For a good portion of the 2000s and 2010s, one of the biggest gaming franchises was undoubtedly Assassin’s Creed. The way it blended compelling stories with an addictive gameplay loop rarely got old, even when games would release on a yearly basis. After the switch to a more RPG-esque style, though, some of the series’ magic has been lost. While some games released in the new format did turn out fairly well, all of them had major issues in some form or another. As a whole, the series had stepped away from what made it special in the first place. So, when Ubisoft revealed that it would be remaking Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, I was hopeful that it would inject some much-needed life into the franchise.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is an ambitious remake. It offers new story content and cutscenes, an overhauled visual style, and major gameplay adjustments. Most importantly, contrary to rumors beforehand, it seeks to upgrade the original game’s mechanics, rather than retrofit the new RPG style onto it. Still, when I started playing the game for myself, I had my worries about how this remake would come together. Ultimately though, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is an absolutely fantastic remake of a brilliant game, that has somehow managed to reignite my love for the series.
Homeward Bound
If you have played the original Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, you’re not gonna notice any major new changes to the story. It still follows the same beats: you play as Edward Kenway, a pirate searching for fortune who manages to stumble upon the Assassin and Templar conflict by complete accident. He must navigate past his endless greed as the age of pirates draws to an end, and he’s forced to watch everything he loves be torn away from him, until he makes a climactic choice that changes his life. After all these years, every aspect of the game’s story still manages to strike a chord with me, and I’m so glad that Ubisoft left it intact.
Where you’ll start to notice the major changes is with the presentation. The original Black Flag still looks really good, especially when you consider that it was released at the tail-end of the seventh generation. Still, certain cutscenes and textures haven’t aged as well for modern platforms. Black Flag Resynced had a lot of shoes to fill with how it approached the presentation, yet the finished result ended up being one of the prettiest games I’ve seen in quite a while. Each detail, whether it’s the lighting, the character models, or the textures, has been lovingly redone while maintaining the original’s core.
For instance, a lot of the game you’ll be spending sailing the sea on your ship, the Jackdaw, occasionally swimming and engaging in naval battles as you do so. The level of detail in the water and the ship’s textures was frankly staggering. There were countless times where I’d just stop and stare at the horizon in awe, watching as the sunset or the weather raged out of control. This awe only goes double for the cutscenes, which look absolutely unbelievable.
Character models are rendered with such detail that I feel like I can make out every detail of sweat on their faces. Edward Kenway in particular is rendered with a downright absurd amount of detail, with early game shots of him in particular serving as some of the most gorgeous visuals I’ve seen on the platform. In spite of my poor TV and the lack of a PlayStation 5 Pro, there were very few issues I could find with Black Flag Resynced‘s performance. While some characters like James Kidd do look slightly off compared to their original counterparts, as a whole, the new presentation is undoubtedly a major improvement compared to the original release.
Further, even if there aren’t any changes to the story, there are still new elements for new and old players to chew their teeth into. Most notable are the addition of three new major characters, who you can recruit as officers for the Jackdaw’s crew. Initially, I was concerned about how Ubisoft would manage to add in new characters to the experience, but their inclusion is so seamless that you may not even realize that they weren’t in the original games.
Take one of the new additions, Lucy Baldwin, for instance. You meet Lucy fairly early on as Edward is trying to recruit a shipwright for The Jackdaw. The character has a full questline and unique gameplay abilities she offers to you that are sure to prove useful for all naval battles. What I was most impressed by, though, was the fact that entirely new cutscenes and dialogue were created for all three characters, alongside even more for the entirely new endgame, highlighting more Blackbeard moments. Matt Ryan once again shines as Edward, further cementing the character as one of the series’ best.
Despite how much I loved the new story sequences that provide a great twist on the experience without trampling on the original, there is still one problem worth noting if you’re a fan of the original. The complete lack of the Freedom Cry story focused on Adéwalé is a bit of a shame, considering just how good that expansion was, and how we currently don’t know if it will get the same remake treatment as the rest of the game. This is a nitpick in the grand scheme of things, which doesn’t even remotely distract at all from just how brilliant a remake Resynced is.
At its best, Black Flag Resynced will delight old players with the overhauled presentation, alongside the few new story sequences. Most of all, it serves as a fantastic entry point for new fans who’ve been wanting to check out the series for a while. This is primarily supported by not just the narrative and presentation, but also the gameplay, which has gotten some incredible adjustments.
Roll Boys, Roll!
I’d argue that, to this day, Black Flag offers the best gameplay loop of the entire series. Going from thrilling naval battles to tense stealth sequences never gets old, even despite some of the jank elements of combat and traversal in particular. There were also plenty of other points where the game’s pacing slowed to a crawl due to the Abstergo sections or the missions where you had to tail someone. Black Flag Resynced has managed to fix almost all of these issues in ways I never could’ve expected, making for a gameplay experience that is better than ever before.
