Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced Review – Still a Pirate’s Life

I’ve never gotten to review one for Noisy Pixel before, but Assassin’s Creed is actually one of my favorite game franchises, and I’ve finished nearly every game in the series. I’ve followed the series since its beginning almost twenty years ago, through several reworks of the entire structure and definition of what it means to be a game in this series. Funnily, despite its status as many people’s favorite, Black Flag was actually just somewhere in the middle for me – I felt that mechanically it was a huge improvement over its predecessor, Assassin’s Creed III, but that neither the present-day or ancestor stories grabbed me the same way.

Black Flag, originally the last game in the greater franchise to carry a number in its title, represented the first major shift in the structure of Assassin’s Creed. Gone were the huge cities with massive architectural wonders, and in their place, the game introduced an enormous open world set in the waters of the Caribbean, and didn’t truly get around to the Assassin/Templar conflict for quite some time. Instead, exploration took much more of a focus than it had previously, as well as base, ship, and character building.

Rumors swirled (and still do to this day) that the game didn’t even initially begin development as an Assassin’s Creed game, and I still find that to be a pretty plausible explanation for the direction it takes, but it succeeded at enough to redeem the franchise in the eyes of many after III was met with mixed reception. When we started to see leaks that indicated that it was getting a full remake, I admit that I was confused – after all, the first game in the series remains locked on seventh-generation consoles unless you’re an Xbox player – but open to the possibility of new content shoring up the weak spots. Forty hours later, I’m glad to say that this voyage was much better the second time around.

Story & Setting – Edward Kenway’s Pirate Journey

Black Flag follows the story of Captain Edward Kenway, a pirate who ends up marooned in the Caribbean with nobody for company except for the man who seems responsible for their predicament, an Englishman in a curious robed outfit named Duncan Walpole. Walpole refuses to accept that Kenway has the upper hand in the situation, and in their ensuing scuffle, Walpole ends up dead, and Kenway takes on his identity to follow whatever mission Walpole was on, quickly getting caught up in the midst of a group calling themselves Templars who seek a fabled location called “the Observatory”. Something about this place will offer them untold power, and Kenway starts to get ideas about what some men might be willing to pay for such secrets if he can keep up the ruse.

The original version of the game featured a framing device centered on a nameless employee of the Templar organization “Abstergo Entertainment”, effectively a stand-in for the real-world development team who are turning Kenway’s scientifically accessed memories into a video game as anti-Assassin propaganda. This was something of a swerve at the time from the completed story of Desmond Miles, the real protagonist of the first five games in the series, but it has been completely excised here.

The player is still meant to play through Edward Kenway’s Animus memories but never actually leaves the simulation, and this “present-day” storyline has been replaced by one in which a malevolent force occasionally begins to take over the Animus and attempts to “fix” Kenway’s many character flaws. I found this a compelling idea, but the good news is that if players don’t care at all for the simulated Matrix-esque concept of the series, this is entirely optional. I’m a little sad to be losing the real-world story, as I found it at the time to be a cool exploration of the concept of propaganda from the inside by people who don’t realize what they’re even making, but it’s not like the original game is no longer accessible to those who were invested in the present-day story.

Pacing & New Content – Addressing the Original’s Flaws

For the most part, Resynced is a shot-for-shot remake of the storyline, which unfortunately means it preserves the strange pacing of its first half or so. Kenway quickly falls out with the Templar group once his cover is blown, and what follows is a long sequence of episodic adventures that tie him to other famous pirates of the era, many of whom don’t feel especially well developed as characters due to limited screen time. Resynced does add a few later side quests that offer more development for some of this cast, and some of these sequences genuinely moved me, but my only significant complaint about this remake as a remake is that it could have done a bit more to the first half or so of the story – as it is, it feels like too much of the plot hinges on Edward Kenway being a greedy bastard, so he can’t really progress on his character arc until most of the way through.

