A pirate's life for me.
The long-rumoured return to the high seas is finally here, with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced arriving oh-god-has-it-really-been thirteen years after the original bridged the gap between PS3 and PS4. Long seen as one of the fan-favourite Assassin’s Creed titles thanks to its naval combat, charismatic protagonist, and vibrantly coloured open world, it seemed inevitable we would get the chance to revisit Edward Kenway’s journey across the West Indies someday. With Resynced, that time has finally come.
Rebuilt in the same Anvil Engine used for 2025’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Black Flag Resynced is faithful to its name; this is a recreation of the original game’s world and story, with the added features of more recent titles in the series to modernise the experience. The original Black Flag hails from a time when parkour systems were a lot more rigid for example, but the seamless movement inherited from Shadows folds just as seamlessly into Edward’s repertoire. I’ll admit, though: I had the oddest déjà vu moment watching Mr Kenway flick water off his hands in the exact way Naoe did in feudal Japan.
Set in the 1700s, Black Flag Resynced gives us a fresh look at the tale of Edward Kenway, a Welshman determined to make his fortune at sea and return triumphantly to his wife Caroline in London. Seeing his opportunity to get rich quick as a privateer, we join Kenway during a shipwreck that leaves him washed ashore next to a hooded, hidden-blade-wielding stranger – who then sets him on a collision course with the age-old war between the Assassins and the Templars.
For Edward, this doesn’t immediately register as a concern – still trying to seek his fortune, the battle between pirates and the British Navy is already enough to deal with. Much of your time in Black Flag is spent on the open seas, sailing from one island to another and making trouble on the seas in between. Constantly populated by other ships to prey on or avoid, the seas slowly fill with ever more diversions as time passes.
From deep sea wrecks to explore, to naval convoys heavy with loot, to harpooning game on the water, there’s always something to spice up your trips out to a new island. Thankfully the game is extremely generous with fast travel locations too – unless you’re truly in it for the immersion, it’s a welcome sight to skip a sailing voyage unless there’s some interesting spot to check out along the way.
On land, it’s a return to more classic stealth and combat systems too. Skipping the more recent addition of action abilities, Black Flag Resynced focuses on a simple but savage parry system, paired with an expanding roster of Assassin gadgets. Make no mistake, this isn’t an older, simpler combat system – those block and deflect windows are so much tighter than Shadows, because of a focus on a single core mechanic.
I found combat pretty refreshing, requiring a lot more twitch reaction and focus than I’m used to in the series’ recent titles. Enemies hit hard and often, so if you’re not taking advantage of your pistols, darts, and smoke bombs you might find yourself six feet under sooner than you’d expect. Compounding this difficulty, ironically, is the improved lighting and shadow technology originally developed for Shadows in the Anvil Engine.
As good as the world looks in night and day, and with dynamic weather to boot, I found the darker moments of the game almost too dark. During one mission, I found myself in a melee on the deck of the ship, at night, during a rainy lightning storm. The whole situation looked amazing, but true to the situation I couldn’t actually see what was going on – I could barely pick out the enemy combatants from the ship itself in all this gloom, only catching sight of them as a flash of lightning crashed across the sky. The whole combat felt like the difficulty had been cranked up a level as a result; whether this is immersion or inconvenience is a matter of perspective, I suppose.
In addition to the core content from the original Black Flag, Resynced adds new content in the form of specialty officers for your ship, the Jackdaw, and a selection of side missions to take them on. Each officer has a unique skillset and a unique reason for their life on the seas, which you can help them with to secure them for your crew.
These new missions take you all across the map, adding more to some of the existing cast as well as new members exclusive to Resynced. Once you’ve helped them out, they’ll bring unique bonuses to the Jackdaw to help you dominate at sea. All of these new quests fold into the existing story well, mirroring the mission design of the original so well that it’s hard to spot what’s new.
Sadly (for some), Animus moments from the original do not appear inside Resynced. I do identify as one of the little freaks who loved that part of Black Flag, skulking around a game studio and breaking into everyone’s offices with my Templar iPad, so I was sad to see them go. Instead, Resynced offers an alternative in the form of Rifts – tears in the Animus’ simulation much like they were used in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. These let you step beyond Edward Kenway’s world to play out what-if scenarios with a narrator who thinks they can tell a better story.
These Rifts are much more sparingly deployed than the out-of-Animus moments were, and tie in more directly with the meta-narrative being told in the background across the past few Assassin’s Creed games. While it is interesting to see what’s been building there, it does feel like a big element is missing – those first-person moments in the original helped reinforce how contagious Edward Kenway’s rebellious spirit was, bleeding into the real world as you worked to take down Abstergo and the Templars from the inside.
Black Flag Resynced is an extremely fun return to an old favourite, with some of the crunchier edges sanded off for a modern-day sensibility. It feels like it’s been exactly long enough since I played the original to feel fresh and exciting again, even as specific moments would trigger a specific memory and flash me back to a decade and a console ago.
It’s an odd feeling to be able to load both Resynced and the original Black Flag on the same console (complete with my original save data!), but seeing them side-by-side shows just how much care was put into uplifting that experience to a whole new generation of players. And after 40 or so hours of wandering towards the end of the main story, I’m glad to know there’s still plenty of the West Indies left for me to rediscover.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced will be available from 9 July on Windows PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, alongside Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was reviewed using a promotional code on PS5, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
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Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced9 July 2026PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X
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