Michelle Rodriguez Talks Starting a Pirate Crew in Skull and Bones, Potential Crossovers, and More

Ubisoft is hitting the high seas with its much anticipated new game Skull and Bones, which puts you in the boots of a pirate crew as they hunt for treasure, deck out their ships, and attempt to leave a mark in the pirate world. You’ll find all sorts of things during your time on the open seas and encounter other crews and possibly a few legendary creatures along the way, and the game also tips its hat to the real-life history of pirates in more ways than one. Fans can learn more about that history in the Skull & Bones companion podcast Gangsters of the Seas, which will be hosted by Fast & Furious and Dungeons & Dragons star Michelle Rodriguez. Rodriguez had a chance to explore the vast seas of Skull & Bones in an early gameplay session, and she discussed what she loved most about the gameplay, ship customization, combat, and more in an interview with ComicBook.com.

Rodriguez jumped into the game early to experience what awaits fans on the open seas, and the game’s mix of ship customization, combat, and exploration seems to have hooked her in a big way. It doesn’t hurt that you never know what you’re going to find in that open world, as Rodriguez found everything from sea monsters to ghost ships during her adventures.

“Oh, dude, I got to say it is really great because there aren’t a lot of world-building games or world… What do you call it, world-roaming games that I’m attracted to. Assassin’s Creed has always been a big one for me. I just started the new Avatar one. Harry Potter was really great, but it’s not something that I do very often just because it’s a lot of work. You put in all that time and sometimes your stuff gets destroyed and you have to start all over and it’s very painful for impatient people like me,” Rodriguez said.

“But I’ve got to say, just the idea of being able to modify your own ship and go out into the seas, and the world is so vast, so big, you can run into everything from sea monsters to ghost ships to play online with other people,” Rodriguez said. “It was attractive. Now after playing it, I’m like, ‘This would be something really cool to get a whole crew together with and build like a clan and just go out there online and just play.’ You could spend so much time in different parts of the Indian Ocean. It’s pretty gnarly. It’s awesome.”

There’s also a level of investment you have in the world and your space in it, as you can lose everything you’ve built if things go seriously awry. While that does pose a big risk, the rewards and the experience it provides are very much worth that risk for Rodriguez.

“And the fact that you have to earn your stripes from a nobody, back into building your own ships and getting your crews together from scratch every time you get defeated, it really puts your skin in the game. You know what I mean? It makes you very careful about what you do next,” Rodriguez said.

Now, customization is where I spend far too much time in just about any game, but give me a sweet ship and I’m at least going to be messing with it for a few hours. Rodriguez is also taken with this aspect of Skull and Bones, and broke down all the various parts of the ship you can toggle and tweak to your liking. You can even make your own furniture!

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want the nitty-gritty. Yeah, dude, you can build the outer layer of your ship. You can build the inner layer of your ship. I’m talking about armaments, shielding. You can actually build furniture within the ship that can modify how your armaments work. You even have weapons that you could shoot at your partner ship to heal it. So you can be the med ship. You can modify your ship to be the one that repairs everybody, and you can do that very quickly as that kind of ship. You can also be the ship that is just full of all the cannons and they have every single type of cannon down to the med cannon, which helps heal your partner ships,” Rodriguez said.

“It’s insane. I mean, it is pretty redonc what you could do. I also like the modifiers for the characters. They’re pretty awesome,” Rodriguez said. “They’ve got some pretty legit tattoos that are from the real world that I’m like, ‘Dude, where’d you get that?’ I’m like, I recognize that. That’s from Thailand.”

Oh, and if you were worried about not having a tiny animal comparison, fear no more, as there is an adorable pet reporting for duty as well. “Oh, you even get a pet that you get to carry around. Well, the pet stays on your ship, of course, by the captain’s quarters.,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez is also hosting the game’s companion podcast Gangsters of the Seas, which aims to showcase the real history of pirates, and those who jump into the podcast will become even more fascinated with this already compelling world. “It’s the world that they’re getting into that I’ve always been attracted to. We didn’t get into it in the podcast, but my favorite are the Caribbean French female pirates,” Rodriguez said. “They’re sick. I mean, hopefully, they’ll include them in the sequel, but these girls, these women were just hardcore, just ripping new ones at sea. And I was just like, I hear the stories in the old books from the 1700s, and I’m like, dude, where are these chicks?”

“And so that’s really what got me started, got me interested in doing the podcast, just because I was intrigued by that world in general. Because to me, it seems like the wild, wild west of the sea. And the sea, there’s more of it than there’s land, and so to me, it seems so vast and crazy, and it seems like stepping into the abyss,” Rodriguez said. “That’s like somebody shooting you into outer space, into the blackness of the unknowable, and you just going out there full throttle like, ‘Yeah, man, I don’t care. Let’s do it.’ It takes some serious balls to do what these pirates were doing back in the day, so I’m just intrigued.”

Rodriguez has played several characters that seem perfectly made for a Pirate crew, with Holga and Letty of Dungeons and Dragons and Fast & Furious immediately coming to mind. I had to ask if she wanted to see a crossover at some point, and Rodriguez is game to make it happen.

“Dude, I want crossover everything, but I’d love to be a pirate man. Hands down. I think I’d be right at home on a nice ship. I’d probably have to learn how to sail one, but that’s secondary. It’s the lifestyle I’m attracted to. Just the freedom. The freedom of just doing your own thing and not giving a rat’s ass what happens,” Rodriguez said. “I’m a little bit more amoral about stuff. If I’m going to hit something, I need a reason. I don’t just take stuff from people for no reason. That’s weaselly, to me. I don’t like it. There’s no integrity to it. But if I could, I don’t know, do some Robin Hood s*** or some insurance type of stuff, that doesn’t hurt me any. Yeah. I have to have a reason though. I can’t just be stealing from anybody.”

You can dive into the world of Skull and Bones on the podcast right here, and you can jump into the game when it launches on February 16th on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.