Ubisoft has published a big ol’ deep dive into Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced and its numerous gameplay improvements.
The article covers parkour, stealth, and combat, with all three elements having received a rather dramatic overhaul when compared to the original Black Flag.
We caught a glimpse of most of these reworks during the remake’s reveal last month, but creative director Paul Fu is on hand to give us more insight into why certain changes were made, and what they mean for the overall game.
Instead of just regurgitating all of Fu’s comments, we’ve broken down the improvements via bullet points:
Parkour and Movement
- Edward’s general movement speed has been increased
- Edward’s landing animations have been shortened to allow for more responsiveness after jumps or falls
- After performing certain parkour moves, Edward’s speed will temporarily increase, letting you flow into other parkour techniques
- Swings and lifts are more responsive and move Edward at a faster speed
- Resynced borrows from Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ major parkour updates, allowing for more freedom of movement and jumping
- A manual jump has been added
Stealth
- Edward can now use the ‘Observe’ system from Assassin’s Creed Shadows, letting you tag enemies and find environmental clues
- Edward can now crouch at any time, immediately making him harder to spot
- The Rope Dart tool becomes available much earlier in the game, unlocking in Sequence 3 instead of Sequence 11
- There’s now a button that lets you take Edward’s hood on or off at any time
- Losing a target during a tailing mission no longer gives a game over — you just have to find your target again
- Edward can now blend into smaller groups of civilians, not just large ones
Combat
- Combat is much more action-focused and less contextual
- Edward has more finisher animations, including hidden blade takedowns during combat
- You can now use the surrounding environment to defeat enemies, kicking them into walls or off cliffs
- Edward now has a dodge and perfect dodge attack
- Edward now has a heavy attack that can be charged, and changes based on the type of sword you’re using
- Combat is “more demanding” in general, as enemy AI will react to your fighting style; you can’t just stand there waiting for parries
- Chained takedowns after a perfect parry won’t work on armoured enemies — you’ll need to break their defences with a pistol shot before the kill
- New enemy types have been added
Ubisoft includes a bunch of short gameplay videos to demonstrate a lot of these changes, which JorRaptor has kindly compiled:
The bottom line here is that a lot of these improvements sound really good, and the hope is that Resynced will end up being the definitive version of a beloved Assassin’s Creed title.
But are you looking forward to this sea-faring adventure? Draw both swords in the comments section below.
