![\"Edward](\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/7-reasons-why-the-ac-black-flag-remake-could-be-amazing-and-3-concerns.gif\")
You can never have too much of a good thing, right? The prospect of more<\/em> Black Flag is a big draw here, with a slew of brand-spanking new quest content integrated into the original story that looks to be substantial and transformative. This isn\u2019t an afterthought: these new sequences necessitated the return of Edward Kenway\u2019s original actor Matt Ryan for voice and mocap duties. And frankly, any excuse to spend more time with the lovable Welsh rogue is a blessing.<\/p>\n The freshest of these new quests are tied to Resynced\u2019s three original companion characters: Lucy Baldwin, \u201cThe Padre\u201d, and Dead Man Smith, all of whom will provide certain buffs and bonuses during naval combat.<\/p>\n Which brings us to:<\/p>\n Kenway\u2019s ride, The Jackdaw, is arguably the most important part of Black Flag. It is, after all, where you spend most of your time.<\/p>\n And so it\u2019s good to see this iconic ship getting a lot of love in the remake. Not only does it look absolutely stunning with its new retina-searing textures and rigging, but its various upgrade paths have been expanded so you can spend more hours on one of Black Flag\u2019s most compelling pastimes: putting in the work to make your ship the unsinkable, dirty-fighting beast that she\u2019s supposed to be, ready to take on the Caribbean\u2019s legendary boss-level ships which are confirmed to be present in the remake.<\/p>\n Also, you can have a cat now. Life is better with a cat.<\/p>\n All this talk of a bigger ensemble with more and expanded stories to tell makes the omission of Black Flag\u2019s original DLC expansion seem all the more glaring. Freedom Cry<\/em> is a substantial six-hour spin-off that documents the further adventures of Kenway\u2019s first mate Ad\u00e9wal\u00e9, now a pirate captain in his own right, and his determination to end the slave trade in and around Haiti. It came with a new city to explore, Port-au-Prince, and though it released to mixed reviews it is an important part of the Colonial Brotherhood\u2019s story and coda to the events of Black Flag.<\/p>\n The rationale given by Ubisoft is that they wanted to focus the remake entirely on Edward Kenway\u2019s story, but the cynic in me (and probably you) fully expects Freedom Cry Resynced to pop up as paid DLC down the road. Even if it doesn\u2019t, it means the only way to get the complete Black Flag experience is to own the original with DLC or buy Freedom Cry in its standalone form, adding another twelve quid to the cost of the total package.<\/p>\n Personally, I think this is bad form: there is an expectation with huge precedent in our industry that remasters, remakes, repackaged releases, GOTY editions, etcetera, tend to include single-player DLCs and expansions as an integrated part of the deal. Breaking from this convention for whatever reason rightfully invites criticism.<\/p>\n Everyone hates loading screens, so it\u2019s welcome news that Black Flag Resynced has been engineered to get rid of them, promising a seamless experience when transitioning from the vast open world into the intricately detailed cities and settlements where Black Flag becomes a traditional Assassin\u2019s Creed of urban parkour and streetwise sneaking.<\/p>\n This also implies that all the land masses here might be fully explorable, as with Assassin\u2019s Creed Odyssey\u2019<\/em>s expansive Aegean map where, for the most part, no piece of land is off limits for exploration. This stands in contrast with the original Black Flag, which was full of carefully cordoned-off areas that you could see but not touch.<\/p>\n Hopefully we will be able to see more of the Caribbean because, from what we\u2019ve seen so far, it is heartbreakingly gorgeous: a crisp and vibrant presentation that expertly updates Black Flag\u2019s appearance without compromising the original\u2019s look and feel. This is hugely important, because remakes and remasters in general have a reputation for tossing artistic intent out of the porthole in the pursuit of lighting and texture work that merely looks a bit more modern at a glance, or in some egregious cases, just plain looks worse than the original. Ubisoft themselves are repeat offenders in this regard.<\/p>\n All the best video game makeovers achieve one crucial thing: they match your memories of the original. Going back and playing an old game, even one that still holds up as well as Black Flag, can be jarring in how lo-fi it looks compared to how you remember it, because we are imperfect beings whose memories are more akin to re-enactments than recordings. Black Flag Resynced is, to my mind, an excellent example of a makeover done well, one that I believe will set a new high bar for this sort of thing going forward.<\/p>\n Look, I get it: people complain bitterly about the modern day segments of all the Assassin\u2019s Creed games, and Black Flag\u2019s infamous Abstergo sections are often cited as among the worst ones. They\u2019re incongruous first-person segments that mercilessly take you out of Edward Kenway\u2019s story and force you to play a low-level office grunt in some sort of meta self-parody of Ubisoft Montreal itself.<\/p>\n But real ones know that the Abstergo segments are, firstly, a vanishingly small percentage of the total experience, and secondly, vitally important to the plot, and its wider connection to the rest of the Assassin\u2019s Creed saga which is, let\u2019s not forget, about an ideological battle that bestrides the entirely of human history like a four-dimensional Stretch Armstrong.<\/p>\n I won\u2019t spoil the particulars here but quite how the developers plan to plug the big hole this blows in the story is a source of genuine bewilderment, and their vague explanation so far has been the opposite of illuminating.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t get me wrong, of course it\u2019s possible to replace these bits with some other means of narrative delivery, or perhaps relegate them to short cutscenes. The prevailing theory right now is that there\u2019ll be a Final Fantasy 7 Remake style meta-layer to the story that makes it a quasi-sequel as well as a do-over, that we\u2019ll be entering the animus as a yet another observer from even further in the future.