Straight after the heels of Assassin's Creed III is the next numbered entry in the franchise, Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. This game focuses upon Connor's grandfather, Edward Kenway, who was a pirate, set in the 18th Century Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy. As you can expect, Black Flag emphasizes the naval missions introduced in III, but further refined and made more fun. Now, you have more control over the ship and how to attack. Depending on which direction your camera is in, you can fire cannons on each side, shoot chain-shots from the front of the ship, drop fire barrels behind you and have long ranged attacks such as mortar shots which are basically death from above. Sailing the open seas you will find enemy ships which you can battle against. After you've done enough damage to the opponent ship, they are rendered disabled. At this point, you can either sink them outright and take half of their cargo as loot or initiate boarding, where you need to defeat the crew, take their flag, destroy gunpowder caches or a combination thereof. It's exciting and works perfectly. The Assassin's Creed series have always had amazing graphics, and Black Flat pushes it one step further. The open work looks fantastic, from the beautiful blue seas, to the storm effects to the detail put into the environmental designs.
There is a huge open world for you to explore, and it was the biggest ever in the Assassin's Creed series when it was released. It ceases to amaze you how the developers managed to fit that huge open sea into the game, scattered with so many smaller islands to find and explore. That said, it can be deceptive as the larger islands you find have specific smaller sections you can explore, with "forests" not being able to be entered into. Still, it is plenty enough and you'll more like get bored before you run out of locations to explore. The map is separated into several sections, which are protected by forts. Destroy these forts with your ship and it'll reveal all the things you can do in the area, such as harpooning sharks, the small scattered islands with treasured, and diving spots. It is actually quite annoying at the beginning of the game with the huge amount of "restricted zones", where guard ships attack on sight and they are so much stronger than your ship, the Jackdaw. With all the naval stuff to do, you might forget that you were actually playing an Assassin's Creed game. The free-run system lends itself really well into the pirate theme, although the detection system is still far from ideal. It seems even more apparent in this game with Kenway wanting to climb everything he touches even when you don't want him to.
The controls leave you to feel that the developers should really implement a control option where you can run without automatically climbing anything. The building structures is the perfect blend between the taller buildings of Assassin's Creed II and the forests of III, which makes freerunning fun when it works. Hunting returns which works with the crafting system. Scattered in different locations are deer, crocodiles, monkeys, boars and more. After killing one, you can skin them for items. With crafting you can upgrade Kenway's health, add additional pistols and boost his various weapons. The combat system remains weak as the counter-based system is showing its age and clunky controls. This system discourages being on the offensive. There are no new weapons introduced, just slight variations such as multiple pistols which you can chain-shoot, dual-wielding swords and blowdarts with various effects. The story missions are the weakest link and the element pulling the whole game down. The reason being is that the mission structure is filled with tailing and eavesdropping missions, which are insta-fail if you stray out of the "safe zone". It tries to give you an exposition dump but when you're focusing on staying within the range, you aren't able to absorb what's being said. These annoying and frustrating missions make the game horrible to play. It's no fun at all when you're forced to trial and error your way into the predetermined path the developer had intended.
For a game about freedom, the predetermined nature of some missions made it very restrictive, and it's a shame the story missions are 50% filled with the rubbish tailing missions, easily making them the worse part of the game. The story is about Kenway who mistakenly gets himself into the world of the Assassin's. He initially begins as a pirate, due to wanting to earn a bit more coin and living the easy life when he returns to his beloved. After encountering the Assassins, he screw things up and manages to give the Templars the upper hand. After a series of events, which aren't terribly interesting and the plot being dragged out, stretched, and then dragged out some more, he finds himself joining the Assassin's. The point in time when he finally realizes the extent of what he has done, and that he needs to make amends, was the best part of the story. It is refreshing to have a protagonist who was not initiated into the Assassins at a young age and brainwashed, rather one who looks out for themselves and then sees the truth. Still, once again, the game tries to show the Templars being the evil ones but the proof the game offers isn't strong enough and it feels as if the Assassins are killing for nothing. Modern day sequences return into a first person view, with a range of activities but are mainly a series of short minigames presented as "hacking".
Basically, the modern day story is that you're an employee, playing out Kenway's story as a virtual reality game/movie that Abstergo Entertainment is developing and bringing out. The conclusion of the modern day story section of the game was severely disappointing. Apart from the story missions which takes around twenty hours to finish and the other naval activities, there are a wealth of things to do including assassination contracts, Templar hunts, a fleet minigame, and other minigames such as checkers. There is an overabundance of collectibles though which ends up being very boring and bland if you do decide to try and collect it all. Frankly, the sheer number of collectibles served as a deterrent since you just know it is too many and would not be able to have the motivation to collect them all. The PlayStation version of the game contains 60 minutes of additional gameplay focused upon Liberation's protagonist, Aveline. It is supposed to serve as a conclusion to her story but did not make much of a difference. It also only takes around 30 minutes to 45 minutes to finish. Overall, despite its flaws and several frustrating sections of the game stemming from the eavesdropping and tailing missions, plus the way the game forces the naval aspect on you during story missions with powerful enemies (sometimes too powerful if you haven't been upgrading your ship much), Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a great game. It has beautiful graphics, a huge world to explore and plenty of things to do. True, the Assassin's Creed formula is starting to become stale but Black Flag is well worth your attention.
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