Assassin’s Black Flag Resynced is a game many had been waiting for. Its existence had been known long before Ubisoft announced it this April, with many gamers eager to return to the 18th century Caribbean portrayed in the game.
This is a remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and like its predecessors it has gotten high marks from reviewers. A Metacritic score of 84 sure is testament to that…
So it’s not surprising that the game has been selling well, with French company Ubisoft announcing that Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced sold an impressive 2 million copies on launch day.
“Seeing so many players set sail on day one, along with the great reviews from critics, is the greatest reward we could have hoped for”, said the company on its website.
Resynced also broke a record for the series, namely that it’s the first Assassin’s Creed game to reach almost 100,000 concurrent players on Steam, something no other game in the series had managed to date…
This is all explained by the fact that Black Flag is one of the most popular games in the series, a pirate adventure set in the beautiful Caribbean, which focuses more on the pirate-y stuff than the conflict between the Assassins and the Templars. It’s more of a Pirates of the Caribbean simulator than a game about Assassins, and is all the better for it. Plus, this Resynced version is absolutely gorgeous by most accounts, something that adds to its appeal no doubt.
And given Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced’s success, it makes sense that Ubisoft would have more remakes in the pipeline. Actually, the company’s CEO Yves Guillemot spoke of remakes in an interview back in 2024.
“Players can be excited about some remakes, which will allow us to revisit some of the games we’ve created in the past and modernize them; there are worlds in some of our older Assassin’s Creed games that are still extremely rich”, said Guillemot on Ubisoft’s website.
After having remade Black Flag, it’s very likely Ubi will give the same treatment to the original Assassin’s Creed game, which came out in 2007. Rumors and leaks doing the rounds online suggest this will be the case, although remaking the original Assassin’s Creed will be a tougher endeavor for French company Ubisoft, though.
This is because the original game is very dated not only when it comes to visuals but also gameplay. Bringing the gameplay up to date will be a Herculean effort as Assassin’s Creed 1 just involved performing a series of repetitive actions such as trailing targets and eavesdropping and beating up random folk on the streets of cities in order to get to the target and assassinate him. The modern games are light years ahead when it comes to gameplay, so it will be interesting to see how Ubisoft handles the challenges of remaking it (if it actually does, that is).
Is Assassin’s Creed (2007) getting the remake treatment?
And while I would also be looking forward to seeing cities like Crusades-era Damascus in all their glory in an Assassin’s Creed 1 remake, there is also the issue of what Ubisoft will do with the modern-day gameplay of the original Assassin’s Creed. This was the game that introduced modern-day protagonist Desmond, the Animus and the nefarious Templar-run company Abstergo. Removing all this from the game to focus on the historical settings and protagonist Altair during the time of the Crusades would be considered sacrilege by long-time fans.
Yet Ubisoft did just that with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, with the modern-day gameplay removed in favor of more narrative content in the 18th century Caribbean, a move by Ubisoft I didn’t like but which sort of made sense as new players probably wouldn’t make much sense of the modern-day story in the game…
I’m hoping, though, that Ubisoft keeps the present-day storyline in an Assassin’s Creed 1 remake, if one is actually coming. I’ll be more interested, though, in seeing Assassin’s Creed 2 remade. That game improved the gameplay in leaps and bounds, and was also gorgeous to look at back in 2010. But getting to Renaissance-era Florence in all its glory, while playing as Ezio Auditore in a modernized version of Assassin’s Creed 2 is something I’m definitely looking forward to.
For the time being, though, piracy and the salty waters of the Caribbean in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced should keep fans of the series and newcomers happy, but it’s likely Ubisoft won’t take too long to reveal its plans for another Assassin’s Creed remake given the success of Black Flag Resynced this year.
Read more: Ranking the Assassin’s Creed Games from Worst to Best