When you’re a professional pirate, it matters that you go on land as much as possible to tell a story of Assassins and Templars, neither of which are pirates. Technically, the 6th game in the series, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, is often heralded as a peak of the series that has rarely seen a return, too often and for long periods of time. Labeled the “worst kept secret in gaming,” Black Flag Resynced is meant to be a ground-up remake with all the tech developed for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. All with a tighter, brighter, and more focused lens on the story of Edward.

Announced properly back in March, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is one of “several” remakes Ubisoft has been working on. This time, the game with some of the most beautiful water and smoke from guns has been given ray-tracing and an AnvilNext facelift. However, as I say, the story has been “improved” from before, adding a bit more to our starring Welsh pirate Edward Kenway’s life while also ripping out the main Abstergo business, which certain people loved and others loathed with a burning passion. I think it is a good move to have that focus on the pirate game.

However, there is more than story jiggery-pokery going on in Black Flag Resynced. There are new bits to The Jackdaw, there are new side quests to complete, and of course, Edward himself has had a bit of an improvement. The latter of which is more to do with the 13 years between releases and norms in combat, I’d say. Parrying is a bit more of a focus in combat, heavy strikes are more notable, perks from trinkets are expanded, and there are a couple more tools in the world, too. Effectively, Black Flag Resynced is what if Black Flag had been released now instead of in 2013.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced roughly keeps the framework of Darby McDevitt’s original script and plot, as well as the design set out by directors Jean Guesdon and Ashraf Ismail, and lead designers Eric Baptizat and Jean-Sébastien Décant. However, like we’re seeing with a lot of these remakes and remasters, enough is done to modernize and clean up the visual design, the HUD, the menus, and, on occasion, tighten up the gameplay just a little bit more. For the most part, that’s what Resynced does.

However, it is also the little things that make Black Flag Resynced an improvement in some areas: You can now pull Edward’s hood up whenever you want and crouch whenever you want. Under the sea has been revamped and is beautiful, and you can also cancel a good portion of fall damage by timing a roll just right [circle or B]. Little things, but little things that feel more controllable. You also have a couple more shanties to collect, as on top of the originals, you also have 10 more, and more importantly, there is a wheel (radial menu) that lets you select which shanties are sung.

Since the first-person Abstergo nonsense was rightfully pulled out and beaten to death, it has effectively been replaced. Not anything first-person, but certainly slow story-focused segments that you’ll play once, say “nope,” and run off to be a pirate again. Effectively, it is a story within the Animus that tells Edward his story if he stayed with Caroline via gentle puzzles and long walky bits within a Matrix-like simulation. They aren’t bad ideas, but much like the original bits they replace, it all feels a bit slow and feels like it cares more about the story than giving you a reason to. Basically, they are what-ifs you walk through.

That’s all the good bits, more or less, and you’ll still go on pirate adventures with Edward throughout the West Indies. There are a couple of slight changes to the story that give you a tool, such as the Rope Dart, earlier than the original, but more or less story-wise, things stay the same. I quite like it. There is a sense of modernity to the whole thing that keeps it from feeling antiquated, but there is also that core Assassin’s Creed Black Flag experience you remember (barely) from over 10 years ago.

If we’re going to take grains of salt, though, it is worth noting that Black Flag is easily my favorite of the Assassin’s Creed series. Not exactly for the story, but rather the world and how it all comes together to create the ultimate pirate adventure. It is one of the few games that I am sitting here, and I want to keep secret hunting, keep playing for 10 hours straight, going off and helping people, and maybe, just maybe, using the rope dart thing to hang the English for painting roundabouts between about 1715 and 1722.

Generally speaking, there is very little to complain about when it comes to Black Flag Resynced because it is that beautiful tropical open world full of piracy you remember, made a little bit – to quote myself – tighter, brighter, and more focused. All while having a modern sensibility that sees a raft of accessibility options on PC. Including the improved captions, screen narration, QTEs are skipable, configurable FOV, and little bits like that, but I found something more interesting. There is a glossary of all the audio cues, which you can listen to in isolation. Great idea, love it.

