Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced review

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced might go down as one of the more puzzling remakes ever conceived. Not only is it bizarre that Ubisoft decided to kick off a likely streak of remakes with the sixth game of the series, but it also chose a game so recently and universally enjoyed that the only way to “remake” it is to simply put out the same game again.

A cleaned-up remaster might have been better than what Ubisoft has done here. Resynced is tirelessly faithful to the qualities that set Black Flag apart in this series—sailing the Jackdaw is as great as ever, now distinguished by a newer Anvil engine that enables dynamic weather, time-of-day, and a truly seamless open world—but fundamental changes to combat, stealth, and encounter design reveal that this is essentially Black Flag stuffed inside Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Resynced is good. It’s slick, ridiculously beautiful, and improves on the original Black Flag in several ways. I’m impressed by Ubisoft’s Singapore’s obvious love for the source material—every story beat and cutscene has been recreated shot-for-shot with original performances intact. If you’ve never played the second-best Assassin’s Creed game ever made, Resynced will get the job done.

For a while, I even believed it would outshine the original Black Flag—I was wooed by Resynced’s breathtaking Caribbean vistas that stretched further than my PS3 could be asked, taken by its swashbuckling ship-to-ship showdowns, and impressed by the return of “advanced parkour” mechanics like back and side ejects. Ubisoft spent a generation transforming Assassin’s Creed from a stealth-action power fantasy into a loot-driven RPG with spammy combat, and only now is it trying to make amends. Resynced feels like Ubisoft teaching itself how to make a proper Assassin’s Creed again, and graded on that curve, it’s quite good.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

But then, after rolling credits, I reinstalled that original game. Even though I was retreading missions that I’d literally just played newer versions of, I had so much more fun in Black Flag 2013 that I just kept playing… and playing, and playing, until I’d completed both games front-to-back in the same week.

This turned out to be a useful exercise (I told my fiancé, puzzled by a second round of sea shanties emanating from my Steam Deck), because it took a return to old Assassin’s Creed to properly appreciate mechanics, design choices, and an entire storyline that, according to internet consensus and Ubisoft, weren’t worth preserving. Now having braved Black Flag’s dreaded tailing missions, indulged in Ezio-era chain killing, and hacked the computers of my Abstergo coworkers, I reckon this 13-year-old game has aged quite gracefully.

Remake (2026)UbisoftOriginal (2013)Ubisoft

I’m glad Resynced is here, but honestly? The original is better.

Jumper

Take parkour and climbing. Ubisoft is making a big deal about Resynced’s parkour being a step up from Shadows, Mirage, and Valhalla, and while that’s true, that’s setting the bar on the floor. Compared to the original, Edward’s updated movement is stilted and floaty. Classic maneuvers are there, but they don’t flow very well, resulting in freerunning that looks like bespoke animations playing on a timeline rather than a fluid sequence. Whatever black magic Ubi used to hide these animation seams in the 2010s was lost in the remake process.

Perhaps Ubi is satisfied with less convincing parkour as long as it’s faster. Resynced’s locomotion is designed as if Black Flag’s meticulous animations were a nuisance. Remake Edward wallruns straight up single-story buildings like he’s Spider-Man, then proceeds to expedite larger climbs through silly-looking vertical leaps that have more in common with Sly Cooper than Ezio Auditore. When I should be punished for chancing an unwise jump, Edward suddenly gains springs in his boots to clear the gap.

For as much gruff as the old AC games get for finicky climbing, Black Flag represented six games of refinements—steering Edward over rooftops, through branches, and across highwires in 2026 is still expressive, and less prone to accidents than the first few games. Climbs are smooth, but weighty and methodical. It takes some time and a little brainpower to crest a church tower or fort. In my unscientific test using the same building in 2013 vs 2026, remake Edward flew up this church twice as fast:

I find the part where original Edward carefully climbs around a window overhang, followed by remake Edward phasing straight through it, to be illustrative.

