Ubisoft’s Richard Knight on Resyncing Black Flag

Lots to sync your teeth into.

Like restoring the Mona Lisa or the roof of the Sistine Chapel, remaking a game that’s a fan favourite and broadly considered to be one of the franchise highlights isn’t a project to undertake lightly. So, when Ubisoft finally announced that Assassin’s Creed 4 Black Flag was getting a long expected and even longer awaited remake this year, I was eager to find out just how a developer would go about tackling such a titanic task.

Stevivor was recently invited to Ubisoft Singapore to get some hands-on time with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced and chat to Game Director Richard Knight about the challenges and changes involved in remaking the 13-year-old game.

Hamish Lindsay, Stevivor: One of the big focusses I’ve seen today has been on this being an Action-Adventure title, not an RPG – why’s that?

Richard Knight, Game Director Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, Ubisoft: Well, we knew from the very beginning that the spirit of Black Flag is the action-adventure. It’s kind of like it’s in Edward’s character; he’s this brash guy, he goes to prison a couple times, he’s always making these mistakes and they’re pushing him forward, right?

It was never a discussion for us to change that about the game because that’s kind of what’s so memorable about Black Flag. It’s not just the systems, it’s not just being a pirate and an assassin, but it’s just they all, they all work together, his story, his character, in the game.

I think that the really cool thing about Assassin’s Creed is that it can do different things based on the character and the time period and stuff. I’ve worked on Shadows and Mirage and I love those games too, but Black Flag, in particular, is an action adventure and that’s the way it should be.

Stevivor: It must be challenging to take someone else’s work and remake it and build upon it; can you walk me through what that journey was like?

Knight: I mean, it’s exciting! When we first started going down this road of, okay, what is a remake for Black Flag, we didn’t want to just remake it as is, because that game already exists. You can buy it. You can play it. It’s fun, right? It still holds up.

Where we started dreaming was, okay, but what if that game was today? If we built Black Flag today, what would that game be?

Some of it’s very obvious stuff like there’s going to be a crouch button and there’s going to be an open world without loading screens, but you know it lets you dream about other things. What kind of content would we add? What systems will we change? There’s a lot to it when remaking a game, but it’s that ability to dream, it sort of keeps us motivated.

Stevivor: Was there a lot of pressure remaking a game as beloved as Assassin’s Creed 4?

Knight: I mean, there’s always a bit of pressure, but I think all game development has pressure, like will my mad idea ever work out, right?

One of the cool things about a remake is that you have the game there. You can play it. You can test some of your assumptions against something that already exists, but you’re right that the other side of it is you have to pay attention to and obey your nostalgia. You have to make something that fulfils the spirit of the original.

We’re going to change some things, but we hope that it still feels like you’re playing Edward, you’re still playing the Jackdaw. You still having that fundamentally nostalgic experience, even though it feels fresh and modern today.

Stevivor: When making Resynced the decision was made to remove the modern day elements, and you’ve added around 6 hours of new content, do you see that as a trade? Old for new?

Knight: There’s a certain amount of trade, but it’s not that we want to remove modern day. What we did is, you know, the original Black Flag is still cannon. It still happened. Desmond’s friends, all that stuff’s still there. But if we were to do the game today, we don’t need to tell that story. We don’t need to tell Desmond’s friends. Nobody who plays Shadows or Mirage is even aware of that question.

So we had a couple of other goals. We knew we needed something for the modern day, and then we knew we needed something for the new content. And, you know, part of the new content is just that there was places that we felt like we wanted to add stuff based on the original without changing the core story.

And then with the modern day, it’s just that we wanted to continue what Shadows has started, but we also wanted to do something that was sort of closer tied to Edward’s journey. So with these new rifts and these what if scenarios, what we hope is that even though it’s a different experience that you will, you’ll play it, but it’s still gonna keep Black Flag and Edward and the Jackdaw and all that stuff on your mind so that the moment you’re done and you’re back to it, it doesn’t feel like you left and played something else entirely.

Stevivor: And continuing along the lines of those new additions, how much creative license were you and your team provided to go out and make them?

Knight: I mean, a lot. We made sure from early on to talk to Jean Guesdon, the original creative director, and one of the heads of AC. We talked to Darby McDevitt, the original writer, to make sure whatever we’re coming up with fits the story tone. We talked to Matt Ryan – Edward Kenway, you know.

It was never like going our own and just coming out with brand new stuff, we were always deeply connected to the original. But there’s just all these open places where it’s just, it’s obvious, right? Like, yeah, have a crouch button, have a seamless open world. Add some new voice lines, add some new content, add new quests where it makes sense.

There’s still unanswered things, what is Stede up to, what is Blackbeard’s killer up to? There’s a lot of questions that the original game doesn’t always have time to answer, so we can answer some of them. We can also add new stuff like the officers. But even the officers are also there to kind of inform you about Edward himself, his personality. How does he deal with a pirate crew, that kind of thing.

Edward’s our key. He’s our guiding principle for this entire remake. It’s Edward. It’s like my one key word, what would Edward do? So, a lot of times when we talk about new animations or gameplay features, this is that’s kind of the lens we look at it.

Stevivor: And finally, what’s your favourite addition in Resynced?

Knight: This is going to sound simple, but it really is just pressing a button to put the hood on. And that sounds so simple, right? But it just, it speaks to this freedom of being in a modern game. That, yeah, I feel more like an assassin today. I feel, just, cool put on the hood. Now, maybe it’s the total wrong place to be wearing a hood, but I’m gonna do it. Giving you that that sort of freedom to choose, I think, matters a lot.

Many thanks to Richard for his time.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced from 9 July on Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, alongside Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5.