Video Gamers Podcast - Assassins Creed Black Flag Resynced – Deep Dive – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are setting sail for a deep dive into Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced! Does this revival capture the magic that made the original a legend, or is nostalgia steering the ship? We break down the gameplay, upgrades, what makes this project so exciting, and why the community can’t stop talking about it. If you love video games, this is an episode you won’t want to miss. Join us as we celebrate one of gaming’s most beloved pirate adventures and discuss where it stands among today’s video games. It’s a swashbuckling gaming discussion packed with everything fans of gaming and the Video Gamers Podcast will love!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and NightWizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This Thursday, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility.

Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters Thursday. man say, leave her, Johnny, leave her. Tomorrow ye will get your pay, and it's time for us to leave her. Leave her, Johnny, leave her. Oh, leave her, for the voyage is long and the winds don't blow, and it's time for us to leave her.

and welcome aboard the video gamers podcast. It's time to lose the Thopsles, Gallinson Royals. Main's out. Let's get moving. Assassin's Creed as a franchise may have faltered. But does Black Flag Resynct reinvigorate things, or is this just another attempt by Ubisoft to rake in the booty and empty your pockets? Well, on today's episode, we're going to find out.

But before we set sail, some Involveyor, introductions are in order. I am your captain Josh and joining me. He's my first mate, often found drinking rog, galvancing with the wenches and trying to remember where he buried his treasure. It's Ryan. I tell you one thing, I got some booty for you to capture. What kind of accent was that?

That was like a bombination Scottish. Oh, because your pirate accent was so good. Get out of here. It was. It was way better. Way better than yours. So, all right. Well, while I introduced our other host, you work on that, Ryan. And joining us, he's the meanest,

leanest quartermaster this side of Havana. He keeps the crew well provisioned and the grog flowing, but is still trying to figure out exactly what the heck a shipwright does. It's ace. A vast captain, which way do I hold the hammer?

sale to ports no starboard stop wait you don't know you you don't know port starboard yeah do port is left starboard is right it's right it's right it's daylight i don't see any stars you know how you i know that because port and left have four letters in the word i'm the one that taught you that that's correct that is correct you know what you're a good learner ace i'm promoting you the first mate i learned that swab the deck swob the poop deck ryan yeah Well, this is going to be a dumb episode. For anybody that wanted to hear us attempt to sing a sea shanty, it did not go well. It did not go well at all.

You may have heard an inserted sea shanty at the beginning because it went so poorly that we gave up on opening the show with singing. But if you want to hear the most god-awful attempt at a lot of time. a C shanty. That isn't our pre-show. All supporters of this podcast get access to the pre-show. It might be worth five bucks to you all to hear the worst attempt at a C. Shanty ever. Worst group attempt. Mine was perfect. Oh, sure, Ryan. Yeah, yours was amazing. You know what? It was so amazing, Ryan. Why don't you go ahead right now? You want me to do it? I'll do it right now. Yeah, do it. Do it. All right. Ryan's so confident in this. He's going to He's going to bang this out.

All right. You ready, Ron? Me, me, me, me, me. All right. I thought I heard the old man say, leave her, Johnny, leave. You can't interrupt. Oh. I was so insane. You were not in sync, and I was doing so good.

I was absolutely in sync. Let the record show. The audio's going to prove it, Ryan. This is what I'm working with, everybody. This is what I'm working with. Oh my gosh. You know what? I'm leaving that in.

Moving on. Moving on. The moment's past now. You ruined it. All right. You ruined it. We would have, we would have, we would have, I am kind of proud that you were going to, you were going to rock that out.

I totally would have done it, you know? He was going to go through the full song, not just the two we were going to do. What else I'm going to do? I get a chance to be a bard and sing for you. Like, that's much better. Ryan's like, I could, I could get down on this. Well, listen, welcome in. buddy, we are going to be talking about Assassin's Creed.

Eventually. Black Flag re-synced. Eventually, yes. We will get there. You know, as a quick reminder to people, Ryan and I never played the original Black Flag. This was a new experience for us. This is one of the reasons that we wanted to cover this game.

We generally don't deep dive like remasters and or Assassins Creed. Releases and remakes and things like that. But being that Ryan and. I had both missed this game the first time around. We thought, you know, this is a great opportunity to dive in and see why Assassin's Creed, Black Flag, is generally held as like the last great Assassin's Creed game. And you're, you're honestly the biggest fan of Assassin's Creed that I know. Like, like, legitimately, I don't know anybody else that loves the franchise as much

as you do. It is a blessing and a curse. I feel like it's more of a curse for you lately. It's been a curse lately, yeah, but you know what? I'll take it. One of my favorite things, though, about Black Flag Resynct is that you could shorten it to Black Flag Arr. It works. It's Black Flag Arr. Arr. Okay, I like it, Ace. You saved that till now, me?