Resynced is functional and quick, but it’s not cool or (day I say) immersive. And man, that used to be a core appeal of this series. Neither system is complex, but the old climbing at least feels intentional—like we’re meant to experience the effort and time it takes to scale a structure that was never meant to be climbed.

That pace has a grounding effect that extends beyond walls. Remake Edward no longer runs with any simulated momentum, meaning he can instantly change direction or flip a u-turn like he’s a Dark Souls protagonist. It’s a very artificial, videogame-y feel that I ended up resenting the more I played the weightier original.

Blade dance

Even when Resynced’s systems are objectively better, Ubi has failed to respect the rule of cool. Black Flag’s reimagined combat carries over Shadows’ dodge/parry and light/heavy attacks, with the addition of Edward’s signature chain kills. It’s more engaging than the original’s simplistic “counter and instakill everybody” approach, but confusingly, the remake actually reduces Edward’s combat options by a lot.

Hidden blades are no longer a primary weapon, now relegated to finisher animations. You can’t steal enemy muskets, sabers or heavy axes—temporary pickups that carried their own advantages, drawbacks, and cool finisher animations in the original.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

No, remake Edward is strictly a cutlass man, except now he can kick enemies. I don’t think the tradeoff was worth it, because Black Flag was never lacking challenging combat. I remember liking Edward as a terrifying pirate terminator soloing the crews of rival brigs, and that impression was backed up by my replay. It’s not cerebral stuff, but the weapon pickups gave me more ways to play with my food, and fluid chainkills are gratifying for the same reasons the Batman Arkham games still kick ass.

With respect to some new, freshly gruesome Edward finishers, the remake combat is too mushy and spammy to accomplish the same fantasy. Old AC is about messing dudes up and looking awesome doing it, but new AC is about cleaving away at a health bar.

This is especially true in Resynced’s occasional forced boss fights, which replace moments where you’re meant to stealthily assassinate targets. You know, like assassins do.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

The chase

At least Resynced wins in the sneaking department. The arrival of Shadows’ crouch button instantly elevates both the complexity and fantasy of stalking targets from rooftops. The majority of Black Flag’s missions involve infiltration and neck-stabbing, so this is a significant upgrade. I felt empowered to explore compounds and avoid guards more often than I killed them, which I attribute to a gracious window between guards seeing Edward and actually pursuing him. Stealth within compounds was the highlight of Shadows, so this is no surprise, but I’m disappointed that Ubi has also repeated that game’s mistakes with the cities surrounding those compounds.

The remakes of Kingston, Havana, and Nassau are faithful and, in some cases, even expanded, but Ubi has rendered them less dynamic by nerfing the British and Spanish troops that patrol them. Rooftop guards are completely absent in neutral areas, which kills all the tension of freerunning from A to B. If you do manage to piss off guards, they won’t even try to chase you outside of their immediate station. Caught trying to steal booty in a restricted zone? Just run outside and they’ll forget you exist.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Ubi has lost the art of the chase, and it sucks. Chases were once a fun, unique feature of Assassin’s Creed that forced you to take paths that guards could not easily follow, break line-of-sight to avoid gunshots, and keep your cool long enough to lose a tail in a haystack, bench, or closet. Ubi had already started to deemphasize notoriety systems by the time Black Flag came around—guards will quickly forget about Edward once he loses them, and you don’t have to tear down posters of your face—but chases themselves persisted. Resynced lovingly recreated all of those benches, wells, and closets, then gave me exactly zero reasons to use them.

It’s one of many ways that Resynced subtly changes the original Black Flag in the name of “quality of life,” but ends up blander for it. The series’ infamous tailing missions are now much easier. Thanks to no rooftop guards, you can just follow from above with zero worries, and if you do get spotted, just skip to the end of the mission by killing your target and looting the relevant info instead. I know these missions were unpopular with the impatient, but the occasional round of enforced stealth gave AC’s repetitive infiltrations some variety while utilizing city space that was otherwise just there.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

They also reinforced that, occasionally, stealth is the entire point. These games aren’t as fun when every problem can be solved by a hidden blade.

