It’s no secret that Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, Ubisoft Singapore’s long-awaited remake of the 2013 classic, reinvents as much as it updates. Nowhere is that more obvious than with the combat, which focuses on reading your enemies, correctly timing parries and then taking them down in spectacular style.
It’s also more fluid, especially when transitioning between different tools, like pistols, swords, the rope dart and more. As tech director Jussi Markkanen told GamesRadar, “We modernized the combat to be more hitbox-based, as modern combat games tend to be, and a little bit more reactive. So, Edward can still use the hidden blades, but as a takedown action in the combat, making the combat more fluid.” As previously confirmed, you can’t equip the Hidden Blades as a separate weapon in the remake – a facet which bummed out most players.
But on the bright side, despite using Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ combat as its base, the development team opted for more action-heavy fights. “We have a parry system now, so you time your parries, but it’s free movement and hitbox, so it’s still physically based and built on top of the fight system we had on Shadows. But instead of doing what Shadows did in the skill-tree-based or RPG-style fights, we went more to the action-oriented fights,” said Markkanen.
So while it’s technically “reimagining” the original’s combat, it still maintains that swashbuckling flow and mastery that lets Edward capably take on crowds of foes while emerging unscathed. “Skill-based in a way that it’s skills in your hands. How do you move? How do you position yourself? How do you use your tools that you have?” Based on everything we’ve seen so far, Resynced will offer plenty of unique options to find your flow.
It launches on July 9th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Aside from the combat, there have been several other changes and new additions, including freshly recorded lines by actor Matt Ryan and the Observe mechanic. Head here for all the latest and learn more about how it runs on base PS5 and PS5 Pro here.
