Forget the PS5 Pro, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced shows why PC gaming remains ahead
This is a pretty stunning update to a beloved title
Although the big news came out last week, not this, it's still a complicated time to talk about a big new videogame. After all, we know now that PlayStation won't produce discs from January 2028 onwards, something that basically ushers in the end of being able to own most games physically – so it's interesting to consider how many more Assassin's Creed titles will ever come out on a disc, for instance.
I've written about a few of the ways in which this is basically a disaster, already, so I won't dwell again, but it does put a slightly sour twist on things when you play a game as detailed and vibrant as the new remake of Black Flag, which I've had for a little over a week and enjoyed hugely.
I've been playing the game on my gaming PC, not as a deliberate gesture of rebuke to PlayStation, but rather because the 5070 Ti inside it simply gives me the best experience out of the options I have access to, and because I've been testing an ultrawide monitor to really make things as "PC gaming" as they can get.
It's been fun to underline just how good that experience can be when everything works straight out of the box, too. Black Flag Resynced is one of the most gorgeous videogames I've ever played, with its version of the Caribbean offering you a new vista practically every time you pass an island.
The game's also a lovely throwback to an era when you could polish off the mainline story of a big game like this in a couple of dozen hours, rather than something like 75 of them, and the speed at which its story clips along has been refreshing to enjoy.
I was a big fan of Assassin's Creed Shadows, and I'll maintain that its version of Japan was more interesting to explore in mechanical terms than the more stylised one offered up by Ghost of Yotei the same year. Now, Black Flag Resynced has confirmed for me that Ubisoft (despite rumblings in industry terms) has clearly reached a point of impressive technical mastery over its Anvil in-house engine.
The game is well-optimised, and I've been getting a pretty smooth 80fps experience with everything maxed out, Nvidia's wizardly frame generation at 2X, and the resolution at a scary 3440 x 1440 because of that ultrawide. The fact that the game ships with that resolution natively supported is a lovely bonus, of course, and ultrawide owners will know it's never a given.
Similarly, I haven't really encountered many bugs or issues – the game really does just feel like a substantial facelift for a beloved entry from years ago. I'm not sure exactly what made Ubisoft choose Black Flag as its first proper remake, but I'm extremely hopeful that we could get revamped versions of the Ezio games now, to really get my nostalgia firing.
Just like with Shadows, the single technological inclusion that has most consistently blown me away is the global illumination – a lighting system that radically transforms how daylight and other conditions look, making them unfathomably more realistic and impactful.
When you pair this with dynamic weather and water simulation, which is really superb, you get the recipe for some incredibly dramatic conditions, from huge seaborne storms to dappled sunshine through palms on islands, and it's amazing to see a game equally good at portraying nature and human settlements.
Gameplay, meanwhile, is just as you'd hope for, which means it's extremely identifiably the same game as before, with the same tools and abilities, but there have been some modernisations to improve how intuitive things are. For example, the post-launch improvements to the parkour model from Shadows are here from the start, including a dedicated jump button and easier exits from climbing.
The naval combat, meanwhile, remains rewarding and surprisingly challenging – if you think that the "brace" command is optional, for instance, you'll soon realise the opposite, and you really can't take on boats much better-equipped than you. By contrast, combat on foot is refreshingly simple, like the old days of the franchise, with far fewer enemies that act as damage sponges, a problem for modern AC games.
It all makes for a bit of a throwback, one that lets you take things at the pace you want (with difficulty options for those who need more challenge). Except, it's a throwback that looks absolutely enviable, and while I've no doubt the game will be a real looker on the PS5 Pro too, I'm glad to be playing it on PC.
