I gotta hand it to Ubisoft — I wasn’t sure about Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, but after putting in more than 30 hours into the main game, I can safely say that the Black Flag remake might just be Ubisoft’s best release to date.
The Assassin’s Creed series is synonymous with modern gaming, but, truth be told, the legendary franchise already reached its peak during the seventh and eighth console generations. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag exemplified this, giving series fans and newcomers alike one of the most compelling games in the series, featuring an original seafaring story set in the Caribbean that took the already razor-sharp gameplay of the series to new heights, redefining it for a generation.
Because of this, the prospect of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, a full remake of the 2013 original, felt unnecessary. After all, Black Flag was a cross-gen release, making it a launch game on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, meaning it is still perfectly playable on modern hardware. That was my sentiment going into the remake. Actually playing Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, I quickly realized the game is more than a visual upgrade.
The remake features a slew of new content, including QoL improvements, optimized performance profiles, a fully overhauled combat system, faster, more realistic climbing and parkour, expanded missions, new areas to explore, and characters to recruit, on top of feature parity with newer releases of Assassin’s Creed. Resynced also trims the fat by removing all the Abstergo nonsense of the original, making for a much more concise experience. In other words, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced blows the original out of the water like a cannonball to the side of a British naval schooner.
The expansive map of Black Flag has also been enhanced, and I’m not talking about the graphics. Rather, many unlockable weapons and cosmetics are scattered throughout the game world, creating more exciting treasure and pirate booty that even Blackbeard would blush over. Edward can swim and dive anywhere on the map, making it possible to stop the alert status in ways that were not possible in 2013. Most of the smaller, optional islands in the game now also feature brand-new underwater sections full of loot, helping things feel fresh for returning players.
“Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced blows the original out of the water like a cannonball to the side of a British naval schooner”
On the topic of graphics, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced has been remade from the ground up using Ubisoft’s in-house Anvil Engine, using the same technology that brought forth Shadows. In practice, this means a highly optimized game that looks several orders of magnitude better than the 2013 original. From the realistic ripples and waves of seafoam to the dynamic weather system and the volumetric fog that makes every scene in the game ooze with atmosphere, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is a stunning game on PlayStation 5.
PlayStation 5 Pro users will also be happy to know that the game features a balanced mode that targets 40fps at 120Hz for VRR displays, delivering an experience that is much closer to the smoothness of 60fps while maintaining some truly impressive raytraced effects, such as higher quality reflections on many surfaces that bring the world of Assassin’s Creed IV to life.
The devil is in the details, and on that note, I do wish Ubisoft spent a little more time refining the finite details of the game, something that I normally would overlook, but for a series and game as legendary as Black Flag, some things do stick out. Namely, leaps of faith into haystacks and tropical shrubbery incur no deformation; Edward kind of just clips through them, as if he’s playing Mechachrome. Additionally, as cool and brutal as some of the new finishers are, the lack of model deformation and gore can make the experience feel a bit hollow, betraying the high-quality polish of everything else.
When not occupied with the main story, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced features a treasure trove of side activities that can easily double or even triple your total playtime. Some of the more interesting and new content for the remake includes brand new Rift anomalies. Rifts are vignette-style puzzle-platforming sequences that offer players interesting what-if scenarios while illuminating Edward’s backstory beyond the scope of the original game.
“Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced features a treasure trove of side activities that can easily double or even triple your total playtime.”
Additionally, the Animus Hub from Assassin’s Creed Shadows makes a return, acting as an almost mobile-game-style rewards system, giving the player daily caches of keys and other rewards that can be earned by playing the game, which in turn can be exchanged to unlock unique cosmetic items exclusive to the Hub, usually pulled from other AC titles. Edward’s home away from home, the Great Inagua hub area, has now expanded and fleshed out, with upgradable facilities, such as a pub and shipmaster, in addition to new NPCs appearing on the island, giving players access to a whole suite of powerful and unique weapons and gear.
Chase sequences and escort missions are much less rigid, allowing players to engage with them without worrying about desyncing, thereby fastening the sometimes otherwise slow and scripted feel of this specific mission structure. Similarly, players can now hold a button to follow friendly NPC characters during missions, further streamlining the monotony of scripted events.
Overall, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is more than a massive overhaul of the 2013 game; it is a remake in the truest sense. For new players, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is a must-play in 2026. And for those who have already experienced the swashbuckling career of Edward Kenway, Black Flag Resynced offers enough meaningful changes and edits to still warrant a second dip into the deep blue seas of the Caribbean.
