Let's face it - Assassin's Creed isn't what it used to be. The original Assassin's Creed games were quite amazing and almost revolutionary, but over the years, the franchise has worsened, and Assassin's Creed 3's poor reviews truly show for it. However, with a very different protagonist, a beautiful and expansive open-world, and new gameplay opportunities, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag has quite possibly revived the franchise.
AC4 takes place during the Golden Age of Piracy, and it follows the story of Edward Kenway, who is the grandfather of the main protagonist of Assassin's Creed 3, Connor. Kenway starts off as a poor man living with his significant other, Caroline. Edward wants to become a privateer to life easier for Caroline and him, but this would mean that Edward would end up being far from home and far from Caroline often. Caroline and Caroline's father do not like this decision of Kenway, and Caroline somewhat separates from Edward. Edward still decides to become a privateer, and so he does, but while on board, the ship that he works on meets its tragic demise. Luckily, Edward survives, and he later comes across an Assassin who is looking to become a Templar. Edward kills this Templar-turned-Assassin, named Duncan. Edward then meets with the Templars that Duncan had been planning to meet with, while pretending to be Duncan. It is with these Templars that Edward learns of The Observatory, a location which holds an artifact that will allow you to view what specific people are doing (stalkish, much?). Edward soon gets found out, and he is thrown onto a ship where he meets a slave named Odewale. Edward escapes this ship with Odewale, and Edward captures and becomes captain of a ship which he names, "The Jackdaw". Odewale becomes Edward's quartermaster. Now, from here, Edward makes it his goal to find The Observatory before the Templars. Along the way, Edward makes his friends such as Mary Read, Odewale, Rackham, Blackbeard, etc. help him find The Observatory. Because of this, most of them end up dying. Realizing how selfish he has been all along, Edward decides to stop the Templars from using The Observatory and then give up his life as a pirate. Edward started out as a selfish, womanizing, drunken pirate, but ended up as a kind, wise, helpful father. This journey from arrogant to humble was very enjoyable. Overall, Assassin Creed 4's story was great.
Now that I've finished talking about the story of the game, let's talk gameplay. The game's combat system is great, allowing for great fun during combat and while being stealthy. There's also an improved naval combat system, which doesn't make me want to kill myself every time a ship attacks me (*coughcoughAC3coughcough*). But apart from attacking ships, stealth kills and aerial assassinations, the game also features a huge open-world that almost makes GTA V's world look puny (Luckily, you're allowed to fast-travel around this massive world). Seriously, the amount of things you can do in this giant world is incredible - you can complete Templar Contracts, board ships, explore, find Mayan Stelae, find buried treasure chests, complete Assassin Contracts, upgrade the Jackdaw, capture forts, hunt and harpoon animals, craft and find weapons and outfits, and even more. All of these activities caused me to consistently play the game, even after finishing the story. However, not all of these activities are always enjoyable. Fully upgrading the Jackdaw was a hard, tedious, unenjoyable job, and it even sucked me into buying one of the game's microtransactions (which made me wonder if the devs made certain aspects of the game so hard that it would force players to buy the microtransactions, but that's just a conspiracy of mine). You may be wondering why I wanted to fully upgrade the Jackdaw in the first place, and it's because I wanted to be able to defeat the 4 Legendary Ships, which was even more annoying. Another very annoying part of the game was Tailing Missions, which were included in Story Missions and Templar Contracts. Tailing required you to follow and eventually eavesdrop on targets, but these missions seemed unnecessary and were extremely frustrating. Despite these few nuisances, the game felt great, and it (surprisingly) rarely felt repetitive. Plus, an awesome soundtrack and beautiful graphics accompanied the game's great gameplay, although I would encounter a few minor graphical glitches now and then. Either way, the game's amazing gameplay really gives the AC franchise new hope.
Great story, great gameplay, great graphics - there's got to be a catch, right? Right you are, and that catch is a poor multiplayer. The multiplayer hasn't changed a bit, which caused me to wonder if the devs were even trying when creating the multiplayer of AC4. I'm probably not the only one who thinks this, because I could barely find anyone who was actually playing multiplayer. I was only able to play two gamemodes because of this. So, AC4 can co down in history as another one of those games that really never needed multiplayer.
Overall, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag goes down as one of my favorite games of 2013, thanks to its graphics, soundtrack, activities, story, and open-world. The only things that hold it back from being perfect are the minor annoyances and unnecessary multiplayer. But otherwise, AC4 has given a new name to the AC franchise.
Thanks for reading my review. It's one of my first reviews, so go easy on me, but I'm always open to creative criticism.
