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Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is definitely just Black Flag again, but it's far from a cash-grab re-release
[Insert sea shanty here]
- Alex Raisbeck
Published: Thursday, 21 May 2026 at 5:15 pm
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Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. You know it and you love it, and Ubisoft knows that you know it and you love it, which is why it's remade it for you to know it and love it all over again 13 years later.
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That's right! For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past month Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is here to make all your piratic dreams come true, and I've played around three hours of it.
In reality, this probably could be one of my shorter previews. The headline, as I'm sure you'll know if you've watched or read any coverage of the game thus far, is that this game is Assassin's Creed Black Flag.
Ubisoft wants you to know that this game is – as much as one can be – a faithful remake of the original game.
On the surface, quite literally, this means fully recreating its Caribbean glory in the new Anvil engine, used for Mirage and Shadows.
Whatever you think of those games overall, one thing that is near impossible to dispute is that they look stunning, and Black Flag Resynced makes it a hat trick.
On land, the towns and lush vegetation pop with colour as one would expect of an 18th century Caribbean, while the sea is frankly a sight to behold – doubly so when diving underwater.
We have Subnautica 2 at home. Subnautica 2 at home: Ubisoft
It would be easy to decry Resynced as a simple graphical update, as many already have, but the game comes with a slew of quality of life updates to make it worth playing over a re-run of the original.
The game world is now seamless. You can start in Havana, jump on the Jackdaw and sail down to Kingston all without seeing a single loading screen.
Combat has received some small upgrades, encouraging quick enemy takedowns, quick-fire abilities and a new parry mechanic, all of which serves to deliver a smoother, more fluid combat experience.
Stealth has also had some much-needed upgrades too.
Remember how you couldn't just crouch whenever you wanted? That was weird, right? Well, now you can crouch whenever and wherever, like a normal stealth game.
Tailing missions now no longer end immediately upon being spotted, instead simply leading into a fight where you can use all your new-fangled mechanics mentioned above.
It's also just easier to get around in general. Added to the as-ever excellent parkour systems, there are now ziplines scattered throughout cities to make traversal easier, as well as an 'Observe mode' to find objectives and clues in the environment.
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None of these is a reason to upgrade to Resynced on its own, but together, they serve up a package that lets you relive one of the best games in the series without reliving the bits that haven't aged quite as well as you remember.
But while combat, stealth and parkour would be the bulk of content in your average AC game, they are but a fragment of a game where you get a big ship loaded with cannons to fire at British frigates.
Resynced comes to us from Ubisoft Singapore, the naval combat experts behind the ill-fated Skull & Bones.
Now, Skull & Bones may be a red flag to many players, but its ship combat is nothing to sniff at, and that same expertise has been combined with the foundations of Black Flag for something special.
The Jackdaw gets some upgrades, not just in the way it feels to sail being smoothed out, but with new secondary weapons, pets, and even three officers to recruit, all of whom will add a new feature to combat.
Plus, there are a bunch of new sea shanties, which is obviously the main thing.
This game is so cool I wish ships were real. Ubisoft
Returning to the officers for a moment, each of them also receives their own story, with side quests to complete.
We saw a very brief glimpse of this during our time with the game, but not really anything substantial enough to comment on their quality.
What we know about them is that they aren't too long – a couple of hours at most – so it's probably best to think of them almost as DLC for the now 13-year-old game rather than out and main content.
They are the highlight of the new content, which includes some other new missions, with Edward's actor Matt Ryan returning to record some new scenes for the game.
Tangentially, perhaps my favourite part of my time in Havana was when Edward first arrives to get a drink, and is accosted for being a Welshman by a man with the strongest Welsh accent in gaming. Pure kino.
All in all, though, that's pretty much it. As I noted in the beginning, this is Black Flag, so if you've played the original Black Flag, then you already understand about 90 per cent of what there is to say about Resynced.
It's impossible to tell quite how different Black Flag Resynced will be as an overall experience; we've pretty much just seen the opening few hours, after all.
But what is eminently obvious to us is that, whether you're a fan of the original game or completely new to the Jackdaw, this is far from a simple cash-grab re-release.
Ubisoft wants Resynced to be the definitive way to play Assassin's Creed Black Flag. If the rest of the game lives up to the quality I experienced last month in Paris, I see no reason why it shouldn't be.
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced releases on 9 July 2026 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.
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Authors
Alex RaisbeckGaming writer
Alex Raisbeck is a Gaming Writer at Radio Times, covering everything from AAA giants to indie gems. Alex has written for VideoGamer, GamesRadar+, PC Gamer, PCGamesN and more.
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