Yeah, that's my trade secret. That's pretty cool. He had that one in his pocket for a while. He did have that one in his pocket, man. He was like, time to pull this bad way out. Finally, my time has come. We're talking about Assassin's Creed. I've been waiting 13 years. 13 years.

13 years. So also since since you know we did we did talk about this we do have an update on the community hijacking we made a promise to people that if we got five new supporters of the show by the it was July 20th that we would allow people to hijack one of us our community is incredible they are not satisfied with hijacking one host so they hijacked all of us. We got 15 total new supporters over the last week. That is huge. We are honestly very humbled by this. Seeing the community rally together, seeing people leading that charge.

So shout out once again to Bobby for really kind of taking the helm on all of this. And then DeZombie for really helping kind of promote this stuff as well. We did get 15 new supporters of the show. We each are getting a game chosen for us to play. We do not get a say. The voting is happening right now. It may be closed by the time this episode releases, but you all out there will be getting a hijack episode where the three of us have to play a game. The frontrunners as of today, and I don't know if this will stay this way, but the front runners as of today, it looks like Ace is going to be playing GTA 5, which I am all for at this point.

Yep. And Ace hates this idea. Is that a Black Mesa? They're kind of neck and neck with... Black Mesa, I think you would... I don't know. I feel like you would lean playing Black Mesa, but I think you're going to like GTA 5.

Oh, he's going to. Absolutely. Yeah. For me, it's kind of tied between Uncharted, whether that's two and I bum a PlayStation to play that or Uncharted 4, which I'm kind of leaning towards because it's just easier to play on the PC.

And it's the more modern one. I feel like it's going to be better. or I think the other one that's kind of in the front running, at least like I said for today, is Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, which I have not gotten to play either. So I'm honestly kind of excited about both of those. And then Ryan, out of the blue, days gone.

Yeah, that kind of like a thing for you. And then Mass Effect is the other kind of current leader for the two games that people are thinking about making you play. And again, that may change. It's all open for voting at this point. But y'all will be getting a triple host hijack in August. That's going to be a lot of fun, man. And thank you.

Legitimately, thank you to every single person that answered the call on this and signed up to support the show. It's really cool to see the community kind of having fun and wanting to make us play these games. But honestly, seeing people come together and say, we love this podcast. We want to support you guys. Thanks for all the good times and the laughs and news and all that stuff is honestly means a lot more to us than anything else. So just a quick thank you to those people. And as always promise, boys, we're going to thank a few more people that did sign up for this go round.

So a huge shout out to Mark Richardson, Slopi Ten. And we finally got an answer on this one because he did join the community. We read one of his reviews recently. It is Skate Eric. It's not Skaterik. So Skate Eric. We got an answer to that one.

And then finally Carazak for all signing up for rare status, for supporting this podcast and for making us play video games of your choosing. So thank you. Thank you much. To all of you. Thank you to everybody that supports the show. And guys, let's get into Assassin's Creed, Black Flag. Arr. I'm stealing aist thing.

Lead the way, Captain. Yeah. All right. So, you know, I was excited for this game. Ryan, I know you were excited for this. And Ace, even though you had played the original one, you were very excited for this. I do kind of want to toss it to you, though. Yeah, yeah, sure.

What about the remake or this re-synced, they're going to call it? Like, what got you interested as somebody that already knew the story, had played through the whole game, knew all the ending and the story components and all that stuff? Like, what about re-synced got your attention? Well, the thing. with Black Flag is it came from the golden era of Assassin's Creed where Ubisoft still had it. They knew how to write a story. They knew how to have a character that could really carry everything. And they didn't rely on these stupid RPG mechanics to do everything for you.

So seeing Resynct was going to have, you know, better graphics, going to remove the modern day that kind of interrupted the story, as well as just do some very nice quality of life things like auto follow and the tailing mission's not canceling if you get caught in the middle of them. it was kind of a no brainer for me because I played Black Flag 13 years ago 13 years ago I played Black Flag Has it really been 13 years dude? It's been 13 years

Oh my goodness So seeing it again I'm just like man I miss Black Flagg I miss how Black Flag made me feel And that's 100% what they were We're counting on With the scale of this game

What's that? Yeah So Ryan I mean as somebody that never played it You know I'm with you there Was it just Bro this looks like a great pie It's a pirate game. It's a pirate game. Like, I want to play this. Was that like the main draw for you? Was it the Assassin's Creed part? Like, what was it that got you hyped about this? Honestly, a little bit of both. I'm not sure what kind of the reason was why I fell off Assassin's Creed. I loved the first two that I played. And then I kind of really never played another one. So all these amazing games back when, you know, Ubisoft was doing well. I missed out on. And this was one of them. Golden era.

