The anticipated Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remake is perhaps the worst-kept secret in gaming right now. News of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced (rumored to be the official title) has been surfacing regularly over the last year or so, and with developer Ubisoft having now re-uploaded the game’s entire soundtrack for no apparent reason, it’s essentially a foregone conclusion that a remake announcement is imminent.
And while I’m certainly happy at the prospect of jumping back into one of the best Assassin’s Creed games ever made, I’m not entirely convinced that Black Flag is in need of a remake, certainly not over older games like Assassin’s Creed and Assassin’s Creed 2.
Ubisoft has yet to announce anything official about the Black Flag remake, though rumors point to some significant changes being made to the original version of the game. Here’s what I’d like to see changed in a potential redo, and some things that I absolutely, under no circumstances, want Ubisoft to include.
The tempest
I’ve not quite been sold on the last few Assassin’s Creed games, finding both Valhalla and Shadows to be lacking in the parkour, story, and world design departments. That doesn’t mean that a potential Black Flag remake shouldn’t ignore the modern games entirely, however.
Shadows, in particular, is an absolute industry leader in weather and environmental effects. The seasonal changes, the heavy rain, snow, and sleet – the dynamic weather in Shadows is brilliant in how it ties into gameplay, and it would be absolutely stunning when applied to Black Flag’s West Indies.
Black Flag’s setting was really ahead of its time, especially with regard to its large oceans and water effects. Now imagine how a proper dynamic weather system could tie into sailing, exploration, and more.
Tempestuous storms and rolling fog would seriously up the ante for ship combat, as would more modern particle effects for cannon-fire and sea spray. If I could choose one thing for a Black Flag remake to plunder from Shadows, it would absolutely be the dynamic weather.
Hardcore parkour
Modern Assassin’s Creed titles approach parkour in a completely different way than the first six games in the franchise.
I loaded up Black Flag recently, and spent half an hour or so running just around the rooftops of Havana. Parkour still feels surprisingly good. It’s lightning fast, dynamic, and most importantly, it leaves plenty of control in the hands of the player.
You see, parkour is too heavily automated in recent games. The animations are better than they’ve ever been, but the actual moment-to-moment flow of the movement is more restrictive, and you don’t really have all that much control in how you move from point A to point B.
I’m worried that Ubisoft might be about to crowbar modern parkour systems into Black Flag. They actually did something similar already with Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
That game, despite being an homage to the first Assassin’s Creed, features parkour that’s secretly just a tweaked version of Valhalla’s. This does not work at all in the confines of Baghdad, a city that is supposed to evoke the bustling locales of the first three Assassin’s Creed games. The result is a slow and far too streamlined system that pales in comparison to the parkour of games that came out nearly 20 years ago.
Post-launch updates to both Shadows and Mirage have improved things significantly, but it’s all made one thing very clear to me: Black Flag’s parkour does not need replacing, it just needs updating and refining.
Cleaner animations and an updated control scheme are all that a remake of Black Flag really needs to have.
Freedom Cry
I look back quite fondly on Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag – Freedom Cry, though I’ll be the first to admit that it’s nowhere near the best DLC we’ve had in the Assassin’s Creed universe. A potential Black Flag remake does raise the question as to whether Freedom Cry needs to be brought along for the ride. I’m going to be somewhat controversial and say that no, it really doesn’t.
Now, having replayed Freedom Cry recently, I’m here to tell you that you probably do not want to play a straight-up remake of it as much as you think you do.
The story is great, the blunderbuss and machete weapons are fun enough, but the actual structure, the gameplay, and feel of the DLC are seriously lacking. The majority of the missions are tailing ones (more on that later), and the ship combat is really just more of the same from the base game. I would much rather see Freedom Cry protagonist Adéwalé’s role expanded and folded into Black Flag.
While the events of Freedom Cry do take place after Black Flag has ended, Adéwalé could have a much larger, more prominent role in the Black Flag remake.
Give Adéwalé his own missions that borrow from the Freedom Cry playbook and plot, and have the story side of Freedom Cry play out as post-game content. I’d love to see some of Freedom Cry be incorporated here, but simply tacking on a remade Freedom Cry onto the Black Flag package? It’s just not going to be worthwhile.
It’s worth noting here that we have never seen an Assassin’s Creed remake before. We have no idea whether Ubisoft intends to follow the plot and structure of the original, or do something like the Resident Evil series and establish a completely new version of events. I’d quite like to see the latter, as it’d allow for characters like Adéwalé to be fleshed out and given more prominent roles.
Chasing its tail
Many of us look back on games like Black Flag through rose-tinted glasses. It is an undoubtedly fantastic game, and one that really stands out in the series for being something completely unique when compared to what came before.
The problem is that broader memory of Black Flag, the one that evokes snapshots of thrilling ship battles, hair-raising stealth, and larger-than-life supporting characters, isn’t quite the full picture.
Black Flag does not feature the mission structure we’ve come to expect of modern AC games, and it’s particularly plagued by tailing missions. These are a much-maligned part of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, and fairly so. Black Flag, and Assassin’s Creed 3 before it, are the worst offenders for having players slowly tail a target for the duration of a main mission. It’s always dull, and during a replay, it’s quite surprising just how often it crops up.
Black Flag has possibly the worst implementation of a tailing mission in the entire series, as well as one where you tail a ship while sailing the Jackdaw in a swamp.
These either need to be reworked completely or taken out of the game. Modern entries like Assassin’s Creed Shadows handle tailing quite well by giving players more stealth options when approaching a target, or by giving them the choice to kill a tail early and track down the info they’re hiding later on.
This is one area of Black Flag that I think needs modernizing entirely, and please, don’t make me do ship stealth, it simply doesn’t work.
That’s quite enough loot
According to a particular Black Flag remake rumor, the game will lean into loot and gear stats for Edward Kenway’s arsenal, likely in the same way as we’ve seen in the modern games.
Personally, I cannot stand constantly picking up slightly higher-level loot items of the same kind, and I much prefer the older AC games’ approaches to bespoke weapons and simple upgrade trees.
Black Flag does not need the same role-playing game (RPG) treatment first utilized in Origins, nor does it need bloated enemy healthbars and damage numbers. The combat in Black Flag is fast, brutal, and simple, though it definitely fits the protagonist better than having a slew of legendary swords and pistols constantly thrown into a player’s inventory.
This is a pirate game, however, so a better loot variety would be welcome. What I really don’t want to see is the same loot system as employed in Shadows, where I have 20 katanas of varying levels, each one as forgettable as the last.
It’s very likely that Ubisoft will incorporate some of the more RPG-heavy systems seen in recent games when designing a Black Flag remake. A skill tree could be great, and expanding crafting would fit with the treasure-hunting setting. All in all, however, turning Black Flag into a full-on RPG would be a mistake, one that would introduce a whole heap of the very issues that have made modern Assassin’s Creed games so uneven and sometimes even difficult to recommend.
Ubisoft needs to walk a very fine line between old and new here, especially with a game as beloved as Black Flag. The trick will be to modernize aging control schemes and world design while preserving the original’s focus. Easing off on the urge to fill the remake with sprawling RPG loot systems will be key.
We’ll have to wait and see whether Black Flag is indeed getting a remake. All signs point to yes, but it’s important to note that Ubisoft has never acknowledged the remake’s existence, nor has it commented on the recent rumors and leaks.
Hopefully, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced sticks closely to the original game, as it’s still a fantastic entry into the Assassin’s Creed series, and one that inspired countless games in its wake.
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