Assassin’s Creed IV: Blackflag review

Quoting from Chris Nolan’s ‘Batman Begins’,

Alfred, “Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

The above line sums up Assassin’s Creed IV the best way possible. At a time when I was about to quit my love for the franchise that made my history test look a piece of cake, all because of a corporate trend called ‘milking a franchise’, I was sent back into the waves of pure genuine love again. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag may be this year’s most underachieving game, especially after GTAV set benchmarks with record crushing material, but majorly because most of us are still haunted by the memories of Connor Kenway of Assassin’s Creed III. Ubisoft and the devs of Assassin’s Creed learn from the worst (ACIII) and make up for most of the pitfalls, by experimenting more with the sandbox. To top it all, who doesn’t like ramming cargo ships on a stormy night and looting everything from a random smuggler’s den?!

Welcome to the Caribbean of the 1700s, a land of loud mouths and louder guns. You are Captain Edward Kenway, a privateer turned pirate turned assassin who is fighting for one thing and one thing only, money! He is not obsessed with slaying every Templar in the world; to him Templars are mere colonizers whom he must fight in order to move up in the ascendancy. Rocking up a stormy night is his love, the Jackdaw, Kenway’s ship that will take you through the major chunks of ACIV: Black Flag. A man who has set sailing on a so called ‘fool’s errand’ after being disregarded by his wife, rest assured Edward may be Connor’s granddad but he is a uniquely attractive character. As Edward, you discover the Caribbean with the story’s main plot bent towards discovering a Templar secret called the Observatory, a place they say that has the source of a world conquering power.

What has Ubisoft learnt from ACIII? Well, to begin, there is no paternal history attached to ACIV (like you had to bear 2 hours as Haytham Kenway in ACIII), and you jump straight into action, as Edward. Secondly, naval battles have turned hotter than ACIII with purposeful plunders. Looting larger ships mean you get bigger cargo to sell, as nowadays you can’t always trust on opening treasure chests for your daily capital. Raiding enemy naval forts unlocks secrets around it, and of course naval contracts that you can carry out at any point of the day. Your spy glass gives you information on enemy ships/forts and uncharted islands, it’s your best friend at sea. Your sandbox is a vast, open and unknown seaway, with minimal HUD objectives. Moreover, Ubisoft took notes from the commercial success story – Far Cry 3 to make a jungle look like a real jungle, as crafting from animal hide becomes a necessary evil. Animus entries also feel like a page from Jason Brody’s notebook.

You sail your ship (the Jackdaw) to discover new islands, main locations, uncharted lands and beaches and discover new side quests. What side quests? Well, you can harpoon The Tiger Shark, the Hammerhead or the Great White Whale for fun, all while travelling through the seas. Or dive deep under water and search shipwrecks for rare treasures, beware of the sharks sprawling in such abyss though. Your spy glass gives you additional information on other ships, forts and undiscovered lands, it is your friend at sea. If you think you are simply going to travel to your quest locations, then here’s adding a twist. There are sea storms and winds blowing you all over the seas. You keep your ship at full mast and rest assured you are going to crash into a beach and lose crew members in scores. If you do not face killer waves up front, you are going to take huge damage to the Jackdaw. If you do not watch out for cyclones in the sea, you are going to be drawn into its core and wind up like the other wrecked crews around. You are not just an Assassin anymore, you are a professional pirate captain, you are the Jack Sparrow in the making.

The adventure’s equally fun when you are on land, as you get to solve Mayan riddles and dig out treasures. You raid warehouses for the natives. You take up the bigger Templar assassination contracts, which consist of eavesdropping a conversation, taking targets out as well as defending other assassins/partners against enemy waves. Taking down courier boys, climbing tall colonial buildings to synchronize maps and playing mini-games at taverns come hereditarily from the previous editions. Taverns are key places of interest as you get to hire crew members and hear about the latest gossip from the keeper over a mug of rum. These gossips always lead you to more money and loot, it is elementary to hear at times! In the course of the game you unlock the blowpipe and its two dart types, the sleep darts and the berserk ones, and the stealthy rope dart.

The level designers and graphic artists have done a fantastic job in recreating the Caribbean straight out of the pirate movies, like Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean. The environment encourages you to stay low, with deep tropical bushes, leaves stacks, haystacks (elementary my dear Watson!) and tree/roof tops. Watch out for the crocodiles and panthers while you are busy tailing someone. The music and score always keeps your blood pumping hard, especially if you are out in the sea and battling out a Spanish fleet all by your own. After you have emerged victorious from a naval battle or survived a stormy weather, your crew will sing out a song to celebrate the moment. When you dive into the sea and come back on the Jackdaw to take the helms, your crew will cheer for you. Little moments that can make anyone feel like a Pirate Legend.

Even though the sandbox is brimming with adventures and the main story quests focus on gameplay more than a crazy spoiler towards the end (unlike ACII), there are glitches all over the Caribbean lands. Sloppy parkour can almost kill a stealth move. Boarding a ship may become torturous if you miss landing on it and fall into the seas by accident. You can interact with each piece of environment, and that becomes a bit disturbing especially while you climb rooftops you don’t want to climb and bump into enemy ships you don’t want to. However, ACIV parkour is way better than ACIII’s.

These are the lesser failings from Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, which righteously puts stealth and adventure back into the foreground. The sandbox is vast and unknown and it will take you for a complete spin. Black Flag makes a daring return to the franchise with a clichéd pirate story but engaging pirate action that makes you believe in a character and the era, just the way you fell in love with John Marston in Red Dead Redemption. The level of adventure in ACIV is competition to the likes of Tomb Raider and Uncharted. Make sure you dwell less on the American War of Independence and head straight for pirate action this year end. In the year of GTAV, I can easily say that Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag has been my greatest open world experience. A definite franchise redeemer, in its own ways. ACIV: Black Flag is NOT A FOOL’S ERRAND.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 3