Black Flag Started a Trend That Has Plagued the Franchise for 13 Years

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is getting a remake at some point in the near future, which is good, since it’s arguably the best game in the series. At the very least, it’s the pinnacle of the pre-Assassin’s Creed Origins formula, when the franchise had more in common with typical action-adventure games than open-world RPGs.

Despite its title, Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is actually the sixth mainline Assassin’s Creed game. It followed Assassin’s Creed 3, a game that met a somewhat mixed reception, and was swiftly recognized as the IP’s return to greatness. Certainly, Edward Kenway’s high-seas adventure, complete with surprisingly robust naval gameplay and compelling Caribbean exploration, is a fantastic distillation of the historical fiction action-fantasy that Assassin’s Creed wants to provide. It has an intriguing story, a gorgeous map populated with countless activities, and well-designed environments based on iconic locales like Havana and Nassau. While I personally think it’s the second best in the franchise, behind Assassin’s Creed 2, even I can’t deny that Black Flag has the best in-Animus experience the franchise had provided up to that point. It’s the out-of-Animus material that could have used more work, and unfortunately, the success of Black Flag may have reinforced some of those bad practices across the broader series.

A Black Flag Remake Could Be the Gift That Keeps on Giving For One Type of Assassin’s Creed Fan

With rumors of a Black Flag remake on the rise, one of its core aspects being redesigned and upgraded could pay dividends for certain players.

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag Phones In Its Modern-Day Sections

Whereas previous Assassin’s Creed games told a compelling (if ultimately anticlimactic) story about Desmond Miles and the “real-world” Assassins and Templars, Black Flag takes a massive step backward. The game focuses on a new protagonist, an unnamed Abstergo employee, who is essentially used as a pawn by Abstergo as they look for a McGuffin. The modern-day sections play out like a typical walking simulator; their gameplay consists of rudimentary movement, reading clues, and solving painfully simple puzzles.

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This dilution of the modern-day component makes Black Flag less interesting than its predecessors, but, worst of all, it started a trend: Assassin’s Creed Unity and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate follow Black Flag’s lead, making their modern-day protagonist a faceless, nameless cog in a larger machine. Even when the franchise introduced Layla Hassan, a protagonist who is similar to Desmond in role and play style, it never put the same spotlight on these modern-day passages. In Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, the modern-day storyline feels perfunctory, and in Mirage and Shadows, it may as well not even exist.

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag Resynced, the now-confirmed remake of Black Flag, is rumored to be cutting the modern-day portion entirely—evidence of its unessential and tacked-on nature.

It’s Feasible for Assassin’s Creed to Have a Good Modern-Day Story

A common sentiment I’ve seen echoed online is that Assassin’s Creed’s modern-day sections have always been bad. While Assassin’s Creed 1’s modern-day gameplay is a bit slow and clunky, the modern-day portions of the other Desmond-led games certainly aren’t. The evolution of Desmond from an ineffectual captive to a skilled assassin is both fun to play and to watch unfold, and the balance between Connor’s storyline and the modern-day stealth and combat of Desmond keeps playthroughs refreshing. These modern-day sections are often where Ubisoft seems to be at its most creative, introducing new gameplay and story ideas that, at the time of each game’s release, seemed to be building to something promising.

And while the conclusion of Desmond’s story may have been a bit underwhelming, there’s no reason why the series should just stop trying. Assassin’s Creed’s premise of time travel and global political intrigue has incredible potential and can still be mined for plenty of original ideas.