A monumental leap forward in most aspects, and a step back in a few.
By Ameer Ammar
Going into Black Flag Resynced, my expectations weren’t really the highest as marketing made it seem like just a very beautiful remaster with some new content and gameplay aspects. So I was very surprised upon playing Black Flag Resynced to discover that this is a right between a Final Fantasy 7 and Last of Us 1 level remake, where every single aspect of the game has been touched up or altered in significant ways, down to the smallest details with huge content expansions in countless areas that make Black Flag Resynced one of the most substantial remakes I’ve played in recent memory.
First and foremost, Black Flag Resynced’s changes are monumental. In many ways extremely positive and in a few ways, it is a step back.
The absolute biggest upgrade to Black Flag is the exploration. Exploration in this remake is simply phenomenal as every single island has been redesigned in some way, had its collectibles switched around entirely and most importantly, a ton of new islands and locations are here to explore as well. Many of the new islands are entirely unmarked and almost always have a little reward or encounter to reward you for taking the time to check them out. A couple of them even have unique stores that sell gear that can’t be found anywhere else which I found quite cool. As for the redesigns, I’ll use Cape Bonavista which is the first island you see in Black Flag as you chase Duncan as a good example. In the original game, this area was practically a straight line with viewpoints and a few chests. In the remake, Cape Bonavista has been expanded significantly, including a whole new environmental story around the village if you choose to come back to it, with Edward commenting on it with new dialogue. These changes extend to every island in the game, Edward has a lot of new dialogue as he comments on whats around him which adds a ton to the immersion. My biggest highlight however on top of all these changes and is something I’ve dreamed of since I first played AC4 as a kid is the fact that the open world is now actually seamless, meaning you can sail out of every location including all 3 cities with no load times. This is a huge change for immersion as it makes Black Flag feel like a singular game rather than two games as it did at times in the original where the parkouring in Havana felt like it existed in a vacuum, away from the pirate life gameplay outside of it. But it has all now come together and this change made me stop fast traveling for most of my playthrough due to that new immersion factor. The loop of getting all the collectibles in each island remains as satisfying as ever but now with the addition of being able to dive anywhere, there’s even more variety to everything as these underwater places are legit gorgeous and feel like a very natural addition to the experience. In general, they have taken out most outfits/weapon/ship customization from the general store where you originally could buy them right away, and instead all of them are now spread out across the game world in chests, making collecting all the chests on each island far more rewarding than it used to be. There’s also in general just more life, NPCs are constantly having conversations that you can listen in on, there are more secrets and little interactions to find, the three cities feel way more alive now as there are just way more people and events happening all around. The open world of Black Flag Resynced is simply amazing.
The next biggest upgrade to Black Flag in this remake is the mission design. In the original game, this was the most heavily criticized aspect for years as most of Black Flag’s missions are tailing missions, which get really redundant and frustrating very early on. For some reason, Ubisoft only mentioned that tailing no longer auto fails in this remake’s marketing so me and I think everyone else assumed all missions are the same as they were, but they just don’t auto fail now. Well, I am quite surprised and honestly shocked to report that Black Flag Resynced outright redesigns most missions into entirely new ones, completely stripping out tailing missions from Black Flag at its core as a whole. and replacing them with new missions. The most insane part is that they managed to bring back the voice actors for these to give context or to add depth that was missing earlier. For example, in the first mission in Kingston, you spend about 7 minutes tailing a target and eavesdropping on them in the original Black Flag with James Kidd. In Resynced, this entire mission is completely remade into a new infiltration mission with a ton of new dialogue between Kidd and Edward in order to make it make sense in this new context. It still leads to the same events and same cutscenes, but how you get there is completely new. Another example I can give is a Templar Hunt in Nassau, In the original game, this side mission had 9 minutes of tailing and eavesdropping, followed by a quick section where you find a target and assassinate them in a bush. This mission, has instead been repurposed into two 30 second long eavesdropping sections and then leading to a major battle with multiple enemies, including new dialogue from Edward and his ally. These changes that I just described extend to the entirety of the game, you’d be hard pressed to find a single mission that hasn’t been altered in some manner in order to make it better paced. Ship tailing which was in my opinion the worst kind of mission in the original game, has been outright removed from the game aside from only I think one or two instances where it is heavily shortened and paced completely differently. Aside from tailing missions, Basically all missions have also been expanded to allow more flexibility in their approach, since you cannot fail by being detected anymore, you are allowed way more room to experiment. The mission design in Black Flag Resynced is such a huge upgrade from the original game that I really think this aspect alone will have most people stop revisiting the original game and instead play this remake, there isn’t a single instance where AC4 doesn’t benefit from these redesigned missions, the game as a whole is more fun with way more freedom of approach and most importantly, not as tedious as it used to be. There is a lot of new scenes and dialogue to Black Flag’s original story, these don’t detract from the original but instead add more context. For example, Anne Bonny and Adewale actively accompany Edward on a few missions where they didn’t before, making Edward’s companions feel like active participants in his story rather than being relegated to the sidelines. Another example is that Edward will now usually comment after a mission just to mention where he wants to go next, giving a reason as to why he has to go somewhere else rather than finding out when you actually go there which was something that happens a lot early on in Black Flag.