The only real detractor from all of this goodwill and good favor earned with such a beautiful and fun world and game is the performance, and one you’ve been waiting for: The store. We’ll start with performance. Recommended specs are an i5 with an RTX 3060, or thereabouts, for a normal 1080P 60FPS medium experience. I’ve been playing on the higher end of graphical presets with a couple of slight changes on an i7 CPU and RTX 40 series GPU, and initially, there were a couple of heavy drops.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced requires you to use some sort of upscaler, no matter what. Even if you dislike using upscaling, you’re out of luck. So you will probably be spending a good portion of the tutorial faffing around with some of the advanced Raytracing options, which, in my experience, weren’t the issue. I won’t go too far into things because of certain updates and such for performance, but just playing around with the quality of shadows in the Raytracing options didn’t do much. However, once I acquiesced to the Frame Generation option, I got a more solid 60 frames per second in terms of performance.

Not that having a solid 60 in gameplay, with lots of smoke and water around, will stop Ubisoft from locking cutscenes to 30 on occasion. The performance and slight graphical overhaul are supposed to be one of the marquee features of this remake, and honestly, I can’t see that being the reason anyone buys it. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but a slight graphical uplift for a 2013 game with a world that’s as pretty as it is right now isn’t a massive selling point, even to someone who adores this game most of all in the series. The puddles and shadows are pretty, though.

The main detractor, though, will always be Ubisoft and other publishers with these in-game shops “to enhance your experience.” I.E, bleed more money from you. As you might guess, during the review period, it wasn’t really a big focus. However, there is a pop-up that I might have missed telling you to check it out. What do you get from it? Awful-looking aesthetic pieces for your ship, like sails that are on fire or ghostly dragons along the hull… things that by definition are pulling you out of the world of piracy to give you a “unique” experience.

With the Deluxe Edition, which reviewers got, you get the “Master Assassin Naval Pack” and “Master Assassin Character Pack,” which gives you all-black stuff with gold trims. Some of which look fine, look very pirate-y, then other bits don’t. As someone who wants to be in the world, having a stealthy assassin-pirate dressed in luminescent green and white robes with neon pink sails would seem like an odd choice to make.

Do I think Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is the replacement that makes Black Flag (original) obsolete? Not really. I guess you could stretch the Ship of Theseus paradox over the bones of Black Flag Resynced: Do the improvements and additions make up for the 13 years between releases, and how it all comes together? That’s a personal question to ponder; it certainly has its moments where I am left wanting to play more and more.

One of the great additions is the new crewmates to the Jackdaw, naval officers who keep the ship from effectively falling into disrepair too quickly. I won’t spoil too much of these stories, but the plot for your Master-At-Arms called Padre strikes a wonderful tone that shows there can still be good writing added. All the same, there are other scenes where that addition of story, that level of storytelling, falls aside to pay off something in the original game that doesn’t feel as strong.

Ultimately, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced certainly does a lot right in terms of its remake. Admittedly, I’m a little sad that the embargo came up as quickly because I want to play more. I want to keep exploring this world and get to my favorite version of “The Parting Glass,” by Sarah Greene. I don’t think that if you’re happy with Black Flag on PC as is, that Resynced replaces that fully, even if the faces no longer look goofy. The improvements, more or less, don’t light that same spark that I think a remake of earlier, more antiquated games might have.

A PC review copy of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Deluxe Edition was provided by Ubisoft for this review.

Phenixx Gaming is everywhere you are. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Also, if you’d like to join the Phenixx Gaming team, check out our recruitment article for details on working with us.

Phenixx Gaming is proud to be a Humble Partner! Purchases made through our affiliate links support our writers and charity!

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced

$59.99+

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Professional pirates.
• Padre's story is wonderful.
• The few additions to gameplay feel welcomed.

Cons

• Could use a bit more improvement in performance.
• One or two story additions don't always land so well.
• The store to "enhance your experience."