Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Review, Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Top Features

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced from Ubisoft Singapore brings Edward Kenway and one of the most beloved entries in the storied series back to the limelight. 

A remake of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag from 2013, Resynced is a true remake, unlike some other titles in recent years that suggest as much, only to truly be remasters. 

The iconic pirate adventure comes with overhauled presentation and big gameplay changes to match modern times. 

It's hard to understate how heavy the pressure of expectations is here, with an entire generation of gamers undoubtedly listing Black Flag as not just one of their favorite in the series, but a core memory of a console generation as a whole. 

Resynced, at least, seems to understand this with the way it approaches the tricky-to-navigate-waters. 

Graphics and Gameplay

Back in 2013, no game came close to making the tropical greatness of the Caribbean look so good or immersive. The engrossing set piece, littered with accurate historical details and big crowds, was super impressive for the time. And the sea shanties. Amazing. 

Resynced soups up the world with all the treats modern hardware can provide. Near-distracting details at every turn, realistic physics across everything and stunning reflections across the swaying seas and otherwise ramp up the immersion. 

The same new horsepower backs the sound design, which loops in all the expected banter and blunt impact of weapons. The shanties are there, of course, but so is a stellar background soundtrack that annotates the highest of tension moments. 

Whether it's staggering draw distances out on the seas or an eyebrow-raising number of people on the screen to navigate, immersion-wise, Resynced now feels free of tech limitations and closer to how anyone who played the original probably remembers it. Older games don't age nearly as well as our nostalgia-goggles recall them, after all.

Resynced is a throwback in the truest sense of the word on the gameplay front, too. Games like Odyssey, Valhalla, Mirage and Shadows have gone light-to-heavy on RPG elements and sprawling open worlds that make the hour counter grow massive, while also earning criticism for being drawn out. 

Not Resynced. There's a very obvious effort here to keep this a snappy action adventure game. In fact, combat might be quicker with smaller combo chains than the original release. No giant skill trees and classes to build, either. 

Stealth will forever be a huge part of the series. Fitting, then, is the much-needed addition of a dedicated crouch button for this remake. No more hoping for an auto-crouch in bushes and getting auto-failed if detected. Now, players can just…crouch behind a box, naturally, and use the overall environment to stay hidden. No more immersion-breaking detections. 

Eavesdropping and tailing targets, even in dense crowds, remains a core staple. But the simple addition of a crouch button, believe it or not, makes a world of difference. 

Parkour itself just feels better, too. As expected for modern tech, it's snappier and comes in more short bursts that players can interrupt with jumps, lending a much better feeling of being in control of the action, not a magnet who triggered a ride on a surface. 

Naval combat gets expanded with new ideas in terms of weapons, officer abilities to use and otherwise. It's pretty much how players remember it, which is a good thing because it's fun to feel the weight of bigger ships or the speed of more agile ones and strategize how to navigate battles. 

Story and More

Back in the day, Edward Kenway was a relative to other playable characters in the series and took players on a swashbuckling ride that included encounters with the likes of "Blackbeard" across an expansive tale. 

The bulk of that narrative returns in all its glory and is even more focused on the 1715 happenings than the original. It has aged incredibly well, even if one could argue the sheer immersion of the pirate life does the very heavy lifting for what is still a pretty standard-fare story. 

Side missions, a handful of them new and pretty deep, expand on the lore and characters of the world in strong ways, too. It's nice to see Edward's character and his surroundings fleshed out all these years later.  

It's a little thing, but ambient dialogue from NPCs out in the world now reflects in-game happenings, too. Really, just the game flexing its modern horsepower, but the little impact it has on immersion is hard to understate. 

For those very deep into Assassin's Creed lore, the modern-day segments have been removed. It's honestly pretty disappointing because back in 2013, it felt like the games were weaving together something much grander on a sci-fi scale behind the scenes. 

That doesn't mean there aren't timesinks worth exploring. One notable point of expansion is the new ability to dive anywhere. Adding that much more to explore is almost intimidating, but it's optional and truly expands the, well, depth of the game to impressive levels. 

Resynced, like those before it in the series, arrives with an expansive list of options, including specific accessibility settings. It also runs well on the technical front. 

Conclusion

Resynced is Assassin's Creed at its peak. 

It's not trying to push the series in new directions or chase industry trends. Instead, it takes the very best from the original and the top elements of every sequel and puts them into one cohesive experience that defines what the series should be. 

This isn't just loving the setting. It's there and more engrossing than ever. But it's the snappy combat, dense exploration, character studies and overall immersion that one envisions when thinking about what the series could truly be. 

And sometimes going back to roots is what it takes.