Book Review: The Art of Skulls and Bones

It has been ten years since Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was released and the accompanying artbook back then was on my 2013 favourite artbooks list.

Skulls and Bones actually started out as a spin off but eventually became a standalone game. You can read more about the difficulties with its development from the Wikipedia page, but you won't find any (negative) stuff in this artbook.

The artbook's a large format 184-page hardcover published by Dark Horse.

The book is packed with absolutely gorgeous concept art for the characters, props and world. This is easily one of 2024's top artbooks or video game artbooks and I can say that with certainty even though it's just February.

The characters, the pirates, just look so real, believable. The designs look great and the artists really nailed the aura. You don't even need to play the and you can feel that each character has so many stories to tell.

Concept artworks for the environment, world, locales are breathtaking. You can almost experience the wonder or thrill of exploration and discovery just be looking at the landscape paintings. I said almost because the feeling is probably gonna be more intense when you're actually playing the game itself. If you love beautiful background art, this is the book for you, and there is a huge variety of places to see.

There are designs for pirate ships and warships of course. There are also designs for props and interiors. You can tell a lot of research was done on everything, for clothing, culture, architecture and even the tattoos on the pirates. Commentary is quite sparse so the highlight is definitely the art.

This is an amazing artbook for fans of the game, concept artists and those who collect artbooks.

The Art of Skulls and Bones - 02