Originally the first piece of story DLC for Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Freedom Cry will be flying solo as a stand-alone release, due out later this month. And why not? It certainly worked for Far Cry's standalone DLC Blood Dragon. Ubisoft didn't say exactly why they were having the DLC stand on its own two feet, but it seems like there was more than enough interest to do so when Ubisoft asked fans about the possibility.
According to JStationX, Ubisoft let loose a fan survey not too long ago, and one of the questions therein was if players would approve of a standalone pirate title. It would seem that fan approval was heavy, as non-Black Flag owners can look ahead at giving Freedom Cry a whirl. It's a limited release though, coming only to PC and PlayStation 3 and 4, so Ubisoft could just testing things out.
There's been no mention of any changes or alterations coming to Freedom Cry, so if you've already given it a go, it seems like there's no reason to try it again. But if you haven't yet braved the blue Caribbean waters of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag in any way, shape, or form, you'll get your chance soon enough. The stand-alone hits PS3 and PS4 on February 19, and February 25 for PC.
First released back in mid-December, the DLC received mostly positive reviews according to aggregate score site Metacritic. It carries an average critic score of 73 between Xbox One, 360, PC, PS3 and PS4 platforms.
Players will be playing as Adewale throught the duration of Freedom Cry. As Ubisoft described it, "Born a slave, Adewale found freedom as a pirate aboard the Jackdaw as Captain Edward Kenway's second-in-command. Fifteen years later, Adewale has become a trained assassin and finds himself shipwrecked in Saint-Domingue with no weapon nor crew, starting a new adventure of his own."
It's a sizable bit of DLC, said to take about three to five hours.
Trophies for the DLC surfaced in late September, dropping a few hints as to what players would be up to. Freedom Cry's Creative Director, Wesley Pincombe, also shared a few details about the DLC.
"We wanted to continue the story of Black Flag in the DLC. Aside from the fantasy stuff we were looking at different types of assassins - we were looking at Mary Reade and Duncan Walpole to figure out their origin stories but Adewalé really had a strong presence on screen," said Pincombe.
While it's "primarily an Adéwalé story," Black Flag protagonist Edward Kenway isn't present, but he does make some appearances via flashbacks. To add to the new experience of playing as Adéwalé, players will get a new environment to explore. "You're going to a new setting with new crowd life. New enemies, new AI. Port-au-Prince is a French colony - there are no French colonies in Black Flag so that is all new," Pincombe stated.
For anyone expecting some sepentine sea monster, don't get your hoped up. Pincombe said that like the games, they wanted to keep the DLC grounded in reality: "I'm going to have to disappoint some people - no, we didn't put the kraken in. I'll even say it was part of our conception at one point. We were going to do some fantasy missions to do with piracy and the Caribbean at one point but we changed our direction in conception."
Check out the new trailer below.
