Skull And Bones Cross-Play And Multiplayer Explained

Sailing the high seas in Skull and Bones is something that's simply more enjoyable with a group of friends via traditional online multiplayer and cross-play. Skull and Bones features both solo and multiplayer elements, but Ubisoft has stressed the new pirate title is designed to be a multiplayer-first game. While you're free to participate in multiplayer with players on your own server, you can also invite friends to your lobby, regardless of what system they're using.

Skull and Bones features full cross-play functionality in addition to cross-saves, so you can access your saves on any system you own the game on. The way cross-play and multiplayer work in Skull and Bones is slightly confusing, though, so check out the guide below for a full rundown of the features.

How crossplay works in Skull and Bones

For starters, you need to enable crossplay in Skull and Bones to take advantage of it. This is done by following the steps below:

• Open Skull and Bones and navigate to Settings
• Go to the Accessibility tab within Settings
• Scroll down until you see the Cross-play section
• Set Cross-play to "On" by checking the box and then leave the Settings

Once you have crossplay enabled, you can start inviting friends on any platform to your lobby. The server you play on will also be full of players on different platforms.

How to add and invite friends in Skull and Bones

With cross-play enabled, you now can invite any player to join you on the open seas. However, getting them into your lobby can be a slight challenge, as there are multiple ways to go about doing so.

First, you can simply go to the "Social" tab in-game (Y on PC/Xbox, Triangle on PS5) and start inviting players you already have added on your friends list. This will mostly consist of players on the same platform as you. In the Social tab, you can also go to the "World" tab to see all of the players you've recently met on a server. Here, you can select the name of a player you want to add, and, once they accept your request, you can invite them to your game. You can also see all of your pending requests in the "Requests" tab of the Social menu.

If you want to add a player not on the same platform as you, you'll have to add them via their Ubisoft account. Obviously, you'll also need to have a Ubisoft account to add and accept friend requests. There's currently no way for you to search for a player's username in Skull and Bones itself, so searching through Ubisoft Connect (either the app or website) is currently the only way to add players who aren't already on your friends list or on your server. So, if you want to add a friend who's on PS5 while you're on PC, you both have to make an Ubisoft account, add each other through there, and then invite them to your lobby once they're on your friends list.

However, if you want the option for anyone to join your lobby at any time, you can change your Privacy Options in the Social menu. In the "Group and Friends" tab, you can set your privacy to "Open," "Friends Only," or "Invite Only." If you want any player from your server to join your game, have this on Open. But leaving it on the other two options ensures only friends can join your lobby.

Speaking of which, Skull and Bones currently only allows lobbies of up to three to form. This means you and two other players can be in your party at the same time. As for the servers themselves, 20 players are allowed on a single server at once.

Once you have your lobby, you can enter Skull and Bones and your entire party will be able to sail the seas together. You're able to split up and do individual tasks or take on the game together.