July is here, which means that there’s only a little over a week before we get to revisit the Caribbean, hopping aboard The Jackdaw, where Edward Kenway’s rise to prominence amongst the Assassins waits to greet us. We can’t help but look back to the time when Black Flag took the world by storm, when it was released around the time the PS4 and Xbox One marked the beginning of a new console generation.
The game was definitely a looker then, and the developer made good use of the hardware on offer to make it an experience that we couldn’t forget. Indeed, the story and gameplay on offer were probably why Resynced has managed to see the light of day amid a slew of other great titles in the franchise’s illustrious history. Of course, things are different now, and it looks like the developer is preparing to replicate the feat it achieved with last-gen hardware by making full use of what the PS5 and PS5 Pro have to offer.
If you’re thinking about sailing the high seas with Edward, Adewale, and the rest of the pirates on your PlayStation, we’ve got a few things you might like to keep in mind before you go ahead and pick up a copy of Resynced.
1. A Bunch of Graphic Modes For All Preferences
Beginning with what you’re going to find with respect to resolutions and frame rates on your consoles, Resynced is bringing quite a bit of flexibility to the table for both the base PS5 and the Pro.
Beginning with the PS5, you’ve got three options. There’s Performance, which targets 60fps with standard ray tracing for a smoother experience that keeps the resolution at an upscale 2160P. That’s a welcome option for those of us who want to make the most of the new combat system, which looks geared towards quick reactions to readable animations, a facet that this mode would serve very well.
There’s also Fidelity and Balanced, which deliver the same resolution as Performance, with extended ray tracing and target frame rates of 30 fps and 40 fps, respectively. We’d say that if you’re not going for Performance, Balanced is the clearly better option, although some of you might still prefer Fidelity despite the same resolution on offer.
The PS5 Pro is where things get interesting, though. We’ve got the same three modes on offer, with the same resolutions and target frame rates, but ray tracing is extended across the board. We’re diving into what that means in just a minute, as the differences are a crucial part of what sets the two consoles apart as far as this one’s concerned.
These are all factors that can work to make Resynced feel like quite a remake of the original version, which was limited by what the consoles it was played on could do back in the day.
2. Differing Approaches to Ray Tracing
It’s also important to know that while the standard ray tracing offers global diffuse lighting for the game world, extended ray tracing covers even reflective surfaces, which is sure to make a huge difference in a variety of locales where water, rain, and other factors necessitate the need for better reflections to make the entire experience more immersive as a result.
Diving deeper into what that means, the developer has elaborated on how ray-traced global illumination is going to work dynamically under the hood, ditching the original Black Flag’s precomputed lighting systems to let the Caribbean’s natural light react appropriately to factors like the weather, time of day, and the environments you’re exploring. Diffuse lighting makes light react more naturally to surfaces for better shading in various environments and once again adds a bit of realistic flavor to the entire game.
Both of these are a part of the PS5’s offerings in Performance Mode, but both Balanced and Fidelity offer Specular Reflections, which influence wet wood, the spray from the ocean, metal, and a whole lot more to make the world feel more alive and responsive to your movements as a result. It’s probably going to be tough choosing between the two approaches, unless you’re on the PS5 Pro, where all of what we’ve outlined is going to be a part of your experience irrespective of the mode you pick.
3. No Compromises on The PS5 Pro
In addition to global illumination, diffuse lighting, and Specular Reflections making up a complete ray-tracing package across all of the three graphical modes on offer, there’s also the fact that Resynced on the PS5 Pro is going to be making full use of Enhanced PSSR, which is sure to make the upscaled image look a lot better than the PS5’s take on it.
The result is that the PS5 Pro could make the choice between Performance and the other modes a whole lot easier, and any differences between them are going to be quite hard to spot unless you’re actively looking for them. Of course, there are going to be a few things in favor of Fidelity Mode in case you’re wondering if there’s any reason to go for it in the first place, thanks to that 30 fps frame rate target. Well, we’ve got something for you to cheer about if that’s been on your mind.
But it’s quite clear that the PS5 Pro’s additional firepower is going to make Resynced feel very different from the Black Flag you know and love, and that’s good news considering how excited we’ve all been to get our hands on this one.
4. Strand-Based Hair
This one’s for the PS5 Pro and is probably a reason for you to choose Fidelity Mode if total immersion means more to you than better frame rates. Strand-Based hair tech is on board in Resynced, and is going to be working its magic on Edward across all three graphical modes on offer. That extends to the cinematics as well, and it’s going to be interesting to see Blackbeard’s take on a Black Flag in action with the new tech in action whenever he takes the stage.
However, Fidelity Mode extends that offering to NPCs in Edward’s vicinity, which could make for an interesting sight in situations where the wind works its magic, which happens quite a lot in this one, considering a significant portion of your time is spent on the Jackdaw’s deck at sea.
5. A More Focused Caribbean Simulation
The Anvil Engine was vastly improved in Shadows, and is set to bring all of what it achieved in that one and more to the table in Resynced. For starters, the weather is going to be quite dynamic this time around in comparison to Black Flag, as the system is going to work with several variables like temperature, humidity, wind, and the density of vapor coming off the ocean, making them play off each other to create the sort of unpredictable conditions that the seas are known for. That makes the seas behave more treacherously as you sail along them, just like they would in the real world.
The winds are going to make things on the shore just as dynamic, affecting the movements of clouds and causing storms both on the sea and land. They’re also going to affect the flora you find around you, which could make exploring dense forests a visual treat, while cloth, particles such as leaves, the sails of your ships, and your character’s hair are all going to be influenced by its passage.
There’s also the ocean to consider, and the developer’s water physics have been drawing a lot of well-deserved praise ever since Odyssey hit the shelves. Well, there’s a lot to like in Resynced as volumetric foam generation, dynamic bubble systems, physics-based water rendering, and new tessellation techniques allow the water to react to the wind, weather, and your own movements through it with a level of realism that the original game simply could not have managed. It’s very interesting stuff, and we can’t wait to see how it all comes together to make the world in Resynced feel as lively as Edward’s personality as he engages with it all.
And that’s about it for this one. While it’s clear that the PS5 Pro is bringing a lot of upgrades over the base console for Resynced, we’d say that even the PS5 is going to bring a new layer of immersion to the Caribbean. We’re certainly going to be diving into the experience on both consoles, and you can be sure we’ll be telling you all about what we find once we set sail on the Jackdaw when Resynced releases on July 9, 2026, for the PS5, PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 Pro.
Until then, let’s hope that the developer is looking at some favorable winds in what’s been a rather tough few years for it.
