Boy, oh boy, does it feel good to say it. We played about two and a half hours of an early build of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, and we’re happy to say that we’ve come away impressed. Edward Kenway’s current-gen glow-up isn’t just a fresh coat of paint on an already gorgeous title, although that’s still a lovely part of the whole thing. But Resynced does more than that.
It’s a perfect blend of familiar elements from an experience that continues to stand tall amongst its peers, and innovative flourishes that make the game even better than we remember it from around a decade ago. And while returning to the Caribbean was a great dose of nostalgia, it was getting to pilot the Jackdaw that really caught our fancy.
Granted, Edward’s brig was an important part of the original experience, and a memorable one at that. This time around, it’s a vehicle for the game to show off its revamped combat, both on the seas and on the decks of enemy ships. Our best moments from our time with Resynced came from the Jackdaw. Here’s how it all went down.
The Gentle Waves
We’re not going to spend too long gushing over the new visuals, however tempting that may be. Black Flag already brought gorgeous visuals to the table, bringing the seas and islands to life in a way that showed off what the PS4 and Xbox One could do at the time of its release. Resynced builds on that, using every current-gen trick in the book to make the seas stand out even among the genre’s heavy hitters like Valhalla on the visual front.
The water simulations are top-notch, and the open seas reflect light from the sun with near-perfect accuracy courtesy of ray tracing. Pick a fight with an enemy ship or building, and you’re going to see the warm glow of fires you create engulf the area, shadows flickering even as a raging battle unfolds around them. At night, the soft glow of the Jackdaw’s lanterns bounces gently off railings and pillars.
Of course, improved draw distances and a hitherto impossible level of detail make it all more immersive than it was in the past, while stylish touches like a visual representation of an island’s topography on your map, a new wagon wheel for you to get to your shanties even faster, and the Anvil Engine’s weather system taking over the seas at its whim are all great additions.
Your ship is now at the mercy of the weather, and its handling varies based on the kind of waters you’re sailing. That’s a change we immediately felt, and it is one that adds a tactical layer to combat encounters. Is it a good idea to take on that ship in the distance when storm clouds loom large over it? In Black Flag, we’d have probably chosen violence. In Resynced, we still chose violence, but we stopped to think about it first.
Of course, there’s a reason we chose violence, and that’s because picking fights with the Jackdaw continues to be a great way to have a blast with your crew and be an absolute menace on the high seas.
The Sound of Battle Horns
One of the more interesting changes we noticed right off the bat was that enemies on the sea were quite intelligent this time around, with fleets taking a more organized approach against the Jackdaw. Black Flag’s naval combat could get pretty easy once you got a few Jackdaw upgrades in, tearing through enemy hulls with reckless abandon. That’s not the case in Resynced, and you’re going to have to pay attention to where your enemies are in relation to your own vessel if you want to keep your own hull long enough to ensure you sail out of the battle in one piece.
While your weapons are going to be very familiar to those of you who dabbled in battles with the Jackdaw back in the day, their new secondary applications are sure to bring a new layer of strategy to the table, depending on how their use is implemented. We’d have loved to try out the new Shrapnel Barrels that decimate enemy sails and the 8-Pounder cannons that can open up more weak spots for you to exploit, but they were also not available to us in our curated glance at the game.
Equally exciting is the new twist of enemy ships coming with alliances and conflicts with other factions on the seas, which is sure to make naval battles unpredictable in ways that you can’t really predict. We would have liked the Spaniards to step in against a particularly nasty British fleet hell-bent on stopping our daring rescue of newly-added shipwright Lucy Baldwin, but alas, that’s one more thing we’re going to have to wait to check out.
We were able to take down any enemy ships or fortresses with ease, our muscle memory working very well with the new and improved framerates to make every fight smooth sailing from a technical standpoint, while our skills came from hours already spent in the Caribbean, the Jackdaw at our command. Naval combat isn’t fully reworked in Resynced, and that’s a good thing.
In an embodiment of the saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, Resynced enhances an already solid system for fighting enemy ships with creative flourishes that add depth to each fight while retaining everything an Assassin needs to synchronise quite quickly with the Jackdaw even after nearly thirteen years on the shore. Of course, you still get to whittle down enemy ships to impede their mobility and then board them to take over.
And that’s where the naval combat in Resynced finds the last missing piece to make it an almost perfect part of the remake.
The Clashes of Blades
While the new combat system is great on land, it’s when you’re on an enemy ship that it truly begins to showcase how much has changed in Resynced. We’re going to be brutally honest here, but the combat in Black Flag was honestly too easy. All you had to do was attack one enemy with your combo while waiting for another one to come at you. Parry that attack with a very generous timing window, and all you had to do was point Edward to his next victim to take down large groups in mere seconds.
The sheer spectacle of it all, and the fact that it was a continuation of the genre’s combat formula over the years, may have let Black Flag get away with that simplistic approach; things have changed now. We’ve got every Assassin’s Creed title since Origins, coming with a more refined approach to fights, and it makes you earn those openings to get in some serious damage.
Resynced takes the middle ground, with Edward continuing to be a deadly threat on his way to becoming a legit scourge of the seas while the Assassins do their utmost to guide him towards his nobler disposition. Those parries we talked about? They’re now locked behind tighter timing windows, requiring you to carefully watch enemy animations and counter their attacks at the last possible moment.
That change alone makes fighting enemy crews a deadly dance of blades, one where missing a single beat could turn the tide of battle against you. However, get a perfect parry right, and Edward is still going to be able to chain takedowns between four enemies. However, with smoother framerates and revamped kill animations, fighting off enemy crews to bring down their morale requires a measured, careful approach that makes you use every tool in your arsenal to gain an advantage in the heat of battle.
You’re encouraged to use the environment to your advantage, thinning enemy numbers to make pulling off parry takedowns more manageable. We’re expecting to see the new gear system come into play in these battles, with buffs that can perhaps increase the number of takedowns you can chain, or bestow other advantages that can add further wrinkles to the system on offer.
Once again, Resynced isn’t reinventing the wheel, but adds a few new spokes that give it a layer of current-gen appeal that had us wishing we got more time with the game than we did.
Part of the Crew, Part of the Ship
With all of the changes we’ve seen, and the way they’re balanced against familiar elements from Black Flag, Resynced’s naval combat looks like it could make the Jackdaw even more integral to Edward’s adventure than it already was in the original game. Every sunny day in the Caribbean was a temptation to just hop onto its deck and ignore anything that wasn’t floating on the waves.
We can’t wait to get on to the seas with the entire map open when the game comes out, but until then, we’re going to be humming shanties under our breath while we tick the days away as we wait for a reunion with our second-favorite Assassin of them all. They don’t make them like old Edward anymore, but there’s always Hexe to remain hopeful about.