Why Ubisoft Returned to Black Flag: ‘There’s Great Value With the Classic Assassin’s Creed Experience’

From Feudal Japan to Ancient Greece to the Italian Renaissance, the Assassin’s Creed series has explored many eras over its nearly 20-year run. However, the golden age of piracy from 2013’s Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remains an enduring favorite of the series, making it a compelling pick for an overhauled remake that aims to deliver notable upgrades that heighten the pirate adventure.

For Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced, the developers at Ubisoft Singapore were given the freedom to modernize one of the games from the series’ “classic” pre-RPG era with upgrades and flourishes, creating a more seamless open world to explore.

“I think there’s still great value with the classic AC experience, personally, for me, I’m both a fan of the RPG side, but also the action-adventure side of the series,” Paul Fu, Black Flag Resynched’s creative director, told IGN at a recent preview event. “There are merits to both, but with Black Flag, there’s such a strong focus on story and character that’s more about the defined narrative. For us, we just wanted to make sure that we keep the spirit of the original game with this remake.”

Aside from its alluring setting, which married the swashbuckling fantasy of being a pirate with the mystery of the Assassin’s Creed series, one of the main appeals of Black Flag was that it was not just a fresh start for the series following the Desmond Miles saga, but also the series’ first attempt to tackle a more expansive open world. It really tapped into the experience of players exploring the raging waters aboard their naval ship to embrace the life of an assassin and pirate. That in itself was a big draw for the remake’s developers, many of whom wanted to take a stab at revisiting one of the series’ most popular entries.

The upgrades Ubisoft have implimented in Black Flag Resynced intend removing many of the original’s rough edges, which the developers explain was due to limitations as a cross-gen release, back when the PS4 and Xbox One were just arriving in stores. The improvements are especially evident in the world design, which aims for a more seamless experience with no loading screens or interruptions (an issue suffered by the “old” generation version of Black Flag in particular), and for drastically expanded underwater gameplay to offer more opportunities for exploration.

Resynced takes the “Black Flag was good, but it can be better” approach. In addition to improved visuals and weather systems for the game, it introduces a revamped combat system that emphasizes a faster flow and parrying. Furthermore, it improves stealth by introducing crouching, removing instant mission fails, and upgrading the parkour with better physics and new traversal options.

But at the center of Black Flag is Edward Kenway, a roguish pirate who eventually slips into a greater calling as an assassin. For lead actor Matt Ryan, this was his first video game role, and it remains one of his favorite acting jobs. For Resynced, he not only got to see his old world revamped with better visuals, but also returned to his role in new side-quests and narrative events alongside new crew members.

“What I love about [Edward Kenway] is that he starts off as a selfish rogue looking for gold, glory and fame, but there’s something in there that he wants to do it for, for Caroline, for his family, to prove his worth,” said Ryan. “There is a good intention under there with him, but he’s ruthless enough to do anything it takes to get it. That’s what I really loved about the original game, it took a long time for him to find his moral compass. As the player – and for me too since I’m the actor, which was amazing [laughs]– you kind of get to live out that part of your fantasy of being a pirate. That’s what I love about the game, it’s all about that character’s journey.”

Even for during a time when open world games were expanding significantly, the original Black Flag was a massive game. It marked the next serious evolution of the series’ core recipe, which had steadily been iterated on since Assassin’s Creed 2. In many ways, Black Flag marked the early start of the series’ RPG era, with its focus on a fully explorable open world filled with side events and opportunities for player growth. But, arriving at a time before different color weapon rarities, the open world was designed as a space for players to really build up Edward Kenway’s status as a legendary pirate of the Caribbean.

Resynced revisits Kenway’s character arc, but Kenways alone. The project remakes just the core game and none of the DLC, including Freedom Cry, which focuses on Adéwalé’s story following the events of the main story. This decision was made for technical reasons, as the creative director put it, due to the challenge of remaking Black Flag.

“We definitely considered adding Black Flag’s DLC content like Freedom Cry, but right from the beginning, we understood that Black Flag would be one of the hardest games to remake in the AC franchise,” said Fu. “There are many reasons behind it – First of all, the world is huge, and it’s a specialized, enabled map that requires a lot of tech that doesn’t really exist anymore. We couldn’t reuse any of the old tech.”

“The surface and underwater gameplay had to be seamless, and we had to expand the underwater more, and we also needed new scripting tools to be created for ground, naval, and underwater altogether,” he continued. “We needed to be able to script a more reactive shark, for example, which didn’t really exist in the Anvil engine at the time. So we knew there was a lot crammed into this 20- to 40-hour game. So we were very careful in managing the scope, which is why we elected to focus on Edward Kenway’s main story.”

After a trilogy of increasingly dark Ezio games and the long-running, apocalypse-averting Desmond Miles saga, the original Black Flag was a fun and clever turn for the series, one that was a little more light-hearted and full of adventurous spirit. In many ways, Resynced is in a similar position, with many fans looking for an opportunity to revisit Assassin’s Creed’s classic action-adventure style after years of RPGs. With the upgrades really leaning into the pirate fantasy and making the world more seamless, Resynced becomes a compelling and strong option for seeing one of the series’ strongest classics in a new light.

For lead actor Matt Ryan, revisiting Black Flag and reflecting on his time as Edward Kenway was particularly fond. With the Resynced remake giving him another opportunity to revisit Kenway, it’s also giving fans of the original some new experiences with the pirate anti-hero once again.

“It’s mad, isn’t it? Coming back to it after all these years, it’s been a good experience,” said the lead actor. “I watched many of those cutscenes again, and I got kind of nostalgic, man. Like all these emotions popping back to where I was as a person at that time, you know, interacting with all the other fellow actors in Montreal in 2012, when we filmed it and did our performance, and it’s just such a joy to come back to something like this after all this time.”

Alessandro Fillari is a longtime games media professional. Talk video games with him on BlueSky at @afillari.bsky.social.