<\/p>\n There\u2019s lots of ways to cut out the modern-day element, and some of them might even be clever. But that\u2019s not Black Flag. It\u2019s a fundamental change that glosses over the significance of where Assassin\u2019s Creed 4 sits in the timeline, both in-universe and out. This was the first Assassin\u2019s Creed to take us beyond Desmond\u2019s character arc and into the ongoing ramifications of his sacrifice, as well as exploring the world beyond his narrow perspective.<\/p>\n It\u2019s good that there are no plans to make the original game unavailable, so it\u2019s not like these segments will be lost to time, but I do think that their removal from the remake is a shame and frankly, pandering to a lot of voices that don\u2019t really have much investment in this story in the first place.<\/p>\n One of the first questions I had when we first heard about Black Flag Resynced was whether it would still include the Kenway\u2019s Fleet minigame. This moreish autobattler was originally a piece of the game you could take with you in the form of a smartphone app: this sort of interconnected experience was all the rage at the time, so much so that the South Park guys saw fit to mock the trend at E3 once upon a time.<\/p>\n Kenway\u2019s Fleet stands out as a compelling example of smartphone integration that not only farmed out a fun piece of the game you could check in with on the go, but one whose ties to the base game didn\u2019t feel like an afterthought or a silly decree from the c-suite. Building on the Assassin\u2019s Recruits system from the Ezio trilogy, it allowed you to capture ships in the open world and send them on missions outside the Caribbean, as far away as Europe and Africa, to secure in-game resources, upgrade blueprints, and tonnes of cold hard doubloons. It was neat, it made the world beyond the game feel real, and I\u2019m pleased to have it confirmed that it\u2019s in there. <\/p>\n The old-school AssCreed\u2019s are often criticised for their simplistic combat. For a series ostensibly about sneaking around, it\u2019s remarkably easy to just go around battering everyone. With a generous parry window and enough leeway in the system to let even the most artless button-mashers get through any fight, it\u2019s safe to say that the fighting in Black Flag is one thing that doesn\u2019t really hold up in a FromSoft ascendant world where even the most mainstream gamers crave a legitimate challenge.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s good that Resynced\u2019s combat is based on that of the recent Assassin\u2019s Creed Shadows rather than sticking to the old system, providing for an expanded moveset you can adapt to your own individual style. It\u2019s still going to be a piece of piss, this is Assassin\u2019s Creed after all, but Kenway\u2019s butt-kicking has never looked more fluid or fancy, and given that the combat in the original Black Flag has never been singled out as one of its standout features, this is one area I\u2019m happy to see getting a total gutting.<\/p>\n The stealth mechanics are enjoying a similar overhaul: gone is the weird, unintuitive auto-sneaking that many found jarring in the original. Just like in the recent AssCreed\u2019s, you now have total control over Kenway\u2019s crouching, meaning he can sneak around anywhere, not just in thick vegetation, which opens up a lot more options for dealing with unsuspecting cleanshirts.<\/p>\n Another toggle Resynced gives you total control over is the HUD: yes, all that screen furniture can be flicked on and off at will without having to go into the pause menu, which is hugely welcome in a game as gorgeous as this where you want be able to take in its sheer sun-soaked beauty without having it spoiled by an annoying, mostly pointless quest tracker.<\/p>\n In a crowd-pleasing move, Black Flag Resynced more or less makes it impossible to fail the game\u2019s notorious eavesdropping missions. And while I\u2019m going to be vastly in the minority on this one, it\u2019s a hill I\u2019ll happily die on: this is unnecessary.<\/p>\n Yes, those missions could be annoying. But that\u2019s part of the challenge! Having to keep your wits about you, and use the geometry of the map in order to stay within hearing distance of a target without spooking them, is the entire point. <\/p>\n In a game so lacking in genuine skill challenges it\u2019s sad to see one of its few examples of player friction nerfed so pathetically. Perhaps the margins could have been adjusted to ease the sense of frustration if, for example, you fail because Edward gets unintentionally stuck on a bit of scenery which admittedly does happen. But to remove the challenge altogether and make it possible to just kill your way through, apparently without any wider consequences, is a huge over-correction.<\/p>\n No amount of quibbling over artistic details and gameplay compromises can change the fact that Black Flag Resynced is a hugely exciting project for fans and newcomers alike. The original game is a great onramp for people unfamiliar with the series and this new version looks to smooth out any bumps in the road for modern audiences, all of this is a good thing for players and the longevity of the Assassin\u2019s Creed Franchise.<\/p>\n As a devoted lover of the original, it\u2019s a bittersweet prospect, but I also believe that there\u2019s no point in remaking these things if you aren\u2019t going to change them by bringing them up to date, continuing their ongoing conversation with their audience and the wider culture they belong to.<\/p>\n But most importantly, I can\u2019t wait to see how they crowbar Kassandra into it.<\/p>\nGood: More Jackdaw Upgrades<\/h2>\n
Bad: An Incomplete Package<\/h2>\n
Good: Seamless Caribbean<\/h2>\n
Good: Faithful Art Direction<\/h2>\n
Bad: An Incomplete Story<\/h2>\n
Good: Kenway\u2019s Fleet<\/h2>\n
Good: Modernised Gameplay<\/h2>\n
Bad: An Incomplete Challenge<\/h2>\n
Good: The Possibilities<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/imdbnews.ir\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/7-reasons-why-the-ac-black-flag-remake-could-be-amazing-and-3-concerns.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"