Ship combat has been grazed by the easy beam, too. The Jackdaw is significantly more maneuverable in the remake, a small but consequential player buff that makes follow-up cannon volleys easier while in motion. I also noticed that enemy ships were generally less aggressive on normal difficulty—when I returned to 2013 Black Flag after 25 hours with the remake, I got my ass handed to me by a level one pirate hunter.

The Abstergo of it all

And, oh yeah, Resynced also surgically removes a huge chunk of Black Flag’s story. The entire conceit of the original game is that you’re an Abstergo Entertainment employee rummaging through Desmond’s DNA so that a fictional Ubisoft can turn Edward’s memories into a videogame while the Templars covertly seek the precursor technology at the heart of the story. Those sequences are just totally gone, replaced by an Animus interface only used for battle pass unlocks. What a downgrade.

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I’m surprised that the removal of all Abstergo business was universally cheered upon announcement. The present day stuff was never my favorite part of these games, but I’ve always considered Black Flag’s a net positive. The interludes were short, semi-optional, and rewarded fans with a mountain of worldbuilding through emails, voice logs, and hidden videos. My recent playthrough reminded me that the ending of these episodes is pretty terrible, but so reveals a lost opportunity. Ubisoft could have directed resources at making this integral part of the original game better, but they just deleted it and replaced it with nothing at all.

It’s revisionist history that nobody liked this part of the game—I did, for one, and plenty of reviewers did too. Are we meant to take this as Ubi retconning this series as nothing more than historical action games? Assassin’s Creed is a sci-fi world, damn it!

Back-to-back

50 hours across two back-to-back Black Flag playthroughs left me with a lot to chew on. It’s a testament to Black Flag’s triumphant sailing that it was fun enough to do twice with minimal changes. Time has not been as kind to Edward Kenway, who I’m now convinced is a dull character with an unearned hero arc I was not smart enough to see through at 17 years old.

But the long gap between playthroughs was also long enough to miss a version of these games that was getting a bit tiresome by 2013. There’s a comfort to the original’s plodding pace, myriad collectibles, and simplistic swordplay that actually stands out more in 2026 than Resynced’s “lock on and sidestep” combat and entirely optional stealth.

(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Resynced’s advantages are plain to see. Its world is one of the most gorgeous and realistic depictions of nature ever put to videogame, and its simplifications will likely prove broadly appealing. This is also the better PC port, offering loads of graphical options and features with relatively chill system requirements. It’s even Steam Deck verified at launch, though if it’s roughly as performant as Shadows, expect a jittery 30 fps target. The original, on the other hand, is finicky in ways that many early 2010s console games were on PC. There’s no borderless fullscreen, it doesn’t like being alt-tabbed, and will hang for 20 seconds on startup trying to load ancient Uplay stuff unless you cancel it each time. It’s also locked at 60 fps by default, but there’s a mod for that.

Photoreal graphics are nice (especially on my RTX 5090/9800X3D machine), but man, have you seen the old Black Flag lately? The faces are rough, but that world is still a looker. It’s a bit more stylish and grimy than Resynced’s polished look, and I prefer it for a pirate adventure.

I just don’t think Resynced’s marquee features are all that important to me. I kept going through this exercise with Resynced where a new feature would be introduced and I’d assume it was new to the remake—”Oh wow, a home I can customize and improve over time! Neat, they added more ship ammo types! I don’t remember these Mayan statue puzzles. Naval contracts? That’s definitely new”—only to realize all of them existed in the original, untouched by the remake process.

Resynced is decent, but it takes away more than it adds, as if Ubisoft wasn’t confident in the hit game it made 13 years ago. It’s a conflicted remake that’s worth a look, but is ultimately inessential.