While it had been rumored well before the official announcement of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced that the remake wouldn’t include the modern-day gameplay segments, in an interview with GamesRadar, game director Richard Knight has gone into more detail about the decision. In the interview, he noted that there’s just less interest in the Desmond storyline these days compared to back when Black Flag first came out in 2013.
It is worth noting that the modern parts of Assassin’s Creed games were liked back then, thanks in large part to Desmond serving as the main anchor for the story. Due to the events of Assassin’s Creed 3, there were several unanswered questions about the ultimate fate of Desmond’s friends. Many of these questions would get answered in the modern-day segments of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, complete with appearances of characters like Shaun Hastings and Rebecca Crane.
“Back then, it was very important to know what happened to Desmond’s friends,” he said. “But what we want to do is take Black Flag and update it and modernize it for today. So we knew we needed to change certain things – you can still play the original Black Flag – but this one, to me, is the latest Assassin’s Creed. It’s the post-Shadows AC. It’s still an authentic retelling, but it’s also a new retelling.”
Over a decade removed from Desmond’s entire storyline, Knight said, “That’s not really the question that’s being asked today, in the face of Shadows and Mirage and so on.”
2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins had introduced a new character that would serve as the player’s point of view for the modern-day segments—former Abstergo researcher Layla Hassan. She would go on to play a pivotal role in Odyssey and Valhalla. Since then, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has essentially started new plot threads for the franchise’s modern-day setting, and as such, Knight has also revealed that Black Flag Resynced will hint at a newer story that is being told in more recent games. This is being accomplished through new “what if” scenarios that players can find and experience through the eyes of Edward Kenway in Black Flag Resynced.
“We knew that what we wanted to do was continue what’s been starting to be told with Shadows, but we also wanted something that ties directly to the game you’re playing, so something to Edward’s experience,” he said. “What we came up with is these four rifts that you can find if you so choose, or you can choose to ignore them and just be Edward, the pirate and the assassin, and stick to that.
“They tell these ‘what if’ scenarios so that it still feels tied to that game, so even if you do go find this modern-day experience, you’re still playing Black Flag Resynced – you’re still playing Edward’s adventure, and you don’t feel like you’ve taken a break for hours.”
The lack of modern-day segments in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced also opens up the game to go deeper into the core story of Edward Kenway during the age of piracy by offering more refined gameplay and a little bit more content.
“With Resynced, it’s important for us to have that same spirit and flavor of Edward, to tell that same core story, just in greater fidelity,” he said. “I think they achieved the core of what they did with the original game, but this gives us the opportunity to add a bit more – not just to modernize it and add features that just feel more comfortable today, but also to add a little bit more content, to follow up on a few plot lines that maybe they ran out of time for.”
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on July 9th.
