Assassin’s Creed® IV Black Flag™

I had planned to finish this game, and write my review of this game before the remaster released, however clearly that’s not going to happen. As such, I’m just gonna kind of glue my thoughts together in a messy and directionless review. After months (maybe even years at this point) of on-again, off-again play, I am finally getting close to finishing the fan-favorite Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. And I must say: If this is the game considered by fandom as the “Best Game in the Franchise” I shudder to imagine how the worst one must be. Sure, naval combat is great, sea shanties are fun, the pirate plot is good, characters are good, and have great voice acting, and sailing is so therapeutic and the most fun I’ve had with the game. However, this game is a buggy mess with plenty of glitched animations and many more glitched audio. Additionally the modern day plot really throws a wrench into the pirate plot’s pacing, and if you are like me, where you are only interested in this one game and not the overall plot from the previous Assassin’s Creed games, you will likely know little about what is actually happening or the significance of it’s developments, or simply not care about them. If there were an option to skip the modern day plot entirely, I would absolutely use it, because on top the story being one I do not care for that only serves to hamper the pacing, it also introduces immersion breaking sci-fi elements into an otherwise ‘historical’ action-adventure game. But now, let me get into my biggest gripe with the game, it’s ground combat and stealth mechanics. For a game that advertises itself as a stealth game foremost, the stealth mechanics are surprisingly shallow, and lack any incentive/punishment for engaging with them or choosing to forgo them. Most stealth missions are simple trailing missions, and most assassination missions have stealth as optional, and will not punish you for just running in and cutting everyone down. The latter being very easy to do since this game has some of the easiest combat I’ve ever seen. Think Arkham, but every attack just kills instantly. That’s this game. I think the easiest way to incentivise stealth was simply carrying over the notoriety system already present in the game when sailing to also when you are walking. Add bounty hunter NPCs that gradually become either more powerful or numerous at higher notoriety levels, and maybe make it more difficult or expensive to clear your notoriety, and done. As is, the game does not punish you for not stealthing, and it doesn’t incentivise you either since typically it will take way longer to do so, and there are no rewards for it either. There are many other things I dislike with this game, such as it’s collect-a-thon elements, the underwater exploration, resources either being way too accessible or way to scarce, it’s bloated runtime, etc. but as I’ve stated in the forward of this review, this is supposed to be a clobbered together amalgamation of my thoughts rather than an actual thought out review. I still have yet to finish the game at the time of writing this, I just wanted to get a review out either before or alongside the release of the remake as I hope this review can point out the flaws with the original in hopes that the remake will/has addressed them. I do this since I believe at it’s core Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag has a good structure. The setting, characters, music, core gameplay (naval), and the like make up a strong foundation of a good game, and I am left disappointed with the end result. I give Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag 6.4 Johnnies that should Leave Her out of 10 As mentioned briefly earlier, sailing to sea shanties, hunting down whales/sharks, and digging up buried treasure with a map was the highlight of the game. If you don’t think you would appreciate these lull moments, I doubt you’d like this game as the action moments leave a lot to be desired.