“That prize will be mine, here or in Hell!” — John Scurlock
“Savage Storm, Part 1”
A gritty story set in the merciless world of Ubisoft’s upcoming pirate game…
Art by Christian Rosado
Lettered by Lucas Gattoni
Colored by Roshan Kurichiyanil
Cover by Pius Bak
Edited by Spencer Cushing and Konner Knudsen
I had written my first video game comics series for Dark Horse years ago — Mass Effect: Redemption — and in the years since had done comics for several other franchises, including Smite and Halo. In the fall of 2021, I was contacted by my Halo editor Spencer Cushing about writing the comics for an upcoming game from a different manufacturer: Ubisoft.
Skull and Bones, a pirate ship game, had been in development for a long time, and the manufacturer wanted comics to go with its eventual release. The problem I faced was that I didn’t have time in my schedule to deal with learning a new world, as I was busy working on Strange New Worlds: The High Country.
Fortunately, Spencer and Ubisoft were willing to let me call upon someone with a lot of gaming knowledge: James Mishler, who had been my coworker at Krause Publications on Comics and Games Retailer, Scrye, and Comics Buyer’s Guide. My idea was that James could be the “world-wrangler,” handling the lore of the game while I dealt with the mechanics of the plot and script. The publishers agreed, and James went to work — not just absorbing what we needed to know about the game, but also contributing the first draft of the plot. I winnowed it down to something I thought would fit, and we went from there. I had not done any collaboration on a comics script with a co-writer before, so what followed was a new process for both of us, working jointly on pages online and discussing lines to include and what to cut.
We chose to focus on two faction leaders that we liked the look of: John Scurlock and Admiral Rahma — and created Maria, a character who could represent the game player entering this new world of piracy. Commodore Vanderkill, the villain, was entirely of our creation, though we did draw upon faction information from the game.
While we finished the first issue in late 2021, it would be more than a year before the issue would release — and even then, the video game wouldn’t come out for nearly a year after that. So for more than a year, our series existed as a preview of what was to come.
“Don’t let a bit of wind bother you!” — John Scurlock
As happened with Mass Effect, most of the swearing in the comic book was added after we were done with the issue, as we didn’t know exactly how salty the pirates in the game would talk!
Latest edition
Skull and Bones: The Savage Storm
A gritty, cinematic pirate adventure charting a course across the high seas in the merciless, bloody world of Ubisoft’s upcoming epic video game.
More info →
 |
 |