Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Review: Fresh Wind for the Pirate Adventure

New Content and Removed Animus Segments

In addition to a comprehensively overhauled graphics engine, the remake offers finely tuned gameplay mechanics and in part new content such as a multi-hour side quest introducing new characters. Ubisoft has introduced a new final chapter with eight missions that completes the story of Blackbeard. The drama surrounding Edward's wife has also been more clearly fleshed out. The excursions into "modern times," in which players awaken via the "Animus" from the memories of their ancestors, have been cut. Instead, at key points in the story, portals open up in which Edward experiences alternative developments of his story through an agility parkour.

The ocean finally no longer feels like a blue carpet but is a game element in its own right: massive waves tower up in front of the pirate ship. Whereas in the original one could only dive underwater at certain points, the entire ocean is now explorable. Players can climb into a diving bell to discover valuable chests deep underwater, significantly expanding exploration. Not least thanks to the addition of ray tracing, the islands feel more alive under changing weather conditions.

Overhauled Naval Battles and Ship Equipment

The ship, the Jackdaw, offers more upgrade options than in the original, and players can equip it with cannons and mortars. For example, the regular broadside cannons can now also fire a "Heated Shot." This sends glowing cannonballs toward the enemy. During naval battles, Edward boards enemy ships with his crew. After a brief fight, he can either scrap them for repair materials or add them to his own fleet. There is also a new enemy type that can take Edward down with a blunderbuss.

The combat system has been made more challenging: enemies now sometimes attack in groups and fall upon Edward from behind while he tries to break through an opponent's parry. Ubisoft Montreal has not only given enemies new muscles — they were even gifted two brain cells and eyewear. If you are spotted during an assassination mission, you can, if necessary, draw your cutlass or flee without the mission failing. The original didn't even have a stealth button; in Resynced, you can finally switch into stealth mode. The confrontations with the legendary ships have been reworked: they now play out significantly more challenging.

Enemies, AI, and Gameplay Mechanics

The climbing mechanic has been simplified: hold the climb button and push the stick forward, and our protagonist Edward Kenway scampers up the church. The colleagues Nathan Drake and Lara Croft from Tomb Raider and Uncharted offer considerably more here. Typical series side activities are preserved: viewpoints must be climbed, targets assassinated, and items collected — including shanties, seafaring songs our crew strikes up on the high seas. Alongside his missions, Edward also builds up his own little settlement, in which a brothel for his crew is, of course, a must.

Technically, the game runs remarkably stable: Black Flag ran overall surprisingly smoothly on our test system (Ryzen 5 5800X3D, 64 GB RAM, RX 7090 XT) at 4K resolution. Frame rate drops and stuttering fits, as unfortunately frequently occur in modern games, are virtually nonexistent in Black Flag, whereas the original on the Xbox 360 dipped into an FPS range of 20 in cities like Nassau or Havana. Ubisoft has also announced a day-one patch that should presumably fix these issues.

Technology and Performance

The atmosphere has been deliberately brightened: for this, the times of day have even been adjusted so that in-game days are noticeably longer than nights, as Creative Director Paul Fu explains. The world map is not as overloaded as in the most recent "Assassin's Creed Shadows," which benefits the game. The roughly 25-hour main storyline benefits from this focus, although the individual areas are not divided into experience levels but into "Easy," "Medium," and "Hard."

The game thus lines up alongside a roster of successful re-releases: "Resident Evil 2," "Dead Space," and now "Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced" are considered showcase examples of successful remakes. However, the following holds true: Is Black Flag Resynced then the new benchmark for all remakes? No, because anyone who doesn't enjoy stealth- and parkour-heavy gameplay mechanics won't find joy in the remake either. The best Assassin's Creed is and remains Unity, as the author of this review notes.

Cultural Context of Piracy

The appeal of piracy has a long cultural tradition: "Piraten wurden schon zu Lebzeiten kulturpolitisch eingesetzt," historian Eugen Pfister emphasizes. Up until the 1950s, pirate stories often dealt with an honorable man who became a pirate through unfortunate circumstances and ultimately returned to the bosom of society. In place of the honorable pirate came what Eugen Pfister calls the "liberal adventure capitalist" — figures such as Jack Sparrow from "Pirates of the Caribbean" or Edward Kenway from "Assassin's Creed." Charles Johnson's "A General History of the Pyrates" (1724) is classified by historian Jann M. Witt as "Sensationsjournalismus."

Music also plays an important role: folk musician Seán Dagher has spent considerable time at sea himself and composed and recorded several shanties for the video game "Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced." "Auch wenn das Leben auf einem Schiff hart war, ist der Gedanke, an einen neuen Ort zu gelangen und den Problemen des gegenwärtigen Lebens irgendwie zu entfliehen doch aufregend," Dagher explains. "Ich weiß, dass viele Vorstellungen der Popkultur über Piraterie romantisiert sind und das ist toll," he adds. "Piraten üben eine große Faszination auf die Menschen aus, weil sie ihnen ein Gefühl von Freiheit und Abenteuer vermitteln," Paul Fu summarizes. The lure of the sea and the longing for the unknown thus remain the driving forces behind the franchise's success.