The cat is finally out of the bag in what was one of gaming’s worst-kept secrets — a position admitted by Ubisoft itself — and fans like me are now eagerly awaiting Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced before its July 9 release.
The original Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is widely heralded as one of the best Assassin’s Creed games, taking the series to the Golden Age of Piracy in the 18th century, featuring wonderful and exotic locations, wonderful ship exploration, and one of the very best protagonists and casts in the series history.
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Having had earlier sight of that stream and presentation that we’ve now all seen, I’ve been able to think about the new features, the original game, and, as an Assassin’s Creed fanatic, what I’m excited about and what I hope stays true to the original in Resynced.
No more insta-fail stealth missions
Praise be to the Ubisoft gods that insta-fail tailing missions are now a thing of the past in Black Flag!
I could only start with this one, as this generation of Assassin’s Creed games, if you will, was plagued by this, and most of the community was annoyed by them in every game across releases. Now it looks like one of the best AC games will do away with them, and I fully expect those missions, and thus the whole game, to be much better.
As Matt Ryan says in the stealth part of the presentation, “Tailing and eavesdropping missions have also been revamped. In the original game, getting discovered meant instant desynchronization. Yes, this was a pretty big pain point. We remember! Now, the action continues. Your objectives remain, but your target will react, and you must adapt accordingly.”
No more insta-fails and back to game over screens, finally. This will be an excellent new feature, and I’m looking forward to having ot fight my way out when I inevitably give myself away in one of these missions.
Building the crew of the Jackdaw — and adding a cat
Much like in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, where you could do some form of crew recruitment, I always thought in hindsight that filling your crew with officers and enthusiastic pirates would have been a feather in Black Flag’s hat. And now it will be.
The opportunity to recruit three named officers who will bring tangible changes and upgrades to the Jackdaw is excellent, and it helps give some more purpose and meaning behind upgrading your beloved ship. The three new officers — Lucy Baldwin, The Padre, and Deadman Smith — will each bring something to the ship and your crew, and each one “has a unique narrative questline that reveals their backstory,” which I am really intrigued to dive into.
In arguably more amazing news, you can now recruit a ship cat or ship monkey as a pet for the Jackdaw. I am team cat, so I will be making a beeline straight for a feline friend.
Throw in some new sea shanties to complement Brian Tyler’s soundtrack — which was already an excellent musical score chock full of great tunes, including some of my all-time favorites like ‘Stealing a Brig’ and ‘In This World or the One Below’ — and exploring the high seas on the Jackdaw is going to be a true highlight in Resynced.
More story, more lore
We now know that there’s going to be, well, more Black Flag in Black Flag Resynced, which is excellent news.
Paul Fu, Creative Director on Resynced, said in the presentation that the team has “added brand new chapters and brand new missions to the game, including a brand new scene with Edward’s wife, Caroline, that’s written by Darby [McDevitt] himself.”
I can’t wait to see what expanded storylines or new narrative threads have been added to what was already one of the best stories in the series. Edward Kenway, as a character and protagonist, is one of the most compelling and interesting, too, so I’m absolutely here for more on him and his journey.
We also know there’s going to be more stories affecting some of our favorite characters, too, with the devs saying that there will be some “new narrative arcs involving our old friends Blackbeard and Stede.” While these two are wildly different, of course, they are both grippingly interesting, and I’d love to see how Black Flag Resynced might do more with Stede — perhaps more on his demise? — and the scary loose cannon that is Edward Thatch.
Lastly, when it comes to narrative content, we know the team has changed it up regarding the modern-day sections of the game — and I’m really keen to explore it. Yup, it’s me, an Assassin’s Creed fan who likes the modern-day stuff.
Fu described the changes to the Abstergo elements like this: “For Black Flag Resynced, we have approached [the modern-day part] in a way that focuses on Edward’s journey, while still connecting his memories to the animus. The modern-day rifts in Black Flag Resynced will feature new moments on Edward’s internal struggles.”
Even though I didn’t mind, and enjoyed the modern-day parts of most Assassin’s Creed games, diving deeper into Edward Kenway and his journey and internal struggles as a human is going to be much more exciting than playing as an Abstergo IT guy going around fixing broken PCs.
Perked up parkour
While I haven’t enjoyed a change in the series’ parkour as much as the transformational system that Assassin's Creed Unity brought a new generation of traversal to the games, the addition of the modern games’ parkour systems and features is still a welcome addition to Resynced.
Modernising the parkour and giving players more options, pace, choice of route, and action will only make for more fabulous, satisfying, and slick movement from place to place, be that across roofs, up ships’ masts, or through tree tops and scaling cliffs.
It will improve movement greatly, given Black Flag's parkour, which was from the older, much more 'sticky' kind of parkour. The recent additions to the likes of Assassin's Creed Mirage and Assassin's Creed Shadows, such as free jumping and even crouching, will add extra depth to Kenway’s traversal of the Caribbean enormously.
New treasures in the form of — presumably — a new trophy list
I’ve really loved scouring the maps, hunting down secrets, and completing fun combat combos and challenges to achieve a platinum trophy in nine Assassin’s Creed games to date.
The newer games in the series have been fun and relatively straightforward to complete in that manner, and it's something I hope will be the case with Resynced.
Given Ubi confirmed that there is no multiplayer or DLC in Resynced, we can immediately and pretty reliably infer that the trophy and achievement list will at least be edited down from the original, but perhaps added to and expanded if the devs have had some fun with matching some to the new content.
The older games were notoriously harder or more time-consuming, at least, to platinum, so removing multiplayer in itself is going to be a boon to trophy hunters; Black Flag originally had seven or eight online or multiplayer trophies, so dropping those would make it much more doable.
Even more beautiful landscapes
The Caribbean seas and islands of Black Flag were probably the best landscapes and environments in the series when the game launched back in 2013.
I loved island hopping in the Jackdaw, enjoying the expansive seascapes, and running and parkouring through lush jungles, up trees, and soaking up rays on the sunniest of beaches. Now, powered by Ubisoft's latest iteration of its Anvil engine, everything is going to look even more fantastic, lush, vivid, and beautiful.
While the jump from PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4 was obvious in a game like Black Flag that released on both platforms, the fact that it was originally developed for the former means that we are in for an absolute treat when it comes to visual and performance upgrades. I'm hoping it'll look even better on my PS5 Pro, too.
Enhanced piratical combat
Black Flag's combat was fun, pretty slick, and satisfying to master and get used to over the course of the game, but I remain really intrigued by the changes to Kenway's fightin' ability promised by Resynced.
The inclusion of parries, and perfectly timed ones at that, to open up defenses, the way it slows down time, and the slick combos Kenway can use with swords, pistols, his fists and feet look, and hidden blades — even by the small clips we've seen so far — looks action-packed and really cool.
The addition of being able to use the environment and breakables deliberately looks fun as heck too, and I can't wait to chain the maximum amount of baddie takedowns together to make for a seamless wave of piratical action.
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