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AC Black Flag Resynced's Kenway actor weighs in on PlayStation physical disc debate

Look at me. I'm the pirate captain now.

Published: Saturday, 11 July 2026 at 8:30 am

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Matt Ryan is back in Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, reprising the role of Edward Kenway in this lush remake of the beloved AC title. And we were lucky enough to chat with the great man himself ahead of the launch!

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Ryan, who you might also recognise from his TV role as John Constantine in the DC universe, told us: "What's funny is like, since the original game was released... Kenway goes on this amazing arc, an amazing journey. You know, I've been on a bit of a journey myself in the last 13 years.

"So, coming back to it now, I feel like I can really bring that weight to the character a little more than I did before, which is great to be able to revisit that."

As for favourite lines from the game, he has a couple. "There's one which is, 'Don't save a spot in hell for me, Shanker, 'cause I ain't coming soon,' after he's beat the crap out of Charles Vane, [who's played by] the great Ralph Ineson. I loved filming that scene."

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With the game launching on all the major platforms, we wanted to get Ryan's take on the big hot button topic of the moment – Sony's decision to do away with physical PlayStation discs, and whether he thinks that move will push some people to the seven seas of piracy (pun intended).

"Probably, yeah," Ryan told us on the piracy point. "I didn't know that. So they're actually getting rid of, like, the, the hard copy?"

After we explained the situation, he added: "The thing I don't like about that so much is, like, I actually like the hard copy. There's something physical about it. It's like the old cassette tapes or CDs or records. And maybe it goes the way where, yes, everything's downloadable, it's just on your console.

"But then, you know, surely there's gonna be, like, a fad or a craze for people to actually have those copies. So maybe those things will become, like, collector's editions or something like that, you know?

"You can understand, like, the economics of it, the amount of money they put into printing the game, and you can just have it, like, downloaded.

"But there's something about it for the fans, I think, or for me as a gamer, where I like to hold the copy in my hand, you know?"

Ryan is certainly not alone in that line of thinking, with a Change.org petition titled 'Don't kill the disc' earning a whopping 270,000 signatures and counting.

As for whether anything will make Sony change its mind, we're skeptical. But for the time being, we'll be enjoying the seven seas in AC Black Flag's shiny new version.

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Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is out now on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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Authors

Ben Rayner

Black and white cut-out portrait headshot of Rob Leane, smiling against a lime green background.

Rob LeaneGaming Editor

Rob Leane is the Gaming Editor at Radio Times, overseeing our coverage of the biggest games on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, PC, mobile and VR. Rob works across our website, social media accounts and video channels, as well as producing our weekly gaming newsletter. He has previously worked at Den of Geek, Stealth Optional and Dennis Publishing.

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