Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced screenshot
Image: Ubisoft

The Summer Sale is over, which means a return to business as usual, and what's more Business and Usual than a massive Ubisoft open-world game? And better yet, it's a remake! That's the most usual business of all. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is out today on Steam - a remake of 2013's much-loved age-of-sail spin on the series. While some have argued that there's little point remaking a game that already held up well in 4k, reviews for Resynced have been very positive so far. Mostly praising the graphics and improved combat, although critics are split on whether the reworked parkour system is an improvement.

While mostly following the beats of the original, early reviews note a few new missions (including an extended endgame chapter), new cutscenes, and generally a bit more narrative meat. All in service of filling out the blanks in Edward Kenway's story, the most roguish of AC's protagonists. Rather than being inducted into an ancient order of pseudo-anarchist assassins, he just loots his gear off a dead man before getting dragged into the grand global conspiracy plot of the series via some grand piratical adventuring.

Despite Ubisoft's insistence that this is the definitive, most premium version of the game, they've balanced out the new content by making some conspicuous cuts to the Resynced release. The biggest and most obvious absence is the Freedom Cry expansion, which uncompromisingly tackled the subject of slavery in the French colony that would later be known as Haiti. While it could be coming later as DLC, I'm not holding my breath.

More contentiously (as these segments have always been the source of fierce discourse), the modern-day segment of the story has been mostly excised from Resynced. I feel that the modern-day framing was a key part of the AC experience, and doubly important in the place of Black Flag, which dedicated much of its B-side story to satirizing mismanagement at Ubisoft, which makes their decision to drop it feel all the more on-the-nose.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is out now on Steam for £50/$60, but those with extra money to burn can get the Deluxe Edition for £60/$70, which includes some black-and-gold cosmetic items and booster perks, which honestly don't feel worth the extra cash. Check out the feature-dense debut trailer below and figure out if this remake gives you nautical thoughts.