Another aspect that is a major upgrade in Resynced is the Great Inagua hideout. Inagua in the original game is probably one of the most forgettable hideouts in AC’s history, there was never much going on and in most of my playthroughs of Black Flag, I honestly forgot it existed aside from the few times you spawn there after a story sequence, there is a handful of buildings to upgrade and that was that. In Black Flag Resynced, Great Inagua is expanded significantly. It has become the centerpiece to the entire game. The town itself is far more alive, buildings can be upgraded through multiple different levels and the manor now feels like a proper home as you upgrade the manor itself, decorate its walls with various items you’ve found out in the world, show off your weapons and pistols on racks, collect paintings and have the occasional interaction with the locals. Bernard is a new character and he is the butler of the Manor. This character plays a significant part in Great Inagua’s place in Black Flag’s new story additions and I don’t want to spoil anything here but I will say, if you invest into this place, you will truly feel like you have earned a home by the end that ties perfectly into the main story. Great Inagua has gone from basically a forgettable hideout to my favorite AC hideout alongside AC3’s Homestead, it really is THAT good.
Visually, Black Flag Resynced is a sight to behold. I played this on the PS5 Pro on Performance Mode and I think the screenshots speak for themselves, the game looks gorgeous. It is the best looking AC game we’ve ever had easily, they absolutely nailed the tropical look of Black Flag. Character models all look amazing, the facial animations and all the old cutscenes look incredible here, it is the clearest case of a straight up upgrade and unless you are attempting to nitpick the tiniest of details, especially the weather system where hurricanes now feel like massive events and you can even get struck by lightning so be sure to dodge those. There is not a single instance in motion where Black Flag Resynced doesn’t look like a massive leap visually over the original game. It also ran flawlessly for me without a single frame drop. This is a visual triumph and is a new bar for the franchise.
The main story of Black Flag is completely intact, featuring the same tragic journey of Edward and his side cast that I’ve adored since 2013, my favorite AC story outside of Ezio’s by far. There are some new cutscenes here but they do not detract from the story but rather add a bit more context to certain events, and there’s a lot of new dialogue, mainly Edward talking to himself or with his side cast in some of the redesigned missions in order to make sure they still give you any story context that you’d have otherwise missed. But aside from these minor additions, the main story of Black Flag is utterly wonderful and it is completely intact here. Now the original writer Darby did add two new scenes to the game, one of them is mainly there to ensure a certain conflict works without the modern day and this is one cutscene I had to lock in for, because the dialogue has that beautiful poetry to it that the original game had all those years ago. If you’ve never experienced Edward’s journey before, this right here is the definitive version of the main story.
Now to get into the details of the gameplay, Combat is maybe the single biggest change as it has gone from an animation based system with the original game to a hit-box based one that is more akin to the RPG games. However, this remake’s combat has an entire new philosophy that is entirely different from how the RPG games played and is more in line with the original in that it’s all about chaining take downs. Swinging at enemies is frankly not even how the game is meant to be played here, instead, you have to constantly be thinking about which enemy type you’re facing and whats the quickest way to break their guard to initiate a takedown which can be chained to other enemies. Think the original combat system but rather than a singular break defense button, there is now multiple break defense abilities that each apply to a different enemy type. For example, brutes can be insta-killed if you break their defense with a gunshot, knife-wielding enemies should be dragged with the grappling hook, standard enemies kicked into walls or swept for a quick finisher. Counter killing is here as well and can be chained to 2-4 enemies depending on how good your current sword is, and these feel as satisfying as they always have. The new combat in my opinion is straight up better and more fun than the original game as it has more depth while keeping what made AC4’s combat great, which is the flashy finishers including even the double finishers. Where the combat stumbles and is a step back from the original however is variety. It is really disappointing that Resynced limits combat to only the dual swords, completely removing hidden blade combat and the ability to pick up enemy weapons such as muskets and axes. The removal of these unfortunately results in the combat getting repetitive visually quite quickly as there is just not as many finishers and animations anymore. The loss of hidden blade combat especially hurts for me as it was my favorite weapon in Black Flag just due to its cool factor. Unarmed combat is here and fully programmed to work against even armed enemies yet for some reason, Ubisoft has decided to only allow you to use this at scripted sections where unarmed combat is forced, rather than allowing you to simply switch to fists at any time. This is basically the only case in Black Flag Resynced where it is a clear downgrade from the original and it is seriously disappointing that bringing these back was not a priority, especially when you actually see how much effort was put into retaining or upgrading everything else. I really hope that in a post launch update, hidden blade and unarmed combat can be implemented because as it stands right now, this removal singlehandedly drops Resynced an entire point for me and keeps it from being an ideal remake.
