Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag is the sixth major installment in the Assassin’s Creed series, and it hands you a ship. Ubisoft Montreal’s open-world adventure puts you behind the wheel of the Jackdaw, a vessel you upgrade throughout the game and can access whenever you need it. The game blends ship-based exploration with land-based adventures across the West Indies.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
A Release Spread Across Two Months
Black Flag launched for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U in October 2013. PlayStation 4, Windows and Xbox One followed a month later, in November 2013. It later came to Nintendo Switch as part of The Rebel Collection alongside Assassin’s Creed Rogue in December 2019, and to Google Stadia in September 2021.
The historical timeframe precedes Assassin’s Creed III, but the modern-day sequences succeed III’s own.
Edward Kenway and the Golden Age of Piracy
The main story runs from 1715 to 1722, during the Golden Age of Piracy in the West Indies. Edward Kenway, a Welsh privateer turned pirate, searches for fortune and a mythical location called the Observatory. He is the father of Haytham Kenway and grandfather of Ratonhnhaké:ton, also known as Connor, both of whom appear in Assassin’s Creed III.
Matt Ryan plays Kenway. The cast includes Edward “Blackbeard” Thatch (Mark Bonnar), Benjamin Hornigold (Ed Stoppard), Mary Read (Olivia Morgan), Stede Bonnet (James Bachman), Anne Bonny (Sarah Greene), John Rackham (O-T Fagbenle) and Charles Vane (Ralph Ineson).
Edward gets pulled into the Assassin–Templar war after he kills a rogue Assassin named Duncan Walpole and takes his place at a Templars meeting in Havana, where he meets Woodes Rogers and Laureano Torres. His recklessness endangers the Assassin Brotherhood, pushing him to chase the Sage, Bartholomew Roberts, and the conspirators from the Yucatán Peninsula to Jamaica, eventually catching Roberts on Príncipe.
Three Cities and Fifty More Locations
Black Flag is an action-adventure and stealth game played from a third-person view. The three main cities sit under different flags: Havana under Spanish influence, Kingston under British, Nassau under pirate control. Port-au-Prince and Greater Inagua are used as main story points.
Beyond those, there are 50 other individual locations to explore:
- Atolls
- Sea forts
- Mayan ruins
- Sugar plantations
- Underwater shipwrecks
The game balances 60/40 between land and naval exploration. Players encounter jungles, forts, ruins and small villages, and can engage, board and capture passing ships or swim to nearby beaches in a seamless fashion. A spyglass lets you examine distant ships, their cargo and strength.
The Jackdaw and the Water
The Jackdaw is upgradeable throughout the game and stays easily accessible. A new underwater component lets players explore shipwrecks at several marked locations. The hunting system returns from Assassin’s Creed III, with land hunting and fishing feeding a crafting system that upgrades equipment.
A Map Built for Wandering
Ubisoft Montreal designed Black Flag to be more open than previous Assassin’s Creed titles. It features fewer restrictions than Assassin’s Creed III, which kept players on scripted missions and withheld exploration until well into the first act. The map covers a large section of the Caribbean, from which smaller, individual locations may be accessed.
Abstergo and the Observatory
The modern-day story is set in 2013, months after Desmond Miles dies in Assassin’s Creed III, and runs alongside the pirate one. The player is an employee of Abstergo Industries, a company used as a front by the modern-day Templars, and is manipulated into uncovering secrets related to the Assassin–Templar conflict and the First Civilization.
Abstergo Entertainment, a subsidiary, hires the player to examine Edward Kenway’s genetic memories. The real target is the Observatory, a First Civilization structure Edward interacted with. Given a blood sample, it can monitor anyone anywhere. Abstergo intends to use it to spy on and blackmail world leaders.
What Actually Matters
The pirate half is the reason to play this. The Caribbean is generous, the Jackdaw makes traversal a decision rather than a commute, and the game trusts you to find your own trouble between missions. That freedom is the improvement over Assassin’s Creed III.
The Abstergo material is the weaker half. It ties Edward’s story to a larger mythology and works as connective tissue without earning its time.
Black Flag also carries the series’ usual weight. A map this size means repetition, and the stealth has never been the draw. The ship is the draw.
The published critical score is 8.5/10, an IGDB critic aggregate across 21 outlets.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
