Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Director Explains Its Biggest Change

3 weeks ago 20

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is making plenty of changes, from overhauled combat to new content sprinkled throughout the Caribbean. Most of these updates, however, shy away from cutting material from the original game or taking big enough risks to offend the loyal fans.

There's one thing, however, that Black Flag Resynced is doing very differently. The modern-day sections of the original game have been wiped away entirely, following a trend set by more recent entries in the series. As it turns out, cutting these segments fell in line with a goal that the team behind Black Flag Resynced had from the start.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced docks at sunset

Speaking to Screen Rant at a preview event for the game, Black Flag Resynced director Richard Knight explained that the original modern-day segments didn't fit the idea of a modernized Black Flag release. The goal behind Resynced is to be "the next modern Assassin's Creed," and bringing back the older modern-day story didn't serve that goal.

Instead, Black Flag Resynced adds Animus rifts that tell "what-if stories for Edward and his friends," which are meant to feel disconnected than leaping back to Abstergo offices in the original game. The older modern-day content is "still canon," and Knight suggests that players can still "go back to that game and find out what happened to Desmond's friends." For Resynced, however, any reference to the modern-day will be "fully optional."

That doesn't mean, however, that Assassin's Creed could never revisit the more traditional modern-day story. Knight describes the Assassin's Creed franchise as "case-by-case," with different teams having "their own personality" and "their own things they want to achieve."

While the original modern-day segments of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag had some neat ideas, it's hard to argue with the decision to scrap them. Even in the original trilogy, bouncing out of the historical setting for comparatively mundane modern segments was always a bit controversial. After the end of Desmond's personal story in Assassin's Creed 3, a lot of the narrative momentum was lost, making Black Flag's attempt to keep the story going feel even more obligatory.

There's also the practical matter of development scale. If maintaining and revamping the modern-day segments took any resources away from stealth, combat, or sailing, it would be hard to argue that the endeavor was worth it. Hopefully, the Animus Rifts we're getting instead will prove to be a better use of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced players' time.