Skull and Bones Y3S1 Patch Notes (11th May 2026)

Galleon
Seasonal Mastery
Mythic Modifications
World Tiers
Smuggler Pass
Megafort Wolvenhol Fixes, Updates, and QOL
Fixes
Known Issues

Year 3 Season 1 brings the long‑awaited arrival of the Galleon to the Indian Ocean. Alongside it comes Seasonal Mastery, a rework of World Tiers, and a new iteration of Item Ascension with Mythic Modifications.

So, Captain, are you ready to brave the Shattered Seas?

The Galleon is a DPS focused large ship with a massive number of gunports. This ship overwhelms their targets with close-range crushing firepower.

Starting from Year 3 Season 1, the Maximum Fleet Size has been increased to 50.

The new Seasonal Mastery Tree is unlocked after reaching Kingpin, where players can use their earned Infamy to increase their Seasonal Mastery Level.

Each level earned provides Mastery Points which can be spent on the Mastery Skill Tree to increase various ship stats and gain Ship Rank, granting new levels of power which will be required to tackle the new World Tiers.

There is a total of 80 Mastery Levels to attain each season. Additionally, powerful seasonal perks will be unlocked at Mastery Levels 10, 30, 60 that can supercharge players loadouts each season.

The Seasonal Journey will still be available but will focus more on guiding players through new seasonal quests and World Tiers to unlock various non-combat seasonal buffs.

Both the Seasonal Mastery and Journey will reset each Season bringing with it refreshed content to both.

Depending on the Mastery Levels reached at the end of each Season; players will start the next season with various levels already available.

Mythic Modifications are a tier of equipment modifications available for Uncommon rarity equipment and above.

There is also a chance for equipment with Mythic Mods to be acquired via drops in World Tiers 3 & 4.

Ascending equipment to unlock a Mythic Modification or reforging will require a new material, the Nightshade Pearl.
Nightshade Pearls can be obtained from Domains in World Tiers 3 & 4.

List of Mythic Weapon Modifications

List of Mythic Armor Modifications

In Year 2 Season 1 we introduced World Tier 2 as we moved towards multiple levels of difficulty. With Year 3 Season 1 we’re making further improvements to the existing World Tiers and introducing new ones.

Challenges have been revised and rewards redistributed. Each World Tier will offer access to increased currency and material drop rates, while simultaneously introducing new challenges in the form of Seasonal Affixes, enemy adjustments, and event availability.

World Tier Ascension Quests

To unlock each new world tier, you will need to complete World Ascension quests in the previous World Tier. They work similarly to the one to unlock World Tier 2 with one exception. The Quests to unlock World Tiers 3 & 4 will be refreshed each Season and access to their targeted World Tiers rescinded.

At the start of a new season, players will need to regain access to World Tiers 3 & 4 by completing the new version of each challenge quest.

World Tier Content Changes

With the introduction of new levels of challenge, several activities have been moved to higher World Tiers to match their status as endgame challenges. We’ve also adjusted drops and rewards depending on which World Tier you play in.

Cross server matchmaking are still available in any World Tier between 2-4.

Starting from World Tier 3, enemies will now have a chance to gain a Seasonal Affix. Seasonal Affixes are a limited set of powerful abilities that replaces the existing set of randomized Affixes and now grow in strength with each additional World Tier.

While Affixes are no longer applied to every ship, these limited Seasonal Affixes are much more deadly, turning even standard ships into high-threat targets that must be prioritized and strategically dealt with.

These Affixes will be revised for each Season, presenting different challenges with each update.

Dev Note: Right now, every ship has affixes, which means most encounters end up with too many effects happening at once. Because they are random and can have a negligible effect, they can be hard to notice or feel like they matter little during combat.

With this updated system, we aim to make Affixes play a bigger and clearer role in each encounter, presenting key threats that players that are easier to spot, understand and plan around.

Dev Note: Along with increasing the number of reforge attempts to 100 with the release of Mythic Mods, we also made some adjustments to the reforge logic of item ascension. After a particular modification is seen while reforging, the chance of obtaining the same modification on the next few reforge attempts is significantly reduced.

This change should allow players to more reliably obtain the specific modification combinations they want for a specific piece of equipment without running out of reforge attempts. While the chance of high/low values of modifications remain unaffected, our goal with this change is to make it easier for players to attain their preferred playstyle through their equipment modifications much earlier in the reforging process and instead spend a larger proportion of reforge attempts to perfect their modification values.

