After a lot of divisive AC titles, the official announcement of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was like a wish come true for long-time fans of the franchise. After all, Assassin’s Creed has always been one of those gaming franchises that has been widely praised during its heyday, but at some point, became divisive. Whatever your personal feelings are though, it is almost universally accepted that the best AC entries have always been the Ezio Trilogy and Black Flag. Because of that, it’s understandable why people are so excited that Ubisoft is finally bringing back Black Flag in a big way, and last week, we got to be part of a special preview event and got some hands-on time with the game. While we only got in around 3-4 hours with it, I’d like to share with you our Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced first impressions and how this polished legend feels under a modern lens.
Let’s start with a recap. What do we know is new about Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced? First off, yes, there’s the graphical overhaul that was obvious from the very first moment we booted up the game. Then you have updated movement and combat. You also have some quality-of-life changes. Lastly, you have the new story content that not only expands the arcs of old characters, but also adds new characters and their respective arcs will be added to the game as well. All in all, it was estimated that there would be around 6 hours of added content.
During the preview event, we basically got our hands on a special build that took us to various parts and chapters of the game so that we could experience as many of the changes as we could. I will confess, though that I haven’t really played Black Flag to completion. In fact, I’ve really only played roughly 3-4 hours of the original, so I’m coming into this with not many comparison points and will be basing my impressions on how much of an impact this game made on me without the nostalgia glasses on. Anyway, with all that said, let’s get into it.
First of all, Ubisoft did a stellar job when it comes to visuals and the game’s environments. The game was simply breathtaking. From the streets of Havana all the way to the open seas and even underwater, every bit of this game was just EYE CANDY. The waves, the beams of sunlight, the new weather effects (yes, there are weather effects now too) were really amazing to behold. Plus, we were also told that they added like 12,000 voice lines, and you could tell because Havana and the Jackdaw (your ship) felt so alive with the chatter that you would hear. Even better, you get the really cool sea shanties that your crew would sing while you were sailing the seas. But I do have a bit of criticism here in that regard. I really do wish that there was more background music to this. You see, while there is fast travel, you do encounter some times when you have to sail through quite the stretch of water, while the shanties are there, I just think the addition of some nice thematic background music would have been great just to amplify the experience even more. Although I would say that I think this one is just more towards my own personal preference.
Next up, we have combat, which was probably my favorite part of Resynced. As compared to the OG Black Flag, Resynced combat does feel so much more fluid, faster-paced, and more active. The new parry mechanic adds a lot to the game, in my humble opinion, and makes each combat encounter so satisfying. The game is all about giving you so many more options on how you approach each fight. Hell, the game even gives you the Rope Dart MUCH earlier, so you can use those to pull enemies off rooftops and other vantage points. The game also gives you other tools that you can quickly swap to. These also really help to keep the combat flow much more fluid. This also applies to Naval battles, as they are just so sick to play as they are simply such visual spectacles. Plus, Resynced has added various alternate fire options, which once again give you so many more ways to go about these skirmishes.
You might wonder, “Oh, so does that make the fights really easy now?” Well, no, as the devs did make it so that enemy AI learns from your own moves and tries to adjust to kind of force you to adapt, which makes things not as redundant. I also have to say that I’m happy they did this while still sticking to the Non-RPG format of enemies that the original had. This may just be a me thing, but I feel like for an “assassination” game, level shouldn’t be a hindrance on who you can and can’t eliminate. It’s way better that these enemies just learn to adapt with their tactics and approach to handling a threat like you as opposed to just resorting to level gaps.
These were the aspects that really stood out to me, and I guess if I were to give my initial assessment, I think Black Flag, at its core, is just too good to fail as a game, and Ubisoft did add a lot of new things to the game in terms of the visuals, voice lines, combat, etc. But at the risk of sounding like a child, I kinda felt like I wanted more. Yes, combat was my absolute favorite addition to this game, but it is also the part that I wished there was more of. You see, the combat has sped up a lot to where I can loosely compare it to how the Arkham games were, and even something like Sekiro to some degree, and these kinds of games had features that made hits feel like they had so much weight, such as a sound cue that you do upon kills or even more epic visual kills. Some of the kill animations felt a bit… bland? or at least could use a little bit more oomph. Once again, I know how much Ubisoft has added, but at the risk of sounding demanding, I did find myself hoping they could’ve tweaked combat just a little bit more.
Speaking of more, I know that a big chunk of the additions is also the added content, which I think I can appreciate more if I’m able to go through them more once we have the full game. For now, all this really makes me want to get my hands on the full game and see how things hit me more when I’m playing the game for a much extended amount of time. But yeah, I think Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is going to be great no matter what because of its very strong base core. It’s just a matter now of seeing whether the final result will be a good or a great game.