Ubisoft is offering up a peek at the gameplay of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. Grog, dubloons, piracy, pillaging, and plundering, it's all there, along with the traditional narrator explaining motivation for rebellion. Feast your eyes below.
Admittedly, Black Flag does look like a great game. It's early yet, but there's still a lot of unknowns that make it difficult for players to get excited about this game, and that's even before the problem players have with the fact that Ubisoft is turning Assassin's Creed into a franchise that releases new games annually. We know that protagonist Edward is the father of AC3 baddie Haytham, and by proxy, the grandfather of Connor. But so far, that seems to be the only connection to the other games. We know the game starts within an Abstergo animus, but given AC3's ending and Ubisoft's admission, it sure ain't Desmond in there.
With the previous Creed titles, the long standing war between the assassins and templars fit like a glove, especially with all the associations the founding fathers had with other secret societies, like the Freemasons for example. Ultimately, there was always an easily identifiable group the player had as an enemy, usually as a fairly influential person or group: whether it was the British crown in AC3, the pope in AC2, or just the Knights Templar straight up in the first AC. But this feels, I don't know...forced. Who's the big baddie for a group of pirate privateers to go up against? With Ezio or Altair at the helm, the assassins were a group with an ideology.
But since AC3, the idea of the assassins as a group doesn't exist anymore, and is little more than individual shards, pockets of groups, and it looks like Ubisoft is continuing with this idea in Black Flag. The decision to also take the new game back in time a few years also limits technology and choices for weapons as well.
To play devil's advocate, I like the idea that naval exploration will figure a bit more prominently, as that was only touched upon very lightly in AC3. But in all honesty, I just don't know.
Assassin's Creed: Black Flag is set for an October 2013 release for Xbox 360, PC, PS3, Wii U, and next generation consoles.