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Review: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag “Freedom Cry” DLC

“Freedom Cry” contains some heavy themes, powerful storytelling and a great cast of characters.

It’s one of the best stories in the Assassin’s Creed canon and could have been considered amongst the series best experiences. Unfortunately some odd gameplay choices that unwind strides forward made in Black Flag coupled with an ironic lack of actual freedom relegates “Freedom Fry” to the good, not great pile.

Set 15 years after the events of Black Flag, “Freedom Cry” sees Edward Kenway’s first mate Adewale on a mission to free the slaves of the Haitian city of Port-au-Prince. It’s a truly engaging and human story that gripped me from the first. Adewale is a principled man and seeing through his eyes the suffering and despair these people were enduring meant I shared his desire to see them freed. The main story, extraneous activities and diversions are all cleverly intertwined with the main themes. You’ll come across slaves that need rescuing on a regular basis be it stopping a sale, preventing an escapee from being killed or curbing the hand of a man with a whip. In each case the strength of Adewale’s resistance movement grows, but in a case of a missed opportunity the strength of numbers never comes into play in any meaningful way.

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Instead of helping Adewale overthrow the Governor of Port-au-Prince or assisting him in freeing other slaves, as far as I could tell the number of people freed existed only to unlock upgrades. It’s rather disappointing for such a powerful and impactful storytelling and gameplay mechanic to be squandered on simple character unlocks. While the unlocks help Adewale to free slaves more easily they’re simply being freed to unlock more kit. It’s a circular system with no real payoff.

The other area that “Freedom Cry” stumbles is in its main mission design. The DLC is happy and comfortable to fall back on the Assassin’s Creed mission tropes of eavesdrop, stalk, repeat. The freedom found in Black Flag’s exploration is largely absent with most of the action taking place in story missions. There’s very little to do outside of these and without the ability to explore “Freedom Cry” feels quite confined and shallow, in spite of the deep and engaging narrative.

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It may be that “Freedom Cry” has launched to soon after Black Flag for me to truly appreciate it, but with the massive world of the main game still fresh in my memory, the DLC can’t help but suffer. Perhaps Ubisoft wanted to avoid releasing “Freedom Cry” too near to the Liberation HD port, but that seems like a better fit and a better companion piece. More time would have passed, giving players time to miss the world of Black Flag and a trip back with Adewale at the helm would have had even more impact.

“Freedom Cry” manages to tell a compelling story with a strong protagonist, a feat that has been elusive for some previous Asssassin’s Creed entries — ACIII I’m looking at you — but is ultimately somewhat let down by too heavy a reliance on the tropes and mechanics the series has become famous (or possibly infamous) for. The steps forward taken in Black Flag are all but removed, leaving a fairly standard Assassin’s Creed gameplay experience with an excellent narrative keeping it all together. There’s a lot of enjoyment to be had with “Freedom Cry”, just don’t expect a revolution.


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