Ubisoft has just released Skull and Bones on PC and consoles. And, from the looks of it, the game wasn’t received well by some gamers. Not only that but it appears that Skull and Bones can be worse than Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, a game that came out a decade ago.
I wanted a Black Flag sequel so bad. It's still my favorite AC entry. The fact that they ignored everything that we loved about that game in this "spiritual successor" is making me enjoy watching this game crash and burn quite a bit. Either do it right or don't do it at all. (I understand the legal binding they got themselves into with the Singapore government to release this game at all costs)
/grabs popcorn
My thing is, if the Singapore govt was forcing you to do it at all cost, why not make what people wanted? How did ubi delay it for 5yrs, then again for 1yr and not just make a similar experience to black flag? How do you spend so much time and make so little?
Ubisoft did make a sequel, Assassin's Creed: Rogue. It has a short campaign, and its packed with filler side quests for upgrades, but it's still a decent time.
It released on the same day as Assassin's Creed: Unity, so it was mostly forgotten.
11 years of development. Multiple restarts. All the while people have been saying they don't want some pirate game where you can't even get off your ship. 11 years of people telling Ubisoft all they want is a pirate game that's basically Black Flag without any of the assassin or animus stuff. Yet they still served up this trash that no one wanted, charged $70 for it, and had the balls to call it AAAA.
The Guillemot family honestly needs to be forced out of Ubisoft. They've doubled down on everything players don't like about their games, they want AI to create "rough drafts" of their stories rather than letting their writers do their jobs, and they literally do not give a shit what their playerbase actually wants. 5-6 years ago their stock was worth more than 4x what it's currently worth. The company is dying.
What has happened to developers? How can you possible make a worse looking game 11 years later? It’s honestly mind boggling.
It's because the older developers were better at it. The new generation pass most of their exams by copying code from around the web so are not nearly as good at understanding what they are developing.
No, here's the truth:
https://www.channelnewsasia...
This was made in Singapore and it's the first game of this scale to be made there. Ubisoft would probably cancel it normally since it clearly wasn't shaping up well but they were getting government grants to try build up the industry there.
Do you really think game developers are radically different than just 10 years ago? And this game has been development since Black Flag released.
Using one crap game to trash a whole industry of developers is stupid. It's like saying "Alien Colonial Marines proves that game developers suck now."
It's the multiplayer aspect of the world. MP games look worse than single player games, period. Every comparison we keep seeing are for games like Gotham Knights, Suicide Squad and Skull and Bones. They all have multiplayer focusses.
Enough has been said about this game already. The gaming world shrugged when it was announced so many years ago, and instead of listening to all the criticisms from the community back then, Ubi just sailed on and kept making a game nobody really wanted. What a waste of money and effort.
Skull and Bones borrows more than naval combat from Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, but Ubisoft's live-service adventure doesn't compare.
For me it was that and the fact i was alone in black flag.
On pc as soon as i got on that raft deal when the "British" defeated you the game went all dark how are we going to survive then bam 9 other players infront of me like la traffic jam i go to that first beach and player id's everywhere.
Like wow look at me i am a pirate like these other 30 going to the same chest so dam fun.
Also the first ships you fight are the same just red sails strong white sales weak there is no British flags so lazy.
Brotherhood was peak.
Played Revelations after that and never picked the series back up. Left a pretty bad taste in my mouth
Black Flag was the Pinnacle of pirate games for me. Wild that it’s been 11 years, played it after coming home from college classes every day
Watching Skull and Bones gameplay really shows how important all the AC elements like land exploration and fighting really were in making it such a great game. To go back to just sailing with those basic ass controls a decade later is just sad.
This weekend from August 10-14, players can play for free Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, Revelations, Black Flag and Valhalla on Xbox, PlayStation and PC (availability dependent on platform).
Whoa. AC3 didn't have poor sales, t's the highest selling of the franchise. Other than that, I agree.
Nice review. Great game I am loving the whole pirate theme.
Only negatives are the terrible tailing missions (and there are a lot of them), and the 'real world' stuff.
I just want to play as a pirate, I have always disliked AC's Animus concept.
Good review. I'm really enjoying Black Flag, first time I've really liked the series since AC2.
At the start it felt a little 'samey' as the others, but once you get past the first few missions it really opens up and becomes a great game.
I hated AC3. Bad main character, no over arching plot line, terrible controls, ect. AC4 is the best AC I've played in years. I'm glad they made the enemies apparently deaf and you can run up on them. I like that they got rid of the stupid notoriety thing that made guards attack you on sight. I've never liked the AC multiplayer, it's interesting, definitely has a niche appeal.