Released first on the PlayStation 3 and as a launch title for the PlayStation 4, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag has remained a defining entry in the series for more than a decade. When we first explored the idea of bringing Edward Kenway’s journey to modern hardware, it quickly became clear that a traditional remaster wouldn’t be enough to do it justice.
Instead, we rebuilt the game from the ground up on the latest version of the Anvil engine, modernizing nearly every system while preserving the spirit and identity of the original game. The result is an experience tailored for modern PlayStation hardware, with 60 FPS options, HDR support, Dolby Atmos, DualSense haptic feedback, and plenty of other improvements. You can find the list of graphics modes available at launch for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro below.
With all these new features and graphics options, we’ve been able to take full advantage of the PlayStation 5 hardware and deliver the best experience possible for players when the game launches on July 9.
In this article, we’d like to take a closer look at some of the technologies that bring this new version of the Caribbean to life.
A more reactive Caribbean with ray tracing
In Resynced, our goal was to make the world feel more alive, more dynamic, and more responsive to the player’s journey.
A major part of that comes from our updated lighting system, now fully dynamic and powered by hardware-accelerated ray tracing.
Instead of relying on precomputed lighting, the world reacts in real time to changes in time of day, weather, and environment. Interiors respond more accurately to outdoor light sources, and weather conditions dramatically reshape the mood of the world.
Ray-traced diffuse lighting allows light to bounce across surfaces, creating natural color bleeding and more consistent shading throughout environments. Meanwhile, Ray-Traced Specular Reflections enhance surfaces like wet wood, metal, and ocean spray, helping the Caribbean feel more physically grounded and reactive.
To ensure a consistent experience, Ray-Traced Global Illumination is enabled in all graphics modes on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro. Ray-Traced Specular Reflections are available in Balanced and Fidelity modes on PS5, and across all graphics modes on PS5 Pro.
Continuous detail with micropolygon geometry
One of the key visual improvements in Black Flag Resynced comes from how we handle geometry at scale.
Traditional rendering pipelines rely on discrete levels of detail, switching between simplified models as the player moves through the world. While effective, this approach can sometimes introduce noticeable visual popping.
With our Micropolygon geometry pipeline, we take a different approach. Instead of switching between fixed models, geometry is continuously refined based on distance, visibility, and camera perspective. This continuous level of detail is enabled by the PlayStation 5’s ultra-high-speed SSD, which allows Anvil to instantly stream, virtualize, and render tiny geometric clusters.
This lets environments and assets scale smoothly from close-up detail to distant silhouettes without noticeable transitions.
PlayStation 5 Pro enhancements
The PlayStation 5 Pro includes all the features of the base PlayStation 5 but adds significantly more GPU power and enhanced ray‑tracing performance, giving additional headroom for higher fidelity and more stable performance.
Across all graphics modes, players on PS5 Pro benefit from extended ray tracing support, including both Ray-Traced Global Illumination and Ray-Traced Specular Reflections.
This enables richer lighting and reflection quality while maintaining higher performance targets across Performance, Balanced, and Fidelity modes.
We’ve also expanded our strand-based hair on PS5 Pro. Rather than relying solely on traditional hair cards, the engine can simulate and render individual strands for more natural motion and response to wind. All of this allows us to get a very realistic hair render for our characters.
On PS5 Pro, strand-based hair is available for Edward in all modes. In Fidelity mode, nearby crowd characters also benefit from strand simulation during gameplay, while cinematics use strand-based hair for all characters regardless of mode.
In addition, Black Flag Resynced supports the latest version of PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), helping deliver better image quality and improved reconstruction, reducing the visual gap between performance and fidelity modes.
A living world driven by Anvil’s Atmos
Black Flag Resynced simulates weather in real time through Atmos, the systemic weather simulation framework in our Anvil engine.
Rather than treating weather as a set of isolated effects, Atmos continuously simulates variables such as temperature, humidity, wind, and vapor density. These systems evolve over time and influence one another, producing more coherent and dynamic weather.
This same simulation extends into gameplay and environmental interaction. Wind affects not only cloud movement and storms at sea, but also vegetation, cloth, particles, sails, and character hair.
The result is a world that doesn’t just look alive but feels physically connected as well.
A richer ocean
The ocean has always been at the heart of Black Flag, and modernizing its rendering was a key focus for this project.
Black Flag Resynced introduces a fully modernized water system, based on a physically based rendering pipeline. New tessellation technique, volumetric foam generation, and dynamic bubble systems add more details to the water surface. These updates allow the sea to respond more naturally to wind conditions, weather, and ship movement.
The sea now plays an even greater role in shaping both the mood and moment-to-moment experience of navigation and combat.
Prepare for a more immersive experience
When rebuilding Assassin’s Creed Black Flag on the latest version of Anvil, our goal wasn’t only to modernize technology. We wanted to strengthen the sense of immersion, adventure, and discovery that made Edward Kenway’s journey so memorable in the first place. PlayStation 5 hardware has given us the opportunity to push that experience further than ever before, from the way the world looks and sounds, to how it feels.
Whether you’re returning to relive a favorite adventure, or setting sail with Edward for the first time, we’re excited to welcome you to the Caribbean when Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced launches on July 9 for PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Pro.
