Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Review

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is, by many accounts, among the fanbase’s favourite games in the franchise. Personally, I rank it just below Assassin’s Creed 2, which edges out thanks to a timeless narrative and a higher delta of meaningful gameplay improvements. Black Flag was the last of its era, built on the second version of the puppeteering system that dictated automated parkour, and improved upon the naval exploration and combat introduced by Assassin’s Creed 3. It took one more swing from Ubisoft with Unity and Syndicate before the franchise pivoted to the modern RPG system. All of this context is required to understand what Black Flag Resynced is trying to do: unite the current and the legacy systems to achieve, at least according to Ubisoft, some level of perfection. And it mostly works.

Yes, the remake has dropped the “4”, along with the modern-day segments, signalling to newer players that it is wholly accessible to the crop that has grown up with the RPG titles. Besides one major blunder, the remake takes the right cues from the RPG framework to improve upon the original. It even adds new mechanics, story segments, and smooths some of the rough edges, both artistic and technical, from the original title to create something more expansive and immersive.

Where to start then? Let’s talk tech. The original game was released on both PS3 and PS4, and their Xbox equivalents, with the primary difference being in resolution and fidelity. Bringing the game to modern systems, Black Flag Resynced is updated with creature comforts such as seamless loading, ray-traced lighting, and smoother 60fps performance. You no longer need to see a loading screen when entering and exiting cities. Updated to the latest version of the Anvil engine, the game supports a wider range of dynamic environmental effects and more accurate lighting to enhance gameplay. It adds a new crouch button with an environment-affected visibility meter, more attack modifiers mapped to the triggers, and removes the minimap entirely, replacing it with an overhead compass that incentivises more emergent exploration, among other changes.

One of the biggest pain points of the original title was its tailing missions and their rigid fail states. Resynced changes that let the mission continue with changing objectives if the player fails the stealth challenge. It’s great on the surface, but in doing so, the game completely strips away any meaning from said missions. Why would any player ever follow a tailing mission when they’re not rewarded for it? In its quest for universal accessibility, Resynced sometimes forgoes any sense of intentionality in game design. I also would have liked the addition of the prone mechanic and the stealth’s insistence on sticking to the shadows from, well, AC Shadows. Not being able to take out dynamic light sources when I see them to create cover creates a dissonance that’s hard to shake.

The same is true for parkour, a heated topic for the franchise. Taking cues from modern AC games, Blag Flag Resynced dumbs down movement for accessibility, chasing pure functionality, driving away any sense of player expression. You only need two buttons for parkour, and they don’t always work as well as they should. The older Assassin’s Creed games required you to control your momentum while traversing the narrow streets, pushing players to move up to rooftops.

As such, the puppeteering system included different states of animation for walking, jogging, sprinting, climbing and vaulting over objects. Players had full control over all of these states, rarely confusing a jog beside a wall with a wall-run because of input mistakes. In Resynced, assigning sprint to the analog stick and combining vaulting, jumping, and climbing to one face button makes things sloppy. You no longer have manual control over your movement. Edward’s wind-up for his running animation takes too long to get going, and he frequently switches between running and walking after attempting any exciting jumps. I frequently found myself tapping the analog stick/sprint button after vaulting over objects, switching between the two running states, which in turn slowed my movement. For this reason, I found that switching to keyboard and mouse was surprisingly more rewarding for movement. Turns out, holding the shift button to run is less tiring than constantly clicking the analog stick.

Chasing sea shanties on rooftops was infuriating, instead of acting as a vessel for showing off my skill for mastering the movement mechanics. Fortunately, manual jumps and advanced parkour mechanics are tucked away in the settings, so players can still attempt side and back ejects along with other moves when the controls are cooperating with them. If there’s one miss in the remake, it’s the parkour, which is a noticeable downgrade from the original. But hey, you can now manually toggle between taking the hood up or down.

Thankfully, the changes made to combat mechanics are much more welcome. The new system retains the wait-and-counter approach of the original while injecting more aggressive, active moves to Edward’s arsenal. There’s a bigger distinction between guarding against attacks and parrying them, the latter resulting in a takedown opportunity. Using the rope dart actively in combat is great, and adding new moves for breaking enemy defence works well. However, I miss the ability to pick up enemy weapons and perform finishers separate from my own tools. Resynced also adds new, more aggressive enemy types that add an adequate amount of challenge, requiring players to switch up their approach. The game is far more inclined towards stealthy takedowns over taking on hordes of enemies, which is always great in an Assassin’s Creed game.

When Ubisoft revealed the remake, I was concerned that it would change the game to become a grind fest for loot and non-linear progression. That’s not the case here. You still need to hunt various animals to upgrade Edward’s stats and tools, and perk systems like trinkets complement gameplay well. The homestead system also rewards players who are willing to invest in it, as is the fleet management. It’s all good stuff.

Naval combat has also been greatly expanded with alternate weapons and defence mechanisms. The new heated shots, upgraded swivel guns, and shrapnel barrels all coalesce to give players more control over naval warfare. I particularly love the new moves unlocked through the new naval officers, which reward timing with perfect brace and a more powerful ram dash. The remastered sound mix also adds a much-needed oomph to the blasts, thunder strikes, rain, and other effects, making seafaring that much more immersive. Weather effects are also more extreme, affecting visibility on the sea. Sea tornadoes are more dangerous, and fighting a Man of War during a thunderstorm makes for some striking imagery that also has gameplay implications.

While all that’s great, there’s also plenty of new content for returning players. I’ll start with my personal favourite - the new recruitable officers for the Jackdaw. Technically side-quests, these officers bring their own uniquely personal stories for Edward to get entangled in. They show how high the series’ potential can be in its storytelling when under the right stewardship. Getting wrapped up in the Padre, Lucy Baldwin, and ‘Deadman’ Smith’s stories provided more conflict, more compelling arcs to dive into than almost the entirety of Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

New content also includes subtler additions such as new islands, more dynamic NPC dialogue, and new activities. New Templar contracts also add more flavour to the world, which also include new cutscenes with compelling new characters. New side-quests put a coda on Edward’s many companions throughout the main story, tying up Black Flag’s narrative with a neat little bow. There is one caveat, though, as the removal of the modern-day segments removes a narrative parallel from its ending. For most players, the new additions will outweigh the absence of the modern-day narrative, which is now completely relegated to the Animus hub.