How to remove the Death Mark Expired Skull and Bones message

Skull and Bones Death Mark rescinded message — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

If you're getting spammed with the Skull and Bones Death Mark Expired message, you can get rid of it by reloading your game. Only adding to the confusion, lots of players are getting this message about a Death Mark being rescinded without even being knowingly marked in the first place. From our experience playing, it seems like the Helm – the Skull and Bones organization behind the Death Marks – has fallen victim to a bug in their system. Here's how you can quickly get rid of the Death Mark Expired message and what it means.

Stop Skull and Bones Death Mark Expired message

Skull and Bones Death Mark expired notification — (Image credit: Ubisoft)

If the Death Mark Expired notification is popping up for you a lot as you play Skull and Bones, here are two reliable ways of getting the message to go away:

Reload Skull and Bones: Quit to the main menu and load back into the game or restart it entirely. Skull and Bones is always online and saves constantly, so you don't need to worry about losing progress when quitting or closing the game.
Speak to an NPC: If you're not out on the open sea, find a vendor or other NPC and chat with them to block the message - like at a vanity atelier where you can change your appearance in Skull and Bones.

This Death Mark system doesn't seem to be working quite as intended, so hopefully this gets patched by Ubisoft soon to prevent endless messages getting in the way of your voyages.

What does the Death Mark Expired message in Skull and Bones mean?

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The short answer is we're not entirely sure what the Death Mark itself means or does but it’s tied to an organization known as the Helm that you can encounter further into Skull and Bones. We reckon that performing actions against the interests of the Helm draws their ire, causing your ship to become "Death Marked", acting as a sort of wanted level, causing ships to become hostile and hunt you down.

However, as mentioned above, the system seems to be quite buggy, with players receiving lots of notifications about Death Marks, not only when they're not marked, but also when they haven't even encountered the Helm yet.

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Will Sawyer is a Guides Editor at GamesRadar+ with over five years of experience in writing online guides, news, and features, and has a BA (Hons) in Journalism. Starting as a freelancer, Will contributed to startmenu and Game Rant before joining the GamesRadar+ team in August 2021. Since then, he has written hundreds of guides about a huge range of games, with shooters and action games being his areas of expertise. Outside of writing about games, Will hops between multiplayer shooters with friends, such as Darktide and Helldivers 2, and delves into whatever has been on his backlog for far too long. He also tries to get through his never-ending Warhammer pile of shame of grey Tyranids, Aeldari, and Chaos Space Marines.