After flying out to San Francisco earlier this month to play just over four hours of the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, I was then invited to chat with the game’s director, Paul Knight, about the hotly anticipated remake of 2013’s ACIV: Black Flag. The game seems to be everything I wanted from a remake of the pirate-themed sequel—one which so many people consider the best in the franchise—with gorgeous, highly detailed 4K visuals, a return to social stealth, cinematic swordfights, and epic naval battles. And I indeed asked plenty of questions about the remake’s content, canon status, lack of DLC, and more.
But first, I had a very important question to ask Knight: Why isn’t there a colon in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced? The 2013 game’s official title was Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, but the last AC game to include one was 2016’s 2.5D spin-off, Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia.
“That is an incredible question…that I actually can’t answer because it’s more of a publishing question,” said Knight with a chuckle. “It’s an interesting question. I wish I could say [the devs] control that, but we don’t. We work with publishing to figure out cool names. I can tell you about cool names, I can’t tell you about colons!”
I suggested adding a colon between Black and Flag, just to really freak people out. But Knight countered with a wilder idea: “Or would you add a dash?” Ohhh, a dash. That would be fun.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced started development in 2023, primarily led by Skull and Bones studio Ubisoft Singapore. That’s notable, as Skull and Bones started out as a game directly inspired by the original Black Flag, which the remake’s creative director, Paul Fu, and the Singapore studio worked on back in the day. It feels very much like Ubisoft is keeping it in the family by having this team make Resynced. Interestingly, Ubisoft has never remade an Assassin’s Creed game before. In the past, they’ve done simple remasters or ports. This is a full-blown remake, with no original code and all new assets, gameplay, missions, and more.
So I was curious, why remake Black Flag and why now? According to Knight, Black Flag had “a lot of things” going for it that made it the perfect candidate to be Ubisoft’s first AC remake.
“[Ubisoft] were looking at options for things to do,” said Knight. “And if you just ignore the number—Assassin’s Creed 4—if you just think about it as Black Flag, it has a lot of things [going] for it. Black Flag has this iconic character that everybody remembers…You’ve got a great setting in the Caribbean that people kind of miss a little bit these days. You’ve got two different types of gameplay. You’ve got the naval shooty-shooty gameplay, and you’ve got sort of that stealth stabby-stabby gameplay. So you’ve got all these things, and then it’s also just old enough again that it allows you to dream about what it could be.”
“Then with us as a studio, [Ubisoft Singapore] also had some specific experience because we worked on the original Black Flag. We work with the brand a lot, and we also have the experience [with Skull & Bones] in terms of water tech. You know, what do we bring there? What could we do in terms of ships? When you add all that stuff together, it’s almost like a natural fit.”
Black Flag Resynced is faithful, but not a perfect copy
Before I landed in SF, I spent a night playing the original Black Flag. It had been many years since I played it, and I wanted to refresh my memory. Going back to it, two things stuck out immediately: This game looks rougher than I remember, and old Assassin’s Creed games had some funky controls. So when I booted up the remake, the leap in technology was truly impressive. And it was also clear Ubisoft is truly trying to remain faithful to the original game, a sentiment that multiple people at the event echoed when talking about Resynced.
The opening hours of the new Black Flag are nearly identical to those of the original game, with Edward Kenway taking command of a pirate ship during a battle at night in a massive storm. He gets knocked out and goes overboard after watching an assassin kill his captain. Kenway then wakes up on an island next to the Assassin, who is, it turns out, defecting to the Templars to collect money in exchange for a gift and item. This leads the swashbucklin’ Kenway on a journey that draws him into the conflict between Assassins and Templars.
And in the remake, this intro looks incredible, with advanced water physics, improved lighting, higher-res textures, and more detailed models and animations. The vibes are the same. Kenway still comes off as an unsavory but charismatic rogue looking to become rich and maybe, in the process, make the world a slightly better place for his kind. He just now looks more like a real person and not a shiny mannequin come to life.
The other big improvement in Resynced is snappier, smoother gameplay. Ubisoft explained to me that this game is built using the same tech that powered Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and I could tell. It feels a lot more natural to walk and run around places and climb up or down walls and cliffs. But, it also doesn’t feel like a simple reskin of Shadows. Kenway is very much his own character, with the kinds of roguish animations and flourishes to his parkour and combat that he had in the original game.
Parkour also feels closer to that in the original, as you have to look for handholds and places to grab, and can’t just climb anything with ease like in the more recent Assassin’s Creed games.
