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The most exciting changes coming to Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced
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Steven T. Wright
It sneaks up on you
While stealth is a core pillar of the Assassin's Creed franchise, Black Flag Resynced will introduce multiple new mechanics to keep you on your toes when you're sneaking around pirate villages and forests.
In the original Black Flag, Edward could only crouch as part of certain contextual actions, making him a sitting duck in many situations. In Black Flag Resynced, you can crouch anytime, and there's a new visibility meter that's affected by lighting conditions and hiding places such as nearby crates. Ubisoft has also made the tailing and eavesdropping missions more forgiving, preventing you from automatically desyncing and failing the mission if you get sidetracked by exploration or another objective, which is certainly a welcome change.
Just like in the original, protagonist Edward Kenway can use smoke bombs to ninja escape from the bad guys or blind them to take them down. And while the Scorpion-style "get over here" rope dart also makes a return, Edward unlocks it much earlier in Black Flag Resynced, allowing you to take full advantage of its possibilities. You can use it to string up your victims to provide a distraction, or pull them in closer for attacks at range.
Stick and move
Swashbuckling swordplay on the high seas is always going to come with a fair bit of drama and chaos, but Ubisoft is aiming to deliver more complexity and nuance with Black Flag Resynced's overhauled combat. Just like in the original, Edward can take down his opponents in a variety of ways, including chaining together a combo to perform a hidden blade takedown, or using a wall or sweeping an enemy's leg to break down their defense and go for the kill. Edward can now chain his takedowns up to four nearby enemies by triggering a Sekiro-style perfect parry, but you can't just rely on this one-trick pony anymore.
Edward has a variety of offensive and defensive options to choose from, including redesigned heavy attacks that vary by weapon, a dodge attack that does more damage if executed within the perfect timing window, and "gun kata"-style moves that incorporate multiple weapons.
However, your enemies have a few moves at their disposal too, including unblockable and unparryable attacks. There are also new enemy archetypes like the Demolitionist, who can simply ignore your chain takedown attempts if you don't soften them up first.
And enemies will adapt to your playstyle—if you use one move too often, they'll punish your complacency. “For example, wait around too much for a parry, and enemies will react by performing unstoppable attacks that cannot be parried," Creative Director Paul Fu explains. "Abuse a kick too much, and enemies will quickly dodge them. The trick is to alternate between offense and defense. Varying your combos helps. Rotate between kicks, sweeps, rope darts, pistols, and heavy strikes at the end of your attack combos to confuse enemies."
There'll be plenty of opportunities to cleave a red trail through the deck of an enemy's ship, but you're going to have to work a bit harder to earn it this time.
The best of both old and new
Assassin's Creed has reinvented itself many times over the years, but it's clear that Ubisoft wanted to stay true to Black Flag's roots—there are no Assassin's Creed Origins-style RPG damage numbers here, of course—while still adding in a few new innovations from other games in the series.
The biggest of these is arguably the Observe feature, an important addition to the franchise's iconic Eagle Vision ability that allows you to tag enemies, identify quest markers and clues, and generally take a closer look at the world around Edward. This gives more depth to Black Flag Resynced's stealth gameplay, allowing you more opportunities to sneak around without having to pull your flintlocks out, if you so desire.
Black Flag Resynced's advanced parkour system also takes cues from recent Assassin's Creed games, particularly Assassin's Creed Shadows. The smooth traversal of the original Black Flag is here, but you can also trigger optional new moves to give you more maneuverability in a pinch. Ubisoft designed this system to make it easier to "eject" from a given parkour line or height without losing momentum. There's even a manual jump that you can use to take unusual shortcuts or precise routes, though it can definitely backfire on you if you aren't careful.
The series's signature social stealth mechanics, arguably deemphasized in Black Flag, also make a return. Just like in the original, Edward can hire dancers to serve as a distraction for the guards, helping you make a narrow escape or slip into a protected location unnoticed. You can also blend into any group of three civilians to anonymize yourself or throw money around to draw attention away from yourself. However, at 10 reales a pop, this can get pricey in a hurry, so keep an eye on your wallet to make sure you don't drain it too fast!
A classic reborn
The shadow of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag has loomed large in the gaming imagination, with its seafaring and complex ship combat serving as a standard for what came after, including Sea of Thieves and even Ubisoft's own Skull and Bones. It's a high-water mark, not only for Assassin's Creed, but that era of gaming in general.
Ubisoft picked one of the best games in the series to reimagine, and it's clear that it's going to be a joy to revisit when Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced sets sail on July 9 on the Epic Games Store.