Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, a remake of the beloved 2013 pirate adventure, attempts to modernize Edward Kenway's tale for current-generation consoles. While the game is not a complete failure, its changes introduce new problems as often as they fix old ones, ultimately resulting in a remake that, while still enjoyable, falls short of surpassing the original.
Narrative Reimagining and Its Pitfalls
The original Black Flag framed its pirate narrative within a contemporary science-fiction story. Players experienced Edward Kenway's memories through the Animus, a device used by a modern-day Abstergo employee to uncover secrets about the Observatory. This present-day storyline provided a compelling sci-fi layer to the historical fantasy. Resynced largely strips away this framing. While the Animus is present, the reasoning behind the player's use of it is unclear from the outset, and the original game's modern-day missions are entirely optional.
This optional content is crucial for understanding Resynced's new narrative direction. The remake is positioned as a sequel to Assassin's Creed Shadows, continuing the story of Animus users known as Travelers battling Ego, a Templar-created AI aiming for global control. Ego attempts to manipulate historical narratives, including those of Edward Kenway, Blackbeard, and Mary Read, to foster compliance. This new sci-fi plot is fascinating but frustratingly hidden. To access it, players must find unmarked rifts scattered throughout the Caribbean, a task made difficult by the lack of in-game map indicators. Furthermore, full comprehension requires prior engagement with Assassin's Creed Shadows, leaving new players potentially bewildered.
This mishandling of the framing narrative exemplifies Resynced's core issues: the game introduces compelling ideas and improvements but fails to integrate them effectively.
Character Enhancements and New Additions
Resynced does shine in its handling of certain characters. Anne Bonny, a character with a limited role in the original Black Flag, is introduced early and features prominently throughout the story, with new missions and reimagined cutscenes fleshing out her importance. Similarly, Ed Teach and Stede Bonnet receive expanded roles and continuations of their storylines, offering more satisfying conclusions. However, the remake also introduces new characters who feel underdeveloped, with fleeting screentime and unrewarding arcs that leave them disconnected from Edward's central narrative. This choice feels like a step backward, reintroducing flaws that the game otherwise attempts to correct in its established characters.
Gameplay and Technical Adjustments
Many of Resynced's other issues stem from its integration into the Ubisoft Anvil engine, an engine better suited for action-RPGs than stealth-driven action-adventures. While Edward's freerunning feels improved over characters like Bayek or Kassandra, it still doesn't quite match the fluidity of protagonists from Assassin's Creed Unity. Combat mechanics, while updated, lean heavily on abilities from the RPG-style entries, offering more strategic depth with equipment and skills but suffering from a lack of enemy variety over the game's 30-hour length.
New animations and voice lines are a mixed bag. Many new lines enhance Edward's character, but some feel like mischaracterizations, making him overly heroic during periods where he should be morally ambiguous. The new cutscenes, while adding story content, suffer from poor facial animations. Existing cutscenes also exhibit graphical glitches on platforms like the Xbox Series X, diminishing the emotional impact of original scenes.
Improvements to stealth, such as crouch-walking and using cover more broadly, are undermined by the removal of mandatory tailing missions and the alteration of most social stealth sequences. These changes transform Resynced into a more action-oriented experience, similar to Kassandra's or Eivor's adventures, but without the RPG systems that supported such gameplay in those titles. This shift results in repetitive mission structures that rely too heavily on action rather than the varied approaches the original Black Flag offered.
A Familiar Yet Flawed Experience
Camera issues, particularly during assassination takedowns and chain kills in confined spaces, further complicate gameplay. These dramatic perspective shifts are ill-suited to Black Flag's more claustrophobic environments, unlike their more effective use in open-world settings like Origins or Odyssey. These design choices raise questions about why the developers chose to remake Black Flag's rigid story instead of creating a new pirate adventure within the same engine and setting.
Ultimately, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced presents a conundrum. For players unfamiliar with the original, it offers a solid, if flawed, experience based on a critically acclaimed game. However, for those who hold the original Black Flag dear, Resynced may not evoke the same emotional resonance. Like Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Resynced makes improvements that highlight both its successes and its shortcomings, landing as a well-intentioned but ultimately imperfect remake that doesn't quite usurp the legacy of the game it seeks to honor.