Yeah, that was the golden era. And it was amazing and I had a lot of fun with it back then. And then to have the hype that Aces put on it and then other people, everyone was super excited that they chose this game to do this with. Obviously for good reason because it's one of their best. But yeah, and then the fact that it's just like a cool, beautiful pirate world. There's just, you know, it's one of those you have to check it out. I mean, there's not a lot of, like, games we can look to about pirates where we say, oh, that was a success.

Black Flag is the one everyone looks back at and is like, I want my game to be like Black Flag. I want my game to be a successful. No, it isn't skull and bones. It's not skull and bones. You know, for me, I'm with you, Ryan. For me, it was, I haven't played an Assassin's Creed game in forever. I played one and two. I might have played three.

I honestly don't remember it's been so long. but I'm like you. I loved Assassin's Creed 1 and 2. And then I skipped everything in the franchise until Odyssey came out. And then I played Odyssey for 20 hours and then kind of fell off of that and that I've never touched the series since. Because like A said, I feel like they kind of lost their way. They didn't remember what made Assassin's Creed great. And the rest of it just felt like generic action RPG type stuff versus Assassin's Creed games.

So for this one, all I remember people saying is, bro, the sailing's so good. good. The naval combat's so good. Kenway's a really cool, like, lead character. He's kind of different than the other characters, like Etsio and stuff like that. And so this felt like a different kind of scenery and a change of pace. And with the pirate theme and the naval combat and that kind of thing, plus all the quality of life issues, plus the game looked pretty beautiful, which, you know, that definitely helps for me. Yeah, definitely helps. I was very excited to finally dive into this.

So game releases, we all start diving in. Ace, you're super excited. I think Ryan and I were pretty hyped, but not quite as excited as you. I'm gonna say this. The first couple hours of this game, I felt very,

like they were very routine. And I was like, oh no, is this going to just be like the Ubisoft formula again? Like legitimately, because, you know, It's taking you through the paces. It's teaching you, you know, blah, blah, blah.

It's the tutorial. Yeah, yeah. But I kind of went like, this just feels like Ubisoft to me to a certain degree. And I remember telling my wife that I was like, I was really excited for this game, but I'm not sure it's grabbing me the way I hoped it would grab me. Did the opening kind of couple hours feel that way for you, Ryan? Like, Ace, you knew what to expect on this one. Oh, I knew exactly. Yeah, I knew.

It's a slow start and then you just, you're in. Was I a low. in this or did you just like take off for you right off the rip? You're you well I mean I don't know if you're alone but I wasn't that way. You know me I notoriously I love the snow level in Red Dead so I love

you're weird a beginning slow burn I love I love the buildup I love I love to see the backstory I'm an origin story guy my favorite movies are usually like of all the superhero movies are like the beginning where they get their powers and whatnot I love all that stuff so getting to see him

kind of where he was starting talking to his wife and all that stuff and in the story about how he wanted to be a pirate and not do the other stuff and all of those things I'm like yeah okay I'm feeling this I'm vibing with him I understand why he's doing this and risking all this now for for that booty so uh well both booties um but it's a double meaning but it's true so I so I definitely I was I was drawn into it pretty quick, but I'm also, I'm such a sucker for good cinematics, good graphics and cut scenes and stuff like that. So I love that stuff. So right away, I was, I was hooked pretty quick. It's interesting for me because, like I said, first couple hours, it felt a little

bit routine. I kind of felt like I had done this before. And then you kind of get away from the beginning tutorial, because I mean, there's a lot of mechanics in this game. Oh, yeah. You know, you have your on-land mechanics. You have your parkour. You have your climbing. You have that. kind of thing. And, you know, I've seen videos of people saying, well, the parkour feels a little bit better in the re-synced edition. They've kind of streamlined it. I don't have the comparison

to the original. So, Ace, like, is the parkour improved? Oh, yeah. It's much, much better. It's faster, which is much much more, you know, it flows better in the movement and the combat and things like that, whereas in the original game, it was a much slower pace, parkour,

because you weren't really going to do a lot of parkoring in Black Flag. Yeah. So, So the original was worse than this? Yeah. Oh, in a lot of ways. Like the stealth missions failing automatically. Like there were some quality of life issues that I know the original had going on that all seemed to be fixed with this, the re-sync edition.

I will say this. Once you get out of the beginning area and, you know, you start learning about Kenway and the jackdaw and you get out to see and you start doing some of these missions and stuff like that. bro this game started really taken off for me like really taken off like there was very much a like turning point for me where i went from like okay i'm getting my feet under me i'm kind of learning the ropes and this feels a little bit like uvysoft to oh my gosh man like sailing's amazing navel combat's so fun like you know the broadside cannons the front one where the with the chain shot where you got to hit the sails to slow them down yeah like you know the you learn that you can pull out your spyglass to kind of assess the ships from far off. And then Adway or Adi will be like, I don't think we can take him, Captain, you know, and it's like you hear him talking in your ear. No, and I go, fire! You should listen to Adelaire.

