Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced completely remakes 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag with modern graphics and mechanics while retaining the adventure and gameplay that made the original so beloved. We spoke with Ubisoft Game Director Richard Knight, Creative Director Paul Fu, and Anvil Engine Architect Nicolas Lopez at a Resynced preview event about what has made Black Flag so special and enduring over all these years.
Black Flag was a massive hit upon its original release in 2013. It remains today people’s favorite entry in the franchise for its unique combination of story, land-based combat, and naval ship battles. We started off by asking the devs why they feel like Black Flag has endured among all of the Assassin’s Creed games, and why this was the one to remake.
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For Richard Knight, the answer is the protagonist, Edward Kenway. He explained, “I really think that [Black Flag] is so memorable because it has this character that directly informs the gameplay. Edward [Kenway] is a very memorable rogue. He literally throws away the hidden blade when you first get it—you’re like, ‘What is this guy? I thought he was playing Assassin’s Creed.”
Black Flag is so memorable because of its protagonist, Edward Kenway.
Paul Fu agreed, but his emphasis was on Edward’s story. “I think it’s a really grounded story about a husband who wants to provide, and also a freedom-loving pirate and a young lad who eventually becomes a grown man after several tragedies.”
“At the time [Black Flag] was conceived, it was seamless. There was a ground-naval hybrid world. It was probably the first of its kind, and it was just amazing to see that kind of freedom and open-world exploration in the 2013 game, which is why it still endures today as one of the best pirate games ever made.”
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is a complete, ground-up remake of the 2013 game in Ubisoft’s current Anvil Engine. There are so many updates and changes that just weren’t possible during the original game’s era of game production and design.
Features like Underwater Everywhere weren’t possible in 2013, but essential to Resynced.
“The original game is so old,” Nicolas Lopez put it. “It’s a challenge to remake a game like Black Flag, because it was a game that was produced before the physically-based rendering era. We have to go back to the intentions: what was the intention of the original game, and realize that with today’s technology.”
The original Blag Flag developers always aimed for it to be not only a great new entry in the Assassin’s Creed series, but the best pirate adventure game on the market. “About six hours before the official announcement for Resynced, we actually did a pre-show with the Ubisoft Singapore studio, just to pre-celebrate,” Paul Fu explained.
“I fished out some old prototypes that we had from 2012–2013, and one of them was ‘Underwater Anywhere.’ It didn’t make it into the original game for many reasons, but now in Resynced, we could have Underwater Everywhere.” It’s just one example of making the game “more believable,” as Lopez described it—ways that new technology has made it possible to fully live out your pirate dreams in the game.
Black Flag Resynced was inspired by YouTube video compilations.
Richard Knight pointed out, too, that “You can use the fight kick and play a really terrible game of bowling. We put that in thinking, well, we’re gonna have physics, you can kick the coconuts, you can pet the cats, you can pet the turtles. It doesn’t change the Assassin’s Creed universe, but sometimes we need to add those details to make the world feel believable.”
Making the world of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced feel authentic and exciting was about more than just aesthetics and worldbuilding. The gameplay had to marry the feel of the original game and its iconic chain takedowns with modern gameplay expectations for stealth maneuverability and combat responsiveness.
Paul Fu discussed the way the development team worked to make that blend. “One of the core inspirations for Resynced’s fighting was YouTube videos from fans who have made combo videos in the original game. In the original, you could do all kinds of weird stuff by mixing the tools and combos together, and we really, really liked that.”
Resynced features dynamic chain takedowns.
“In the original, there’s all this visual flair that you can do with the combos, but there are no gameplay gates. There are no conditions that allow you to perform, for example, a wall takedown. Now, you can kick a guy to a wall, and then when he’s on a wall, you can do a wall takedown.”
Richard Knight expanded on the balance between the different aspects of the gameplay by saying, “You can be as stealthy as you want, but at some point, [combat is just] how you play. We also see it as part of the freedom of the game. A lot of our game choices are based on ‘That’s nice, but let’s just cut to the chase, shall we?'”
For Knight, it was important that players feel like the game was a little more challenging to play than the original, but was still as streamlined as possible. The 2013 game didn’t have much diversity in the combat, for example, but in Resynced, the different tools, like the rope dart or your guns, can be used seamlessly in your combos with simple button inputs. The same is true about switching between your weapon modes on the Jackdaw, or even just fast traveling back to it when you get lost.
‘Authenticity’ is the most important word to the Resynced developers.
Blending the old with the new was essential for the Resynced devs because, for so many players, Black Flag is a cornerstone of their gaming history. But a simple remake wasn’t enough. “I have this saying that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it’s ‘The same, but bigger,'” Richard Knight explained. “So our map is the same, but feels bigger. There’s more to do. We did authenticity passes throughout development to make sure that treasures are in roughly the same place or that all these original routes still exist.”
‘Authenticity’ was a word that was repeated regularly throughout the preview event. The goal was to make sure that players felt at home as soon as they picked up the game while making sure people who only started playing Assassin’s Creed more recently felt just as familiar. Knight continued, “We still kept what’s core and fundamental to the Black Flag experience. We wanted to keep the spirit of the game there, and then we wanted to modernize it where we could to add quality of life improvements, but without breaking what was the original experience.”
For Paul Fu, one of the most important quality-of-life improvements was simply ensuring that all the characters were fully expressive at all times, even when they’re in the background. “We wanted characters to move around and hold stuff, like Steve Bonnet opening the crate to check if Edward has stolen anything,” Fu shared.
What makes an Assassin’s Creed game an Assassin’s Creed game?
But we had a technical challenge because the number of bones and the facial tech from [the original game] don’t exist anymore. There are a lot more bones on the modern character’s face, so we realized that there was some missing fidelity. We had to actually hand-key a lot of it, which is crazy. We have some really talented animators at Ubisoft to help us out with that.
To wrap up our conversation, we wanted to understand what, after years of Assassin’s Creed games and so many different types of experiences within the franchise, continues to make an Assassin’s Creed game an Assassin’s Creed game. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is very specifically not an RPG like some of the recent titles, like Shadows and Valhalla. It’s a single-player, narratively-driven experience. With so many characters across so many ages and localities throughout history, what still connects these games to one another?
For Nicolas Lopez, it’s the characters and their worlds, “Like Ezio, Arno, Edward Kenway, and so on. And exploration. As just a gamer, not even as somebody working on the game, it’s the open cities. You explore massive cities—live cities—and in later games, whole provinces or states.”
Everyone should feel right at home with Black Flag Resynced.
Paul Fu shared a similar sentiment about “The general spirit of an Assassin’s Creed game, which is you have Assassins, you have Templars, you have Hidden Ones… you have all that deep lore in Assassin’s Creed that fans are a big part of. The hidden blade, as well.” Regardless of how big and open the world is or whether you have skill trees to level up through, for Fu, it’s “The classic pillars that we are used to: stealth, parkour, combat, and narrative” that bind the series together.
Richard Knight rounded out the conversation with his feelings on what’s still at Assassin’s Creed’s core. “Assassin’s Creed games are inspired by history. It doesn’t always have to be 100 percent accurate, but it’s about encountering these larger-than-life characters, and about being an Assassin who can sneak around and run really fast and move through the world as I always dreamed. And when I’m not walking, I’m eventually stabbing things and killing bad guys.”
Clearly, whether you’re an old Assassin’s Creed player or a new one—somebody who is focused on the story, the characters, or the gameplay, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was designed to be an exciting and fulfilling adventure. Everyone should feel right at home with the updated gameplay mechanics and authentically, gorgeously rendered Caribbean.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced releases on July 9th on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
