▶ TL;DRBlack Flag Resynced is the easiest game in the world to recommend and the easiest to be annoyed at, at the same time. The remake itself is excellent: the Caribbean has never looked better, and thirteen years later the sailing still embarrasses most open-world traversal. But the day-one DLC wall is a self-inflicted wound, and it is the reason a great remake launched to a Mixed rating instead of a victory lap.

In 2013 I sank an embarrassing number of evenings into Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, mostly ignoring the actual assassinating so I could chase white whales and sea shanties. Thirteen years later Ubisoft has rebuilt the whole thing from the keel up, and my honest first reaction was relief: they did not ruin it.

My second reaction came when I opened the store page and counted nine separate DLC packs on launch day. We will get to that. We have to, because the internet certainly has.

A Remake With the Wind Behind It

Resynced is a ground-up rebuild on the latest Anvil engine, led by Ubisoft Singapore, the studio that spent a decade making the Black Flag spin-off Skull and Bones before coming full circle to remake the game everyone actually wanted. The water, the weather and the light are the show-stealers. Havana at dusk and a storm rolling over open ocean are the two screenshots every outlet ran at launch, and fair enough: they are the game's argument in a single image.

Edward Kenway crouched on a Caribbean shoreline beside a beached shipwreck in clear turquoise water
The rebuilt Caribbean does most of the arguing for this remake. Official Ubisoft screenshot.

Edward Kenway's story is untouched in the ways that matter, and it remains the series' best character arc: a greedy chancer impersonating an Assassin who slowly, painfully grows a conscience. Traversal and combat have been modernised to current expectations, though a lot of mission design underneath is still recognisably 2013: follow this bloke, eavesdrop on that conversation, fail, restart. The remake sands the edges without rethinking the shapes.

A night-time fort assault, soldiers silhouetted against burning debris and stone walls
Fort assaults look brand new. The mission design underneath is vintage 2013.

+ PROS

  • Sailing and naval combat still carry the whole game
  • The Anvil rebuild looks stunning without losing the 2013 tone
  • Every mission, island and story beat is in the standard edition
  • Steam Deck verified from day one

− CONS

  • Nine day-one DLC packs totalling around $85
  • The $5 map pack literally sells back the joy of discovery
  • Faithful to a fault: if you replayed the original recently, this can feel inessential
  • Mission design still shows its 2013 bones

Sailing Is Still the Whole Point

The Jackdaw remains the best vehicle in this entire medium. Broadsides still boom, boarding actions still turn every fight into a small pirate movie, and the shanty-singing crew still does more for immersion than any amount of ray tracing. Thirteen years of open-world games have come and gone, and almost none of them have traversal that is a pleasure in itself the way sailing is here. That is the real reason this remake exists and the real reason it works.

Edward at the Jackdaw's wheel in a palm-lined harbour with crew working the rigging
The Jackdaw: still the best vehicle in games, thirteen years running.

It clearly worked for everyone else too. The launch pulled 99,000 concurrent players on Steam, the biggest debut in franchise history, and two million copies sold on day one. People wanted this game back. Which makes what happened next so avoidable.

The Gift Shop Problem

The best ship in gaming has docked next to a gift shop.

Nine DLC packs were live on the Steam page on day one: eight cosmetic bundles at ten dollars each and a five dollar map pack, roughly $85 US of extras next to a $60 game. The cosmetics are whatever; cosmetics have always been the industry's tip jar. The map pack is the one that gets me. It automatically reveals secret locations across the open world, which means Ubisoft is charging five dollars to delete the exploration from an exploration game. In a remake sold on the joy of discovery, that is not an optional extra, it is a tiny act of self-sabotage.

Players noticed. The game sits at Mixed on Steam, around 76 percent positive, with the negative reviews overwhelmingly about monetisation rather than the remake itself. Ubisoft's response was that the standard edition is "the full, complete experience" with "nothing held back", and honestly, on the content itself, that claim checks out: every mission, every island and the whole story are in the base game. But when the $70 Deluxe edition does not even include most of the DLC, you have not calmed the conversation, you have confirmed its premise.

Do You Need It?

The fairest knock on Resynced came from PC Gamer, which called it "a well-made, but inessential remake that loses more than it gains". I would not go quite that far, but the tension is real. If you replayed the original recently, this is the same game in nicer clothes, and the 2013 version still exists for a fraction of the price. If it has been a decade, or you never boarded the Jackdaw at all, Resynced is comfortably the best way to experience one of the best open-world games ever made. On Steam Deck, where it is verified from day one, it borders on ideal couch pirating.

Watch the Launch Trailer

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced: official Horizon launch trailer (Ubisoft)

Verdict

Black Flag Resynced is two things at once: proof that Ubisoft can still make (or remake) a great game, and proof that it cannot resist strip-mining the goodwill that game generates. The 7.5 below is a great remake dragged down by the business model wrapped around it. Buy the standard edition, ignore the gift shop entirely, and the Caribbean is as good as it ever was.