Yeah. And then the game really started to just open up for me. And before you knew it, dude, I was absolutely enthralled with this game and what was going on. And every time I went to land, it was like, oh, cool. Like, I mean, freaking, I mean, you're in Jamaica, dude. You go to Kingston. You know what I mean? You're going to Havana.

You're going to all these towns like that we know, you know, are like vacation destinations now. You know what I mean? But like, but you're sailing to them. You're putting it at the port. You're getting out. It's the 1700s. It's, you know, it's like shacks and wood docks and people hawking their wares and stuff like that. And it was all like very authentic.

It was all very beautiful. And it just felt kind of like like alive, man. And the way that the game built the world and combined the at sea portion of the game with the things that you do on land really, really started to jive with me. You know, like I said, there was a point where I really started going like this game turned a corner for me. And I am really, really starting to enjoy my time with this. Yeah, it does an excellent job of selling that feeling of being a pirate because you spend just as much time on land as you do at sea, if not more. Which is such a nice breakup too, like, because you have the ability to go. And if you want to go stealth or just go guns of blazing or swords of blazing, you can go in.

But then when you get back to your ship, then you're out sailing. And it's just as much fun to go and try to gather everything and get the metal and the wood and all the minerals you need and materials and stuff like that. I think the breakup between the two was very well done, where you had that differentiation between them so that you didn't get too fatigued with one or the other. But I know it's one thing I want to give them props on is it's so hard to do water in games. And I'm so weird about it for some reason. Any game I look at, I'm like, oh, that water looks gross, you know. But they did such a good job.

The ocean, even the waterfalls, the ponds when you're on land. like all of it looked so stinking good. Even when stuff happens in the water comes up on the screen and just drips down, um, yeah, I think, I think they did a really, really good job with that kind of separation,

but, but it, they made both fun. How did you guys feel the first time you got to board a ship? Then you got to like swing over on the rigging. Oh, it was on, dude. Yeah,

and you had that little cannon up top. I always look for the captain and I'm like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And I just shoot as much as I can. And then, and then you just hop over and then try not to,

try not to die. I got shot in the back so many times though. Yeah, they got a guy on the crow's and it just gets shot in the back. Yeah. I will say one of the things about this game that really impressed me and I kind of hinted on this was just the number of different mechanics and systems that it's got going on. You know, we touched on the parkour. There is the, you know, the combat system in this game and that not only on land combat, but then you have naval combat, which is its own completely different thing. You've got, you know, stealth missions, which felt good. Like stealth in this game honestly felt pretty good.

The addition of a follow command, because let's be honest, escort missions are the worst. Following people is the worst. And this game just, you push a button and your character just locks in and follows them. You can listen to the conversation the whole time. You know, naval combat,

there's a whole game just in the naval combat part of this with the, you know, the, like, I think this is a neat mechanic. it took me a second to realize, but depending on where your camera is at on the ship, so if you were looking off the actual side of the ship,

so if you're looking off the starboard side of the ship, that's when you get your broadside cannons, you know, and it's like that fires the volley of like eight to ten cannonballs. You get a nice little trajectory kind of path that shows where they're going to land. If your camera, which more often than

is off the front of the ship, and you go to fire, it pulls up the chain mast or the chain cannon, which shoots a big spinning ball of chain to tangle up their sails and break their mast and stuff like that to slow their ship down. But like that's such a cool thing. If you're looking off the back

because somebody is chasing you, then you drop exploding kegs in the water instead. And I was like, this is actually like a really cool system to incorporate four different aspects of like cannons and attacks and defense in a very simple way of just simply all you need to do is just look off the side of the boat.

that you want to fire at, you know, and it was, it felt very intuitive to me. And I thought that was a really cool feature that they added with this, this naval warfare. Yeah, you're not helpless on any side of the jackdaw, which is very, very nice. And then, of course, you have the mortar in the middle. So you could just, oh, that mortar is awesome. Timing that thing right. And then it's just like, boom, boom, boom. You're like, yeah.

There's one you get really late in the story that's a new edition where it'll fire continuously for like five seconds. And it'll follow wherever your cursor is going. so you could just keep moving it back and forth. Oh, really? Who knew laser guided mortars were a thing back then? It's kind of insane. It's kind of an insane mortar. Ace, were there parts of this?