Later on in the introduction segment of Black Flag Resynced, I encountered the game’s first “Trail this person” mission. I sneakily did so for a few minutes, using the game’s newly added crouch button. But I was curious what would happen if I fucked up. I charged the target, he spotted me, and then he ran as guards came to stop me. But I didn’t instantly, automatically fail the mission. I was able to kill him quickly with a hidden blade kill and get what I needed and then, eventually, escape. Well, after fighting some of these guards. The combat in Resyncned feels closer to the old AC games, as I focused on nailing counter moves and using attacks to open enemies up for finishers. It’s a more cinematic approach to combat that looks great, but might disappoint some fans who love the more mechanic-heavy RPG combat found in recent entries. Still, this is what I want from a Black Flag remake, so it gets my seal of approval.
While getting away, I was able to further test out the improved parkour in Resynced. It feels wonderful, with more fluidity and options than in recent AC games, while still feeling relatively easy to pull off, too. (If desired, experts can turn on some advanced options to get truly wild with their back ejects and such.)
Later on, while on Kenway’s ship, I discovered the new weapon and cannon options. You can eventually unlock alternative fire modes for every armament on your ship. It adds just a little extra depth without breaking the excellent naval combat. And to be clear, the ship-on-ship combat in Black Flag Resynced is still awesome. And now it all looks even better, with more destruction, advanced water physics, and truly impressive lighting. If you loved fighting ships in the original game, you’ll be in heaven in the remake.
Ubisoft is being very careful about what it changes in Resynced
Here as well, there are some changes to the game beyond the visuals, and most of these changes seem for the better. One example involves the swivel guns on Kenway’s iconic Jackdaw pirate ship. These now operate more as they did in Assassin’s Creed Rogue, not the original Black Flag. And this isn’t a mistake, but a choice on Ubisoft’s part.
The team is taking bits from past games in the series, new and old, to build the best possible version of a new Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, but only “where it makes sense and where it doesn’t change that kind of spirit of how Edward plays,” clarifies Knight. Another feature is the ability to fast-travel directly back to your boat instead of having to swim back to it after exploring. This is a feature directly “brought over from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey,” explained Knight.
So the remake is faithful, but with some changes where the team felt it made sense, and which didn’t alter the game too much from its original version. But how do you make sure you don’t go too far?
“It’s tricky, but we got used to it after a while,” said the remake’s creative director, Paul Fu.
“We tried to make sure that everything respected the original pillars. We knew Jean Guesdon [Black Flag‘s original creative director] and Darby McDevitt [Black Flag‘s lead writer] very well, so we could kind of guess what they’re thinking, and if we couldn’t guess, we’d just give them a call. We made sure there were guidelines for every single department—art, narrative, and cinematics—to make sure that everything respected the original. We literally did a pass on all the cutscenes to make sure that we kept it as authentic as possible, for example. So, there are many, many things that are put in place, structurally speaking, in development to make sure that we have an authentic experience.”
With help from some of the original devs, the team is also expanding the narrative of the game, but the key to making that work, according to Fu, is that the devs made sure everything they added connects to or “echoes” Edward’s story and the game’s themes involving family and freedom. Fans can expect new scenes with Adewale, the Sage, and Kenway’s wife, all of which Ubisoft promises will feel authentic to the original and are all canon, too.
I asked Knight if Ubisoft used any generative AI tools while making this game, and was told bluntly, “No.”
During a later interview, Fu also told me that some of what’s in Black Flag’s remake is stuff the team wanted to do back in the day, but for various reasons weren’t able to.
For example, one new mission I played involved me saving a young woman from some pirates. She’ll eventually join Kenway and his crew as one of a few new officers added to the game, each with their own stories, side missions, and bonus ship abilities. Another feature that was toyed with back in the day, but was cut and is now part of Resynced, is the ability to jump off your boat and swim around underwater practically anywhere in the game’s vast ocean.
“Six hours before the official announcement of [Resynced],” said Fu, “we actually did an internal preview event where we gathered all the Singaporean developers to look at some of the announcement footage, and I fished out some old prototypes from the original. And I fished out the ‘Underwater Anywhere’ prototype, which didn’t make it in the original, and now it’s in Resynced.” Fu told me that it’s been great to go back down memory lane a bit while working on this new remake of a fan-favorite game.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is set to launch on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on July 9.
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