Parkour feels more like a side-step than a straight upgrade or downgrade. Thankfully, Black Flag Resynced takes some major steps from the parkour system we’ve had since Valhalla by building on top of the improvements that Mirage/Shadows got post launch. This time, we get the ability to manual jump, side eject and back eject right at launch. This is a huge upgrade from those games as the game world is actually designed with these mechanics in mind for once, making this the best AC parkour we’ve had since Unity. Climbing has removed the whole “hop” style of climbing we’ve been stuck with since Origins, instead having Edward actually climbs things as he did in the original. But overall, in comparison to the original game, it isn’t a straight upgrade. First, It is significantly faster than the original game as Edward now has the same speed as Naoe’s, which makes him the fastest AC protagonist alongside her in terms of sheer speed. Parkour down is now here and it works really well, Edward gets some new animations for these that flow super well and add to that sense of speed, and this is the first time you can actually jump while standing still since AC4/Rogue themselves, allowing you to gain some height without needing to run forward. Where the parkour may be controversial to many players is the animation fluidity. The original AC4 parkour system (which is AC3 and Rogue’s) was heavily focused on having fluid animations that all flow beautifully into each other, like how they’d swing on bars that are close together or the unique jumping animations that change depending on the height. Resynced simply lacks this aspect as it keeps the animations and parkour framework that we’ve had since AC Origins, which is just not as smooth and well animated as the original. A step up and also a step down in movement for me is the control scheme. I personally am not a fan of making jog the default speed when pushing forward the stick, it makes Black Flag Resynced often feel way too fast and I missed having walk be the default speed as it did in the original. Where the control scheme is better is that you can actually sprint without automatically parkouring now, which means accidental climbing is basically eliminated which was a major issue in the original game but I do not like how sprint is bound to pressing down the left stick. It makes sprinting so inconsistent during parkour as you cannot possibly predict when the game will decide that Edward isn’t sprinting anymore and you have to press it down again. The original games approach of tying sprint speed to how far you press down the right trigger in my opinion was significantly better and I think adding in a legacy control scheme that ties speeds to right trigger and making walk the default speed would go a long way in improving movement in this remake. So parkour is significantly faster, it is more smooth to control as Edward is in general much lighter to turn and point at things. It gains parkour down while losing out on the old downright iconic animation work that Edward used to have and a less intuitive control scheme for sprinting.
Stealth, is a clear upgrade however over the original. They’ve added in the ability to crouch which feels right at home in Black Flag and the ability to hide in the dark is here from AC Shadows. Stealth is honestly an aspect of the franchise that basically got perfected with Mirage and Shadows, and it’s carried across from those games pretty much 1 to 1, it is really enjoyable but I do have a few nitpicks with it. When crouched, there is only two assassination animations and they both are not good, it gets really repetitive constantly seeing these two animations and I’d have much rather they just ported over the original game’s animations for these. When double assassinating, there is a sudden camera cut which is something carried across from AC Shadows and just takes me out of the experience, still have no idea why they didn’t cut this and keep the original’s much smoother style. For walking/running assassinations, the originals return on top of a host of animations ported over from Unity which feel right at home in here as those have always been so cool to me. Social Stealth is here and works identically to how it did in the original game though I always felt that Social Stealth in Black Flag is very under utilized and that hasn’t changed here. There really isn’t too much there to talk about with stealth aside from its here, it works great and the franchise should continue with this stealth system going forward.
Naval plays almost identically to how it did in the original, with the Jackdaw now having alternate fire modes that come from the new Officer questlines, these fire modes add a welcome new level of depth to the Jackdaw’s combat without changing too much. The ship feels like its easier to turn but aside from that, Naval is as great as it has ever been and works pretty much identically, including boarding as well.
Black Flag Resynced boasts 6 hours of new story content, this includes 3 new officer questlines, a new epilogue titled “A World without gold” and 4 rifts that replace the original modern day plus a few cutscenes written by Darby, AC4’s original writer added to the main story. So how are they? Well… it is a mixed bag. The new cutscenes are not motion captured and use the RPG games’ procedural cutscene animation work, they do not look good at all. I am so incredibly disappointed that in such a huge remake where clearly years of work with a huge budget was somehow not able to motion capture a handful of new cutscenes to make them match up to the original game. Edward does this constant superman pose that is copied from Kassandra that genuinely took me out of every cut scene it is used as this is just not how Edward even conducts himself in terms of body language, these cutscenes are basically a giant stain on the entire experience and I do not understand how Ubisoft continues to use these for their games. It feels like you go back an entire console generation before the original AC4 whenever one of these scenes plays, I really cannot overstate how disappointing this is. Thankfully, these missions are all optional meaning that on a replay, you can avoid these cutscenes entirely and an even better part is that there aren’t that many of them, so it isn’t experience ruining but it is definitely disappointing.