I mean, you knew what to expect going into this, but was there any parts of this that caught you off guard that you forgot about that were kind of highlights for you as far as getting back into Black Flag and kind of re-experiencing this game? I think I just kind of forgot how much there is, to do, not just like collect, but actually go do. Like you can go spearing for like massive animals like sharks and whales and stuff for

your upgrades. You can dive shipwrecks with your diving bell. There's assassin contracts you can take where you could just go and kill someone for a, with a special objective and you get a ton of money for it. And then I forgot completely that you get to completely renovate the mansion in Grady Nagua. And that's like your home base. It's amazing.

It's such a cool thing. Everything you collect, you can put up for, like, display in there. That's so cool. The first time I killed a shark, I was so stoked. I'm like, what is this? And I, and I'm like trying to spear him and it's like, oh, he circled back around. And I'm like, who, cool, cool, throwing those. And then they lift him up on the boat and he's on the boat standing watching them, the smaller boat.

And I was like, oh, this is, this is cool. There is, there's so much to do just, just on the boat. And then, like you said, there's so much more to do in the other spaces. So there is a lot. And that's my one thing with these types of games. I fell into it with Uncharted, all these other games that are this kind of like style. I just, you can wander and explore and there's always something. The world is full.

There's a lot there. There's always something you can find around every corner, even if it's not the main objective or just a weird side quest. Like there's a lot. There's a lot to do. Yeah. And the story doesn't feel like I need to rush through it. Like nothing feels urgent. So I don't feel like I need to get back to the main quest every single time.

One thing I do want to point out that was new for me was I discovered a brand new execution animation just on a whim. I parried a guy and I went to execute him and I was still holding my trigger for my quick shot. I just turned around and shot him in the face, point blank and it zoomed in like for a cinematic. Oh, really?

That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, that's sweet. That was not in the original. One of my favorite things to do for just, it's not a, it's not like a cinematic kill, but like I love when I have like maybe one guy left,

and I do the Indiana Jones, and I just pull out my gun and pop them in the face. There's only one left, and I just go, yeah, boom, and I just shoot. Yeah. All right, well, listen, we're going to actually talk combat here a little bit more in depth. We've got to take a break real quick, and then we'll get back into the combat. And then I do want to talk about some of the characters and story. We won't do any spoilers without a warning, so anybody that hasn't experienced this game,

don't worry. But there are some really cool aspects of this story that stood out, And I think we need to talk about some of those just to kind of be able to talk about the game as a whole. So we'll get to that right after this break. All right, guys, we are back. We've kind of talked a little bit about naval combat. I'll be honest.

I thought the naval combat would be my favorite part of this game. And while it is a lot of fun, I actually found the on-land stuff to be more interesting to me. Like sailing at sea is, it's beautiful. You know, you sail through storms. You get these rogue winds. You have hostile areas with, you know, ships that might chase after you. You can see ships fighting each other in the distance.

You get random events where it's like you can board a ship that somebody left on fire. And you have to try to collect loot before it burns down. And, you know, there's the animal hunts and stuff like that. There's no shortage of things to do out at sea, which is really cool to me. But I was actually kind of surprised to find that the on-land stuff I found to be much more interesting as far as, like, advancing the story and kind of just the exploration part of stuff. And of course, when things go wrong, it's combat. And I did not, I didn't know what to expect with this.

It's been such a long time since I have played an Assassin's Creed game that like it's not just all stealth takedowns and walking through big crowds to try to disappear. And I think this is another area where the game kind of shined, to be honest. I hate to use the Arkham style combat moniker because I feel like it's getting overused at this point

but like at the same time you're facing off against multiple enemies you know it is the hey there's a blue sparkle on the screen this is when you hit the parry button and if you parry perfectly you can then perform a finishing move you know an execution

depending on the weapons that you have equipped you can chain those executions, which let's be honest, are pretty freaking awesome looking. Yeah. You know, like one of my favorite things to do was you can trip people or kick people if they're blocking

a whole lot. Yeah. And dude, whaling on somebody until they start blocking repeatedly and then sweeping the leg Johnny and then watching them fall and then just immediately going in for a ground execution was just so satisfying to me, man.

Oh, that sounds so good. Especially when he uses both swords. And he's like, oh, yeah. He goes for it. Yeah, he goes for it. Both of them through it. Oh, man. Every time I'm like, whoa.

So that is one of the kind of new things about re-synct is the combat has been completely, like, reworked. It is similar to the original in the way it's like counter-kill combat, but it has a lot more of the depth that comes from the newer games from the franchise. And it works really well because they didn't overblote it with a bunch of crap. Yeah. You've got the leg sweep. You've got the kick. You've got your quick draw. And you've got the rope dart for stopping the long range attack.

The rope dart was freaking cool too, man. Yeah. If someone just like pulls out a gun, tries to shoot you. If you don't have a body to like use as a shield, just, yeah. Yeah. I also like that they started to introduce like new, I'll just call them units because there are like the heavy units where you can't jump over them. You can't sweep their leg. Like, you know, it took me a couple times.