To start with, the combat is unbelievably satisfying. You now have a parry to use, and perfect parries will reward you with an instant takedown on your opponent. Sometimes it does feel a bit too easy, but the overall feeling of tearing through enemies in a pirate power fantasy made me more willing to forgive the simple difficulty. It certainly helps that the early introduction of the rope dart, alongside a greater emphasis on player choice, means that no two encounters will be exactly alike. Plus, if you do find yourself getting through combat encounters far too easily, then there’s always the in-depth difficulty sliders which allow you to custom-tune your experience.
Furthermore, players now have more quests and events in the world to get lost in. The aforementioned new character questlines are the biggest addition, but there are also events such as a quest offered by the Villa’s butler, Bernard Woodhouse. He tasks you with helping to maintain the house and will offer rewards and details on his life if you do. Speaking of the Villa, there are now more ways than ever to strengthen your hideout. You can rebuild a general store and a harbormaster, among others, giving you an easy place to spend your resources without having to scramble across the map.
One of my favorite new features is the complete overhaul to tailing missions. In the original, you were constantly forced into following one character for minutes at a time, and if you were spotted, you had to restart the encounter all over again. Now, if you’re spotted, all you need to do is kill your target, and you’ll pick up the information he was carrying. This is an absolutely genius change, and one that I hope more games use in the future. Better still, the complete removal of the Abstergo sequences helps to further streamline the pacing. As a result, there were no points throughout Resynced where I was bored.
Every single new feature included in Black Flag Resynced feels seamless, and one you’ll appreciate as both a new player or a series veteran. New players in particular will quickly become enamored by the gameplay core, with the naval battles in particular still holding up well after all these years. Every encounter feels fresh and exciting, regardless of whether you’ll be fighting a small ship or a massive Man of War. As someone who hasn’t played Black Flag in over a decade, I found myself addicted to Resynced in ways that I haven’t felt in a long time, losing hours as I took part in yet another side quest.
Despite my glowing praise of Resynced‘s gameplay, there are still some critiques I had during my playtime. One of which is how, even if the act of parkour can make navigating towns and islands quite fun, there are plenty of moments where my traversal inputs are far too erratic. In many cases, I would try to descend a building, only to end up jumping off of it and instantly dying. I also think that the addition of a storefront that offers players costumes that don’t fit into the game’s overall tone is very forced, optional though it may be. The fact that there are an abundance of glitches scattered throughout didn’t exactly help to mitigate these problems.
At the end of the day, though, similar to my few frustrations with the presentation, these are not enough to hinder what is an otherwise phenomenal remake. Whether you’re a new fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise or someone who has been playing since the beginning, this is an absolute must-play.
Full Circle
What is the purpose of a remake? Is it supposed to maintain the original experience while adding only minor additions, or should it be a major reinvention to such a degree that it shares little in common with the original? To me, a remake is at its best when it blends the two and delivers an adventure that can both appeal to new players and excite old players. There have been plenty of examples of great remakes as of late, and equally, there have been many examples of bad remakes as well. For a franchise that has lost a lot of its luster over the last few years, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is exactly what it needed to breathe some life back into the series.
The visuals of Black Flag Resynced are absolutely gorgeous, and look stunning regardless of if you’re playing on a PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Pro. The brilliant story has remained largely intact, but some new cutscenes and quests tie into the broader story, which are sure to compel any who played the original. The gameplay overhauls are also very well placed, since they focus on trying to upgrade the original loop, rather than trying to arbitrarily make it into an RPG. Combat, stealth, and exploration feel better than ever, and managed to constantly keep me addicted from beginning to end.
This is by no means a perfect remake, though. The glitches that frequently appear during playtime often distracted me from the moments where I was having a blast with either the story or gameplay. The new store feature feels extremely forced, even if they are optional purchases via the PlayStation Store. Most of all, the parkour mechanics often suffer from a lack of responsiveness, causing me to die in moments that felt outright unfair. Still, while these problems are frustrating, they aren’t enough to ruin my enjoyment of Resynced.
Ultimately, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is still one of the best remakes I’ve played in the last few years. This is a must-buy experience, even if you have only had a passing interest in the franchise, or if you have been following it since the very first entry. Most of all, it has reinvigorated my love of the Assassin’s Creed series, and made me hope that Ubisoft will bring back the classic gameplay style for newer entries in the series. Until the next entry in the franchise releases, though, I am more than content to keep enjoying the thrilling life of a pirate.
Disclaimer: Ubisoft provided a PlayStation 5 copy of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced for review purposes.