That being said, the new officers and their storylines are fairly excellent content that you can access much earlier on in the game. I will say that the new quest lines don’t blend in particularly well with the story at the point you’re most likely to do them, with the personal stakes ramping up much more quickly than they do in the larger story, but I found all of the new content to be of surprisingly high quality. There are around 10 hours of newly crafted content in Resynced, and even beyond the other improvements made to the game, they’re easily enough to recommend a double-dip for players already familiar with the previous version.

Combat Overhaul – A Perfect Marriage of Eras

The other big improvement is in the overall feeling of combat. Where the original fell in a bit of an awkward transitional period between the original “trilogy” with its extreme focus on stealth over open combat, and the series’ rebirth a few games later with Origin going full-on RPG, Resynced feels like the best marriage of both. While the ability to perform open combat with the hidden blades has been removed, using them for their intended purpose is just as lethal as before, and the combat system has been reworked into a “parryslop” style that suits the fluidity that Assassin combat is supposed to have.

The game’s skill tree has been replaced with a loadout system that assigns individual abilities and perks to Kenway’s equipment, and I especially enjoyed the distinct powers each set of swords offered. Once I found a set of Legendary swords that could also be used as short-range pistols mid-combo, I knew this would be my ride-or-die for the rest of the game. Of course, Edward still has his array of lever-action pistols, smoke grenades, and blowdarts, and all of this works about as well as one would hope.

Ship Combat & Customization – The Jackdaw Returns

Ship combat is functionally unchanged from the original, which is fine by me, as it was probably the best mechanical aspect of that release. Kenway’s ship, the Jackdaw, still has the same array of cannons, barrels, and mortars, though it does get some new functionality thanks to one of the Officers giving you a full-on ramming speed action that can be used once per fight. Once I’d upgraded the ram, crashing into a smaller boat and sinking it instantly became a fun power fantasy that showed how far the ship had come from its humble beginnings, and taking down forts remains a fun optional challenge, though somewhat repetitive.

The ship now has a wide variety of cosmetic options, including several sets available for purchase. I like the Jackdaw’s traditional look just fine, but I spent plenty of time with the black-and-gold set that comes with the Ultimate edition, as well as several other cosmetic options earned through regular gameplay. This is also probably the best time to mention that this game is fully integrated into Assassin’s Creed’s new Animus hub, which it currently shares with Shadows, offering players a Battle Pass-esque system to obtain new data fragments, cosmetics, and weapons. Black Flag at launch features one track that stands on its own and two that cross over with Shadows and offer rewards in both games, though all of this can just as easily be skipped entirely, as I mentioned before.

Visuals & Presentation – A Modern Coat of Paint

It would be a crime for me not to mention how jaw-droppingly gorgeous Black Flag Resynced generally is. Some of the character models don’t age all that well, with Kenway’s being a bit of a sore spot for me, but the environments are beautiful, and the open water has never looked so appealing. Given that the original release is only a generation old, it doesn’t look that bad even now, but Resynced absolutely looks like a modern title, to the point where I think most people could be convinced it was a brand-new game if they didn’t know better.

While I unfortunately didn’t have time to shoot for 100% completion, I would guess that doing everything the game has to offer would probably take around sixty hours, which I also think is a much better fit for Assassin’s Creed than what the series became only a few titles later – I’ve got about a hundred and twenty hours and counting in Valhalla and still have a considerable ways to go. Even at the length of a beefy JRPG, the amount of content in Black Flag feels downright manageable in comparison.

Final Verdict – A Remake That Justifies Itself

I still don’t know whether a Black Flag remake was necessary compared to some of the other options, but over my time with it, Resynced managed to fully justify itself in a way I don’t think I’ve seen many remakes outside Final Fantasy VII accomplish. Obviously, an amazing coat of paint is appreciated, but the content added to the experience not only addresses a major flaw in the original but also represents some of the best material in the series. The restructuring of combat and character progression feels true to the original while also being, I believe, an objective improvement, and it ends up sealing the deal, proving itself one of the best games in this long-running series. Here’s hoping it leads to more.