I'm like, why does this guy keep blocking this? assassinate those dudes. And then he's just shoving me away. You can't take down the meters. And then yeah, exactly. And so I liked when they started to introduce these new kind of units because then it made you mix up the way that you were doing the combat in the game. Is this groundbreaking combat? No.

No. Is it satisfying fun combat to where every time I got into a fight, I didn't go like, oh, not again. You know, like, yeah, man. Like, they were fun fights. Yeah. I know early on when you like free a lot of the. those prisoners. I forgot what island you're on, but you're trying to get access to something.

And you free them. And then they're running back because you've got to kill the dude by the big ship, the big one you steal originally in the beginning. The jackdoll? Yeah. No, no, no. After that, the big, big one. Oh, I know what you're talking about.

So all those guys are going down. And I'm like running and I'm like, wait, he's at the docks. He's at the docks. Where are they? But then I heard fighting. And I look back and I see all those guys I freed. They're like fighting all the soldiers. And I was like, oh, heck yeah.

I go running up and I just I go and just obliterate everyone and I was so excited to get in more more combat and so that shows how much fun it is and you know like you said Josh you know you're fighting those big guys you got to be a little more strategic and how you approach it but it's still fun it's still enjoyable so I think they did a really really good job with making the combat not bland or stale and it was it was always an enjoyable time yeah I found the stealth and the actual combat, like, both equally rewarding and fun to do. I was, I was very pleasantly surprised, especially after my initial, like I said, kind of hour or two of, you know, getting your feet under you, getting kind of the tutorial section out of the way, kind of letting the game, like, turn you loose, so to speak. Like, I was very pleasantly surprised by the, just the actual gameplay of this game. Like, every time it was a new island, it was a new, you know, ruins or something to climb or, you know, a cave that I was exploring or something like that, I actually really found myself enjoying

the gameplay aspects of this. And I didn't know how those were going to feel, being that the original game was like 13 years old, apparently. But a lot of the modernization that they did to make it a better quality of life game for re-sinct, I think really paid off. Because as somebody that never experienced this before, having experienced it now, I really enjoyed, like, honestly, every aspect of the game. Like even busy work, which I am not, listen, I'm not a fan of games when they go, hey, we need to stretch out the

gameplay hours on this to make you feel like you got your money's worth. So, go blow up 15 ships and collect 200 wood so that you can get this really small incremental upgrade or cosmetic upgrade for your ship or something like that. But like, in

this game, it all just kind of felt natural. You're a pirate. You're trying to amass some money so that you can do things so that you can upgrade your your base like the great an Agua you know that's like your home island and so you're trying to fortify that right you're trying to upgrade your ship so that you can defend against the the British Navy and things like that you know so it's like all these things kind of really just made sense in the in the like the scale of the game and it didn't feel like busy work to me at that point and that's a testament to the gameplay itself honestly I would agree

upgrading the Great Anagwa is just so satisfying too because you do it all and then you get to bask in the glory of it all Well and like the bonfire you can get a bonfire So that your pirates have a place to drink and party Yeah and hang out Free recruits And you get the bonfire and now that you see pirates hanging out on the beach Like by the bonfire and it's like these are just cool little upgrades

Man that really do help you feel like you're living on this island There is there's a lot of like little things and that a lot of times you know know, it's not what makes a game, but it helps so much. Like even even in the ship combat or when you're just traversing the ocean, you know, the headwinds have changed or the wind is swirling. Just weird little voice lines that really don't mean a lot. But when you hear it, it just adds so much depth to the game, which is, which is really, really cool. And I love when developers do that. And they just kind of, kind of add more to that, to the game. It makes the world feel alive. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yep. It really does. Like, it feels like there's something.

going on other than I'm just trying to steer my ship towards... It's such a simple... Yeah, it's such a simple voice line, something super small, but that, you know, an accumulation of that and stacked up, it just makes everything so much better.

Yeah. So the world does a great job showing itself to, you know, be alive, but what about Edward? Does Edward sell himself as a unique and original character that's worth watching? Because I'm... Literally where I was going next to... Sorry, I mean, the characters... No, it was a perfect. Aces, you can tell Aces, uh,