So how are the new missions in terms of writing and gameplay? Starting with the three new officer questlines, These are new senior crew members you can recruit to the Jackdaw, each has a quest line tied to them. The Padre is a genuinely great addition to Black Flag as his storyline offers a new perspective that is welcome to Edward’s journey, and his upgrade to the jackdaw is probably my favorite. There is also Deadman Smith, who has a seriously tragic and genuinely dark background and questline that had me wishing we got to spend even more time with this character. But unfortunately, the third officer quest line I have to talk about is Lucy Baldwin. Lucy’s story is written like fan fiction rather than a serious addition to Edward’s story. Edward does not act like himself at any point during this, being constantly bullied and bossed around by this character throughout this quest line, Edward for some reason is written like Kassandra rather than himself during this quest line which took me completely out of the experience. I’ll be surprised if you don’t see a reviewer that doesn’t mention how awful Lucy and Edward’s interactions are and how out of place they feel in the game. I think this is one addition to Black Flag where it genuinely would’ve been better if it wasn’t made at all.
Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard have a new quest tied to each now and these are really great additions, they both add more depth to each character in clever ways and both conclude arcs that felt like they were left hanging in the original game, these are probably my favorite new quests added into Black Flag with this remake outside of everything to do with Great Inagua.
The big new story chapter added in Resynced is “A World without Gold” which unlocks right before the end of Black Flag and is a new optional arc that honestly, is very strangely placed for how it is written. It is a story that is mainly there to bring together all the officers you’ve recruited into one new quest line involving a new foe that Edward must take on. The way that Edward acts in this storyline feels like it is placed wrong as the storyline unlocks right when Edward’s personality shifts significantly for the main story, yet in this new storyline, he still acts like those events never happened. Aside from that strange aspect, this is a pretty fun side arc that aims to be a pirate adventure and succeeds at that. I’ve seen mention that this chapter is a new “Epilogue” and it really is not, it has nothing to do with the main story in terms of building on top of where Edward is at by this point, and instead serves as a fun side arc that is likely non-canon. I did however wish that the officers this entire new chapter centers on had more to do with the foe that Edward is taking on, they seem to be mostly disconnected from this conflict on a personal level which is a missed opportunity. Overall, I did enjoy this new arc and especially gameplay wise, it offers a few great battles and one awesome set piece that fits right into the other great set pieces from Black Flag. I’d give this arc probably a 7/10 on its own.
The new four rifts replace the Abstergo offices modern day from the original game entirely, these rifts are optional and can be ignored if you don’t wish to engage with them. So the pitch is that they explore alternate timeline takes on Edward and his cast while giving some new modern day lore in the process. I honestly found these rifts deeply disappointing as I expected them to lean far more into the alternate timeline aspect, maybe giving us some little cutscenes where we see these characters take on different roles as they made different choices. What we actually get is actually these have no new dialogue. Instead, they work the same as AC Shadows rifts, where you play as a faceless avatar climbing around or fighting in a weird animus space as a narrator explains what an alternate timeline could’ve looked like. It offers some cool sights and some interesting ideas but overall, it’s not very fun to play and in terms of story, is a real let down as the concept is so cool on paper but done in a very boring manner. However, I am actually glad the original abstergo office sequences are gone. Black Flag’s story just flows much better now without these pace breakers in the middle and well, the original modern day story basically went nowhere and got resolved in the comics so I don’t think of it as much of a loss that it is gone, and I do prefer the new content like the side arcs over being taken out to carry a tablet around an office.
FINAL VERDICT
Overall, Black Flag Resynced takes some massive steps forward in making this overall my personal pick as the definitive edition of Black Flag, the remake has really gone beyond what I expected in terms of what it changed and added, and I overall really loved re-experiencing one of my favorite AC games all over again. But the new missions are overall pretty good but not amazing, and the new cutscenes do impact the presentation negatively. And the strange cuts to combat in my eyes, singlehandedly keep this from being a perfect remake as no remake should be removing such important content in my opinion from the game without doing something to make up for it.
At 59.99$ retail, cheaper than even AC Shadows at launch, this is a no-brainer for any AC fans who are looking to re-experience Black Flag but in an overall superior format, or getting to play it for the first time.
BLACK FLAG RESYNCED - 8.5/10 - REALLY GREAT