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 release on July 9.
The original Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is widely considered one of the best Assassin’s Creed games, taking the series to the golden age of piracy in the 18th century, with wondrous and exotic locations, wonderful ship exploration, and one of the best protagonists and actors in the series’ history.
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After seeing that stream and presentation that we all saw, I was able to reflect on the new features, the original game, and, as an Assassin’s Creed fanatic, what excites me and what I hope stays true to the original in Resynchronized.
No more stealth missions that fail instantly
Praise the Ubisoft gods, instant follow-up missions are now a thing of the past. Black flag!
I could only start with this one, because this generation of Assassin’s Creed games, if you will, was plagued by it, and most of the community was annoyed by it in every game, across versions. It now looks like one of the best AC games will remove them, and I expect these missions, and therefore the entire game, to be much better.
As Matt Ryan says in the stealth portion of the presentation, “The shadowing and eavesdropping missions have also been overhauled. In the original game, being discovered meant instant desync. Yes, that was a pretty big problem. We remember that! Now the action continues. Your objectives remain, but your target will react and you’ll have to adapt accordingly.”
No more instant failures and a return to on-screen gaming, finally. This will be a great new feature, and I can’t wait to get away with it when I inevitably betray myself in one of these missions.
Build the Choucas crew – and add a cat
A bit like in Assassin’s Creed Odysseywhere some form of crew recruitment could be carried out, I always thought in hindsight that filling your crew with enthusiastic officers and pirates would have been a feather in the cap. Black flagthe hat. And now it will.
The opportunity to recruit three named officers who will bring tangible changes and improvements to the Jackdaw is a great one, and it helps bring more purpose and meaning to improving 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 “has a unique story questline that reveals their story,” which I’m definitely intrigued to delve into.
In arguably more surprising news, you can now recruit a Ship Cat or Ship Monkey as a pet for the Jackdaw. I’m a team cat, so I’ll head straight to a feline friend.
Add in some new sea shanties to complement Brian Tyler’s soundtrack – which was already a great musical score filled with 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 Choucas will be a real highlight in Resynchronized.
More history, more knowledge
We now know there will be, well, more Black flag In Resynchronized Black Flagwhich is excellent news.
Paul Fu, creative director of Resynced, said in the presentation that the team has “added all-new chapters and all-new missions to the game, including an all-new scene with Edward’s wife, Caroline, written by Darby.” [McDevitt] se.”
I can’t wait to see what expanded storylines or new narrative threads were added to what was already one of the best stories in the series. Edward Kenway, as a character and protagonist, is also one of the most compelling and interesting, so I’m absolutely here to learn more about him and his journey.
We also know that there will be more stories affecting some of our favorite characters, with the developers saying that there will be “new story arcs involving our old friends Blackbeard and Stede.” While these two are very different, of course they’re both extremely interesting, and I’d like to see how Black Flag Resynced could do more with Stede – perhaps more about his disappearance? – and the creepy loose cannon that is Edward Thatch.
Finally, when it comes to the narrative content, we know the team has changed it when it comes to the modern sections of the game – and I’m really looking forward to exploring it. Yeah, that’s me, an Assassin’s Creed fan who likes modern stuff.
Fu described the changes to Abstergo’s elements like this: “To Resynchronized Black Flagwe approached [the modern-day part] in a way that focuses on Edward’s journey, while also connecting his memories to the animus. Contemporary divisions Resynchronized Black Flag will feature new moments about Edward’s internal struggles.
While I didn’t mind it and enjoyed the modern portions of most Assassin’s Creed games, diving deeper into Edward Kenway and his journey and internal struggles as a human will be much more exciting than playing the role of an Abstergo IT guy fixing broken PCs.
Parkour reinvigorated
Although I didn’t enjoy the change in the series’ parkour as much as the transformation system that Assassin’s Creed Unit brought a new generation of traversal to games, adding the parkour systems and features of modern games is always a welcome addition to Resynced.
Modernizing parkour and giving players more options, pace, route choices, and action will only make traveling more fabulous, more satisfying, and smoother from location to location, whether on rooftops, up ship masts, or through treetops and scaling cliffs.
This will greatly improve the movement, given Black flagParkour, which originated from an older and much “stickier” type of parkour. Recent additions like Assassin’s Creed Mirage And Shadows of Assassin’s Creedsuch as free jumping and even crouching, will add enormous depth to Kenway’s Caribbean crossing.
New treasures in the form of – presumably – a new trophy list
I absolutely loved scouring the maps, tracking down secrets, and pulling off combat combos and fun challenges to earn a platinum trophy in nine Assassin’s Creed games to date.
The most recent games in the series have been fun and relatively simple to make this way, and I hope that will be the case with Resynchronized.
Since Ubi has confirmed that there is no multiplayer or DLC in Resynced, we can immediately and fairly reliably infer that the list of trophies and achievements will at least be changed from the original, but perhaps added and expanded if the developers have had fun matching some of them to the new content.
Older games were notoriously harder or more time-consuming, at least for platinum, so removing multiplayer in itself will be a boon for trophy hunters; Black flag Originally there were seven or eight online or multiplayer trophies, so removing them would make this much more feasible.
Even more beautiful landscapes
The Caribbean Seas and the Islands of Black flag were probably the best landscapes and environments in the series when the game launched in 2013.
I loved traveling the Choucas Islands, enjoying the vast seascapes, running and parkouring through lush jungles, climbing trees and soaking up the rays on the sunniest beach. Now, thanks to Ubisoft’s latest iteration of its Anvil engine, everything is going to look even more fantastical, lush, alive and beautiful.
While the move from PlayStation 3 to PlayStation 4 was evident in a game like Black flag released on both platforms, the fact that it was originally developed for the former means we’re in for a treat in terms of visual and performance improvements. I hope it will be even better on my PS5 Pro too.
Improved Pirate Combat
Black flagKenway’s combat was fun, fairly fluid, and satisfying to master and get used to over the course of the game, but I’m still really intrigued by the changes to Kenway’s combat ability promised by Resynchronized.
The inclusion of, and perfectly timed, parries to open defenses, the way they slow down time, and the nifty combos Kenway can use with swords, guns, his fists and feet, and his hidden blades – even by the little clips we’ve seen so far – look action-packed and really cool.
Adding the ability to use the environment and breakables also sounds fun, and I’m looking forward to stringing together as many baddie kills as possible to create a continuous wave of hacking action.
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