ACE is a pro at this point because it was like a perfect segue into I forgot how good the story can be for Assassin's Creed games and I think this is where that Ubisoft may have lost its way now to be fair I haven't played Valhalla I haven't played shadows I haven't played Mirage I feel like none of those games are really all that great and so you know I don't hear a lot of positive things about them enough to make me want to like dive into them I give a pass to Mirage that's the only one yeah I um And I will say that once I started getting sucked into this game and once I started to understand who Kenway was, you know, and then you've got, you know, your quartermaster, Adiolale, I freaking love that guy so much, man, you know. Yeah. You get to meet Blackbeard. You know, you've got these like world famous pirates that you're just rubbing elbows with on your island and, you know, trying to just have a free pirate nation, you know, and, you know, screw the man. and the government can't tell us what to do and nobody owns us and that kind of thing. And

this is where the game really kind of started to shine and I think it's a testament that a good story. I will say the story's like fantastic or anything. It's no Expedition 33 you know, but at the same time it is good enough and the characters are good enough

and memorable enough and the interactions that they have feel natural and the animosity that they have feels natural and you know I don't want to spoil anything but like some of the things that happen in the game between the characters really feels like it is a natural flow or outcome or you know their worldview clashing with somebody else's worldview um this is where it really did catch me off guard because there is a really good story to black flag and I did not expect

that man honestly I think it's been so long since Ubisoft has put out a good story that when they brought one back that they actually wrote really well, it just shocks people how well they could have wrote that story. Like, I, where did they go wrong? How did they forget how to have a good story, man? They stopped focusing on the characters and started focusing way too much on the time period and the overbloded mechanics. The maps and the amount of crap that you have to do in the game.

You need to focus on your character. Yeah. Stretching out gameplay hours does not make a game good does not make me feel like I got my money's worth. You know what I mean? I'll take a four hour, like mixtape, I'll take a four hour game over a 40 hour game if I love every moment of the one game. At that point, I don't even care about the money. You know what I mean?

Because I have the memories and the experience. And this whole, like, we need to keep people just busy, just busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. You know, so that they can say that it's a 40 hour game. Like, those days need to be gone, man. Like, I'd much rather enjoy every moment of my experience than to just feel like somebody is just jerking me along so that it can pad, the play time. There's something about wanting more, like leave them wanting more, you know? Just like mixtape did or any of those other games that are shorter.

Like, I think the first Assassin's Creed was like, what, 10, 15 hours? It's like 10 or 15 hours. Yeah, it's like super short, but I remember nothing but fond memories of that because just every moment of it, I'd rather have, like you said, 10 or 15 hours of awesome exhilarating gameplay the whole time than 50 hours of just me. You know, where there's just a lot of filler. I don't know the fillers, nobody wants it, but they feel like they have to have this big,

big expansive game. And it's like, no, give a good game. Make something that people want to play. And it doesn't matter how long it is. People are going to be drawn to it. Yep. Outside of Edward. I was going to throw it to Ace,

because I know Ace is dying to talk about the characters in the story in this game. I will say, I'm going to pass it to you, Ace. And then you can give your spoiler warning for, finally for some of the story i know i will say you know between the the world feeling alive the combat in this game the naval combat the feeling of sailing the scale of the game and the ocean and the islands that you go to the the involvement or interaction between the assassins and the templars uh between the pirates themselves and you know what goes on between them this felt like a very very all around complete game to me, which feels rare nowadays.

Because most of the time a game shines in either the story or the gameplay or the graphics in the presentation or something else. And I think this is why people remember Black Flag so fondly because it's probably the last Ubisoft game that actually felt like a complete all-around game. Yeah. All right, Ace. All right. Listen. I wanted to know just real quick, outside of Edward, did you guys have a favorite character? character?

For me, it's Adiwale. Hands down. Yeah. And I mean, Blackbeard's cool as anything, dude. I mean, he's freaking Blackbeard. You know, I think Thatch, isn't Thatch his real name? It's Edward Thatch. He's also Dev Edward.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, you know, I mean, there were a lot of neat characters in this game. I mean, Adiwale is my boy. He's with you. You know, he's looking out for you. He's kind of your right-hand man. Who's the shipwright?

because I really liked the ship rate too. Lucy? She's new. She is a new character exclusive to Assassin's Creed Black Flag R. Really? Yeah. Oh, so she's not in the original game? No, her story, her quest, all that.

Her and the Padre were not in the original game. Oh, wow. Interesting. I didn't know that. Okay, and I liked both of those characters. So that was a really good addition to the game. Good call. It's not part of the original game.

So it's a new quest thing that you get to do. You get to experience their story. And that's, they did a very good job. implementing it aside from one thing the cutscenes were not done with the mocap the original game was done so you could kind of tell it was done in engine because Ubisoft has a

terrible habit of doing this hands on hip pose whenever people are talking to each other and then their hands are kind of floaty or something like that I'll tell you what I do the side of cheese I actually want to pivot I want to pivot here Ace because here's what I want to do because there's going to be people

that are like Ryan and I that haven't ever played this game we know there was some people in the community saying, hey, I want to hear the deep dive before I decide if I'm going to buy this game or not. Let's give our thoughts on this game and then you can get into story spoilers. That way we can just keep the spoilers right at the very end and people that they don't have to worry about skipping ahead and then accidentally hearing something. I like it. Yeah, it's a solid pivot. I'll take it. Ace, I'm going to give it to you first because you played the original. We know you love the original. We know you're an Assassin's Creed fan. What are your thoughts and what's

your rating for this, this re-synced version? Overall, my thoughts are I couldn't be happier with what we got. Like, the things that were cut were things I didn't care about to begin with. Like, we lost the modern day story. That doesn't really bother me. I don't think that bothered anybody. I haven't heard a single person. Well, spoilers, because you didn't play Assassin's Creed 3.