We’re introducing a new Equipment Overview that gives the player the full ship’s equipment, making it easier to view and change builds.

A new Ship Summary will show more information, such as visibility on how the equipment impacts your ship.

A new Layout lets players see everything at once instead of having to check items one by one.

The new State of Equipment’s Tooltip gives the option to reduce the secondary stats and all visuals, making it all fit into one tooltip, which doesn’t require you to scroll. It groups related info together & prioritize important stats of each equipment.

New Faction War Event: Safeguard (PvE, Co-op)

Defend your Faction's Manufactories against hostile forces in this PvE Co-op Survival Challenge. Work together with your allies, hold your ground and repel relentless assaults to claim War Assets, and protect your Faction's domination in the Contested Territories.

War Effort additions:

Faction Broker now sells previous season’s Cosmetics for Gildmarks.

This Equipment can be obtained through the Faction Wars reward track.

Epic Flooding Mortar: De Breker

Epic Piercing Springloader: L’Aiguille

Epic Major Furniture: Royal Ramming Works

Other Faction War Changes

The DMC has hired a bounty hunter to attack Blackwood's ally and seize his ship. Reclaim Blackwood's ally's vessel and avenge its fallen captain.

Help Blackwood reclaim an ally's ship.

Amidst the chaos of war, the seas are rife with betrayal. The Helm has been compromised by an attack from within, leaving Yanita troubled.

Lucian Harrow's secret convoy sails off the coast of Africa. Seize it to uncover his sinister plans for the Indian Ocean.

Dev Note: The new story quests (Long Live The Helm & A Friend from Afar) will be accessible to the player on completion of all the previous story quests, primarily the quest "A Quiet Pull".

New vanity bundles will be available in the Smugglers Pass including Hellfire Reign, Cursed Djinn’s Exile, Royal Ship, Demon King, Desert Marauder and more.

New Pet: Hairless Henrietta

New Ship Blueprint: Galleon Blueprint

New Challenge: Claim Seasonal Journey Nodes

New Items at Blackwood

From 12 May 2026, 6am UTC (Week 1) to 9 June 2026, 6am UTC (Week 4).

Honorless Event Updates

Honorless Event Rewards

From 30 June 2026, 6am UTC (Week 8) to 28 July 2026, 6am UTC (Week 11).

Moonshine Event Updates

Moonshine Larceny Event Rewards

New Seasonal feature with the goal of providing players with an alternative way to acquire specific ships that were previously released. This season we have the Barque as the featured ship.

The campaign will run for two weeks from 16 June 2026, 6am UTC (Week 6) to 30 June 2026 (Week 7).

The Campaign contains a simple reward track with valuable resource rewards, and with the final reward being a ship deed that can be exchanged at the Shipwright for a fully built ship! (Base Ship)

Players can progress this reward track, by completing exclusive challenges available only during the Campaign period. There are more challenges available than required to complete the campaign, this allows players to choose challenges that fit their playstyle.

Players can also choose to purchase Reward Tier Skips for gold, if they wish to speed up their progression.

Glory Adorned – Hellfest

From 9 June 2026 (Week 5), 6am UTC to 30 June 2026, 6am UTC (Week 7).

“No storm can break what is born at sea.”
Plunder the seas and devour your foes with the Burning Beast – a Sambuk-exclusive cosmetic skin.

"Who is to tell where the storm ends and you begin?"
Stalk the Indian Ocean in the Hunter’s Wrath set and mark your dominion in blood.

"In the wild, only claw and cunning thrive."
Harness the wind and strike in the storm as the Jade Prowler.

New Performance Features & Fixes

Dev Note: Regarding the objectives mismatch, it was previously possible for players to enter into an earlier phase in their own objectives' tracker while the Megafort has already progressed. This was usually triggered via failing the objective (dying or leaving the location) or entering via backfilling.

We have implemented a fix where the player’s objective will automatically progress if the objective tracker detects a mismatch. However, as this will make it possible for players to exploit the Megafort by constantly dying in the later phases to receive Phase 1 and 3’s rewards, we have moved the rewards to the end of the encounter.

Commodore Aechte Fixes

Megafort Wolvenhol QOLs Added

This is not the full list of issues that are being investigated, we’re constantly looking into the issues reported by players.

Please continue to submit bug reports through the Bug Reporter should you encounter any issues: https://www.ubisoft.com/en-us/game/skull-and-bones/bug-reporter

Your Bug Reporter contributions do greatly help us to prioritize the most impactful issues and analyze the specific profiles of players affected by various issues.

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