built around the new Seasonal Mastery Tree and two new World Tiers designed for the new unlocked power.
The Galleon, the third large ship in the game, is emblematic of this renewed focus on power progression, along with the new Mythic Ascension and Reforge features. Together, everything marks a fundamental shift in what each new season will deliver: increased power, more challenge variety, and a clearer path from captain to legend.
Seasonal Mastery Tree
A new feature introduced in Shattered Seas, the Seasonal Mastery Tree is a seasonal progression system designed to deepen buildcrafting and loadout specialization to tackle the heightened difficulty of World Tiers 3 and 4. It offers over 500 nodes, allowing you to experiment with different builds and ultimately create your own, unique build that is exactly suited to your playstyle.
Gain Infamy to increase your Mastery Level, which will net you Mastery Points that can be used to unlock nodes on the Mastery Tree. Seasonal Mastery and Perks will reset each season.
The Mastery Tree is the foundation of progression for Year 3, designed to reward players at a faster pace each season, taking your power from Ship Rank 13 up to 30, so you can feel your build come alive sooner and continue evolving as challenges escalate.
Seasonal Perks
As you gain Seasonal Mastery Levels, you’ll unlock Seasonal Perks at levels 10, 30, and 60. A new feature introduced in Shattered Seas; one Perk offers a choice of unique, high-impact bonuses that redefine your presence on the high seas. Here’s an example of two Perk choices:
- Reactive Bulwark – After bracing for three seconds, explode and damage hostile enemies within a 250m radius for 1000% of your armor rating
- Deadly Medicine – Store 100% of healing done as additional damage, up to 100,000. Additional damage is added to the next successful attack on an enemy target
With your build now defined by powerful perks, it’s time to unleash that playstyle on the open seas through ships build for devastation.
New Large Ship: The Galleon
Nicknamed The Oppressor, the Galleon is designed to be a destructive force on the high seas. With the most gun ports on the broadsides than any other ship in the game, the Galleon excels at close-range, high-DPS combat as you shatter enemy hulls with ruthless efficiency. Its signature perk, Iron Thunder, increases the Galleon’s damage within 350m. Damage dealt will also build towards a brutal damage surge, which rallies nearby allies as well. Iron Thunder can be upgraded to Red Wake, which increases the close-range damage even more and gives you a burst of speed to keep up with your prey.
As your build comes together and your Galleon reaches its full potential, the world itself begins to evolve to meet your growing power.
Two New World Tiers
World tiers are an exciting way to take on tougher challenges (and net greater rewards) in Skull and Bones, and Shattered Seas is introducing two new world tiers for players. These are:
- World Tier 3: Rogue Storms – enemies have a chance to gain up to three Seasonal Affixes, introducing new combat mechanics, strengthened enemies, and greater demands on your build.
- World Tier 4: Brutal Tempest – home to the Kraken, the ultimate challenge on the Indian Ocean. Enemies can roll up to five Seasonal Affixes, and those Affixes are further strengthened. There is also a Mythic World Event difficulty exclusive to this tier.
To change your World Tier, you must have reached Kingpin level infamy and have finished the World Ascension quest. All World Events will remain available across all four World Tiers, with scaled difficulty and rewards. Greater risk means greater rewards, and as you move through the World Tiers, you’ll earn increasingly rare loot and mark yourself as one of the most battle-hardened captains on the Indian Ocean. To keep pace with these escalating challenges, players gain access to new ways to push their gear even further.
Mythic Ascension and Reforge
Mythic Ascension and Mythic Reforge open up a new ceiling of progression, enabling build-defining upgrade systems that push your gear beyond its current limits and tailor your loadouts to your playstyle. Designed to scale with the escalating challenges of higher World Tiers, Mythic Mods reward mastery, experimentation, and bold customization as you carve your legend across Shattered Seas. Here are two examples of Mythic Mods:
- Wildfire: Deals 1.1 - 2.5% Burning Damage when the Ablaze status effect is applied to a target. Ablaze will be applied to targets in a radius of 300m
- Voltaic Charge: Deal additional 110-250% Electric Damage on a target when it triggers the Stormstruck status effect
Faction War Event: Safeguard
The Faction War continues with a new event: Safeguard. Defend your manufactories against escalating waves of enemy ships in this PvE survival challenge. Coordinate with allies to defend your position, repel attacks, secure War Assets, and maintain your Faction’s control in Contested Territories.
Returning Time-Limited Events
Two fan-favorite limited-time events are making a comeback in Shattered Seas.
- The Honorless, May 12-June 9 – cut through waves of enemies to summon a deadly boss fight
- Moonshine Larceny, starting June 30 – fight high-energy skirmishes against elite convoys to steal moonshine and defeat the Manic Moonshiner
Both events bring intense cooperative combat, new auras and cosmetics, and a revamped reward lineup to keep the chaos lively and lucrative.
New Ship Campaign: The Barque
A limited-time ship campaign will begin mid-season, featuring specific challenges and a dedicated reward track, culminating in a ship deed for the Barque. You’ll earn valuable progression and upgrade materials as you work towards the ship deed.
A ship deed can be redeemed at the Shipwright to unlock an already-crafted ship.
New Equipment
Shattered Seas also introduces new weapons, armor, and furniture to help you rise to the new challenges on the Indian Ocean. They include:
- Hullcarver Culverin – a high rate of fire weapon that devastates targets with multiple shots
- Blightbearer Long Gun – a precise Poison weapon, prized for its strength against fortified ships
- Needle Shield Armor – uses your enemy’s weakness to boost your own protection
- Floodbound Armor – turns surrounding chaos and flooded enemies into a steady source of recovery
- Royal Ramming Works – a ramming-focused royal armament that slows targets, amplifies piercing damage, and passively weakens nearby enemies
- Floodwarden Station Major Furniture – Increases Flooding damage; Flooded enemies deal less damage and remain flooded longer
Year 3 Roadmap
Shattered Seas may be here for just a season, but there’s much more planned in the rest of Skull and Bones Year 3, called Sails of Power. Here’s a glimpse of what’s brewing:
- Two new large ships, the Junk and Fluyt
- New Faction War events
- New power progressions: mod transfers and equipment sets
- New challenges: the Abyssal Depths and new elite bosses
- New feature: Trials
- Several quality-of-life improvements
The game has also been optimized on PC, broadening the opportunity for players on that platform to have a smooth experience. Play Skull and Bones today on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via the Ubisoft Store, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. You can also play with a Ubisoft+ subscription.
