Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Review

It feels weird to play remastered versions of the games I grew up on. I’m not even close to being old, but a good chunk of my Steam library is made up of effectively duplicate titles. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered, Mafia II: Definitive Edition, Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director’s Cut, Skyrim’s special edition…you get the idea. None of the original versions of those games needed graphical updates. They’re still fun to play. Their modding communities are still active. Their publishers pushed out new iterations of them solely to sell copies to console owners, and to FOMO PC gamers.

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‍Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced doesn’t quite fall into the same category as the likes of Dark Souls II: Scholar of the First Sin, though. Although it does offer marginal graphical and audio improvements, and is available on current-gen gaming systems, the focus here is on gameplay enhancements. Resynced is still Black Flag at its core, but there’s no longer the veneer of it being anything but a swashbuckling adventure with a recognisable brand name stapled to it.

If you haven’t played Black Flag before, you probably don’t realise the reason so many people love the game is solely because of the pirate elements. As an Assassin’s Creed title, it was very divisive. The overarching Templars-versus-Assassins storyline was weak and the modern day sections were shoehorned in. The sections of the original that focused on sneaking around with hidden blades were boring. Exploring The Caribbean in a customisable ship, or on land with a huge variety of era-appropriate weaponry, were amazing, though. The title was, and still is, tons of fun because it lets you play as a rum-drinking bum with delusions of grandeur and not an Assassin with a hard-on for MacGuffins.

Resynced emphasises all the elements of Black Flag that focus on hoisting the colours. And it almost entirely ditches everything that doesn’t. Gone are the nonsensical first-person missions that forced you to roleplay as an employee at totally-not-Ubisoft. There are no insta-fail boat stealth sections here. If you mess up during one of the game’s countless contracts that involve tailing someone, you can always figure out their destination by looting your target’s corpse. You can’t play the player-versus-player mode that you probably forgot existed. There’s new missions that wrap up your crew’s journey more conclusively, a couple of welcome weapon additions, and you can even crouch whenever you want now.

Even though you occasionally have to sit through mundane speeches or stab someone with your hidden blade, the bulk of Resynced is about being a pirate. The changes it makes to the original game means it does that almost perfectly.

It’s stupid amounts of fun to sail around Resynced’s world with no particular goal in mind. Taking down prize ships, stopping at random islands, and scouring for resources to upgrade your weapons or boat is endlessly satisfying. Without having to worry about the obtuse mechanics of the original Black Flag, you can enjoy the game in its purest pirate form. 

That only works because Resynced keeps the core of Black Flag. Unlike modern Assassin's Creeds, this isn’t a very punishing experience. There are no RPG-lite mechanics, or weapons that give you marginal stat increases. Every upgrade you craft, boat you take down or enemy you defeat feels satisfying and earned. The combat here is smooth and straightforward, and the endless amount of tasks you’re given all make sense within the game’s world. The story is campy and good, never reaching the lows of Pirates of The Caribbean, or heights of Black Sails. 

With all that praise in mind, Resynced still has a couple of problems. The first is the monetisation. There’s a store with a not insignificant number of overpriced skin packs for you to buy, and a Battle Pass. Neither adds anything to the experience as a whole, and of course, you don’t have to buy anything. Their inclusion is still annoying, though, given the price of the game.

The other issue with Resynced is that it barely counts as being a remaster. The graphical improvements it makes are marginal at absolute best, and audio is almost identical to Black Flag’s. You won’t have to deal with any bugs, but you also won’t want to take screenshots for hours. Resynced is, from a technical perspective, no better or worse than any AAA release from the past decade.

But even though Resynced is only an okay remaster aesthetically, it improves Black Flag’s gameplay enough to be worth purchasing regardless of if you own the original. Not having to contend with annoying mission design or dumb first-person sequences transforms Black Flag from a cult classic into one of the best pirate games ever made. Resynced may not make you feel the wind in your hair, or the salt on your skin. But there’s loot on all of its horizons, and plenty of reasons to chase it down.