Even with all the ports and remasters, Ubisoft has never remade an Assassin’s Creed game. However, it’s all but confirmed the company is working on an Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remake of some kind that’s probably going to get released in the near future. It’s been over 12 years since the original release and even though it is one of the most-respected entries, 12 years is a long time. A lot has changed with the series and gaming as a whole, meaning this “resynced” edition of the swashbuckling action game is going to have to see some changes in order to adapt to the new generation.
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Aside from the multiplayer mode it is unlikely to bring back, here are five things the Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag remake needs to have.
5) The Structure of the Original’s Combat
Black Flag‘s combat built upon Assassin’s Creed 3‘s combat, which was also heavily inspired by the fisticuffs seen in the Batman: Arkham games. It was a hot style of the time, but it isn’t replicated as readily in the modern day. This discrepancy gives this counter-heavy fighting system a level of novelty that should stick out now and a remake should not change that.
Instead, this remake should built and expand upon that foundation. It could make some of the other moves more useful — so many of them are easy to ignore — and double down on the seamlessness it didn’t nail the first time that makes these types of combo-driven systems a blast. Combat in the entries that followed Black Flag was inconsistent and often generic as it focused on boring special abilities or simple parries that didn’t allow for rewarding chains and skill-based kill streaks. A pirate should be carving through their adversaries with ease and that’s something the first game tried to do, so it would be a mistake if the remake moves away from that (and one report sadly indicates this might be the case).
4) Only a Slight Dive Into RPG Territory
It would be easy to mess up the combat if the remake fully becomes an RPG. Unfortunately, a recent report revealed that it will sail into role-playing waters by giving Edward Kenway gear stats and a loot system. This is incredibly grim since it would be a tragedy if this remake falls into the Assassin’s Creed Shadows trap by having meager benefits that are only a headache to sift through.
Hopefully, however, these RPG systems aren’t based around small percentage points and useless buffs and instead only give players different ways to play. Being able to make a build that doesn’t dull Edward’s blade could be an interesting change. For example, a pair of pistols could refill a shot for every parry or a sword could drop a smoke bomb when the player kills five guards in a row without getting hit. The chances of Ubisoft not overloading the game with superfluous RPG systems that water everything down are admittedly rather slim, but there’s still a chance it could be handled well and meaningfully augment the experience. There’s even rumblings that state how this part of the game has been scaled down after the negative feedback that followed the aforementioned report.
3) The Inclusion of the Freedom Cry DLC
Freedom Cry is one of best (if not the best) expansions in the entire franchise. Granted, the series has seen some terrible pieces of DLC, but Black Flag‘s most notable single-player focused expansion was a fitting, bite-sized addition to the game’s world that still stands out all these years later. And since it’s one of the best parts of Black Flag, its inclusion would greatly benefit this remake.
While it would be nice to include this expansion in the core package, it would be understandable if Ubisoft wants to go down the path Capcom did with the Resident Evil 4 remake’s Separate Ways DLC and expand upon it enough to justify selling it separately. There are certainly ways to improve Freedom Cry and it deserves to get the same treatment as the base game.
It just needs to be included somehow, which doesn’t seem as much like a guarantee given Ubisoft’s alleged cold feet surrounding the recent news of the canceled Assassin’s Creed game set after the United States Civil War that would have seen players take on the Ku Klux Klan. Freedom Cry deals with chattel slavery and focuses mainly around Black characters, so it would be immensely cowardly for modern Ubisoft to fear retribution from an annoying and vocal minority of bigots and cut this portion altogether. Shadows starred a Black character and sold well, after all.
2) A More Seamless Open World
Black Flag gave players free reign over the open sea, and it was a liberating to sail around, plunder neighboring ships, and harpoon various wildlife. However, an abundance of long loading screens dragged down the experience and put a limit on how freeing it truly was.
The series has had fewer loading screens as the years have gone on, so this would seemingly be something that would naturally be addressed with the latest hardware. Recent reporting has also alleged as much, explaining how there will be no loading screens when players dock their ship. Regardless, it’s a notable direction to take and one that would greatly improve an open-world game like this, especially if paired with a more exploration-focused ethos that doesn’t rely on icons and waypoints and instead encourages players to poke around.
1) More Open-Ended Mission Design
Openness should also define its mission structure. Black Flag often fell into the trap of having fail states and narrow objectives and that has only gotten more annoying since its initial release. Black Flag should embrace more freeform mission design that doesn’t punish players for failing or funnel them into one style.
For example, failing to eavesdrop shouldn’t kick players to the last checkpoint, but instead force them to get that information another way. A more reactive world that surprises players and lets them experiment is what the series has been missing, and a Black Flag remake would be a great time to start more heavily investing in this type of gameplay, especially since the original could often be too restrictive.
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Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
