It starts out so weak that a couple of gunboats and a stiff breeze could tear it in half, but put some love and care into it and it’ll destroy ships twice its size without breaking a sweat. What’s more, there’s a decent amount of depth to upgrading and customizing Kenway’s ship, the Jackdaw.
Fighting off an enemy armada or laying siege to a military fortress in the middle of a ferocious downpour can be stunning to behold, and the way the waves ebb and swell… well, it adds a surprising amount to the experience. There’s a day and night cycle that looks great, volumetric fog obscures distant vessels, and an involved weather system that chucks squalls and tornadoes at players which impact the ship’s control. It works pretty great in practice and sailing around the islands of the game's world is magnificent to behold. However, putting all the traditional stuff aside, it's clear that what Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag does best is the new piracy aspect.
Sadly, even after all these sequels it's still not totally reliable-sometimes Kenway will refuse to clamber onto a perfectly good ledge while racing against the clock, but it’s largely still a (mostly) enjoyable way to get around when it’s not awkwardly screwing up chase sequences.
Free running remains a decent way to navigate the pretty landscapes.
Of course, some of the good stuff is back, too.
Rather than being a series of exciting ascents, it’s just jumping through hoops to unlock a decent map. Synchronizing viewpoints is still a thing, despite having worn out its welcome sometime around Assassin’s Creed II. Tailing suspects makes its unwanted return, and far too many of the storyline missions involve meekly following behind two gossiping bell-ends while avoiding or mutilating guards along the way. Most of the other traditional Assassin’s Creed systems are present and accounted for. There’s also a crafting system lifted right out of Far Cry 3 where hunting predatory wildlife can be put to good use making outfits or improving equipment. Countering enemy attacks for instant kills and initiating kill chains to chop multiple foes down carries the day, and has the knock-on effect of making any story scene where Kenway is overpowered curiously unbelievable.Īssisting in his daily murder, the usual upgrades and unlocks are available-pistols for shooting distant snipers, sleeping darts for dropping awkwardly placed guards, and armor enhancements so that unfriendly blades don’t slip through to important arteries during battle. The alternative was too mind-numbingly tedious to consider, so killing them all was the only sane choice.Ĭombat’s also largely unchanged, making it simpler to massacre every human being in a mile-wide radius than slip by them undetected. It quickly becomes tedious in the extreme, and any time stealth was optional rather than a requirement, I ended up with mountains of corpses left in my wake. Sneaking past several groups of guards would be fine, but Black Flag constantly expects players to ghost through entire battalions of dim-witted sentries who all love standing with their backs to dense shrubbery. Otherwise, the sneaking and stealth mechanics are as good as they’ve ever been-so they’re still mediocre at best, and that’s being generous. The story behind Edward’s rise to piratical infamy isn’t exactly riveting, nor is the modern day stuff about an anonymous Abstergo employee taking over from Desmond Miles’ original saga. That’s okay though-it turns out that he was a bad Assassin who was about to join the Templarzzzzzz…Īh! Sorry, I just fell asleep remembering it. One of his first acts under player control is murdering an Assassin and pilfering his clothes. Rubbing shoulders with the likes of Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, he’s a less heroic sort than previous protagonists were-and given that they’ve generally been a line of unrepentant murderers from start to finish, this is quite an impressive feat. The answer was obvious, really – just drop some pirates into the mix and let everyone start stabbing people on the high seas with those famous hidden blades!Īs a result, this time around it’s all about the fearsome pirate Captain Edward Kenway and his quest to obtain mounds upon mounds of illicit booty.
How could Kenway possibly fail to see it?Īfter the intensely disappointing Assassin’s Creed III, it seems like Ubisoft went back to the drawing board and had a little think about how to make the series appealing to its fanbase once more. WTF I spotted that revelation about Captain Kidd right off the bat. LOW Pointlessly tailing some cretin across the map for the billionth time. HIGH Cresting the waves in a storm whilst laying siege to a fortress with mortar fire.