And for anyone else, I'll give you a few seconds here. When Desmond Miles dies at the end of Assassin's Creed 3, that's where the modern day story kind of died for a lot of people. Like, everyone loses interest after that. So once it just becomes about Obstirgo and being a random. self-insert character. Nobody really cared about the modern day. I didn't mind losing the hidden blade combat because you used to be able to use the hidden blade in combat for counter kills and things like that.

Didn't bother me as much as it bothered other people. I definitely did see a lack of animations and stuff, like the double, the double assassinations and thing. It was always the same thing. Yeah. Which is a little bit lame. But other than that, like, every improvement they made was great. I don't have to finish a tailing mission.

I could just run up on the guy and stab him and he probably has a note. I don't have to get super close for, you know, eavesdropping anymore. I could be literally on a rooftop and I could hear them. Like there were so many things they did perfectly with this. And that's, I almost hate it because now they're only going to want to make remakes. I know. That was my thought is this is only going to encourage them to just remake the games that they've already made at this point. I'm just going to say it.

I would give the original black flag like a 8. 5, 8.6. This one, I'm gonna give it a step above and say it's like an 8.7 for me. I think it is... I'm super, super picky about my Assassin's Creed's. Like, you'll... I'm way tighter on my ratings when it comes to this. Yeah. Is this what... So what

is, I guess, comparable to, like, the other Assassin's Creed you played? Like, where does this rank among them? Uh, this ranks like the fourth spot for me. Okay. Yeah. Just below like two and honestly, one's up there pretty high as well for me. Oh. Yeah.

and surprisingly AC Origins which is the Egyptian one well one and two I'm sure will be remade shortly and one and two is coming and then I have a soft spot for Rogue but not a lot of people like Rogue so where do you guys land with it Ryan

so I this guy this is this is my type of game guys this I love I know we talked about the combat and the one thing that I love more than anything is having the ability within a game to go stealth,

which I will usually try to do for the most part, unless I'm just feeling wild. But then when, you know, crap hits the fan, I can still just, it's not mission over. I can go and just fight everyone and just kill everyone. Or if I want to, I can run around and then go hide, you know. Much like Josh you'll know with Metaguerre Solid 5 or a few Uncharted's another one where you can do that.

I loved it hit all those marks where you have the open world that's not too open. It's full. It's beautiful. It's vibrant. The graphics are amazing. I loved the piloting of the ship and all the details and the upgraded. Like, if any game makes you want to play it more to do more stuff, like, that's good. So I just like, I need to go get more materials.

I want to upgrade my ship. It's not like I need to or I have to. I want to. I want to be better. I want to get better weapons because I want to, I want to blow up. And then I'm, you know, I'm spot scoping everyone. I'm like, oh, yeah, they got some metal and some wood. I'm like, I'm going over there.

And I'd try to run them down. And so there was a lot of factors within this game. And that's just like the normal gameplay combat stuff. In addition, the story, I think they did a really, really good job. And obviously, this is a remake because everybody's running out of original ideas these days. But having said that, I love this game a lot from what I've played. I am not done yet, but I am going to continue playing and finish this thing all the way through. I had a very, very good play through so far.

And I'm excited to see how far it goes and, you know, try to get all the secret spots and unlock things. So I would say for a rating, I'm going to put this probably around kind of similar to UAE with like an 8.5. I had a lot of fun with this game if it's right in my wheelhouse and I think I think it's good and hopefully they can look at this and what they recreated and use that as a model for future games

and try to try to make something like it's like hey this works or just remember what gamers actually like dude remember what matters in your games like it didn't matter that you had male female option it didn't matter. Just write the character. I don't care what gender.

You make the character. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't matter. Make it, make it fun. Make it enjoyable and have a cool story with, with memorable characters. And that's all you need. Like, that's all you need.

It doesn't matter what is going on. Just if you follow those guidelines, you'll probably create a good game. And it'll have the standard Ubisoft jank. Oh, yeah. It had its glitches, for sure. But I was going to, I was going to recreate. Okay, I'm going to recreate me jumping forward. Okay, you guys ready?

I'm gonna jump forward, okay? I'm gonna, I'm parkoring forward. All right, ready? Uh-oh. Ryan just fell to the side. Oh, no. Yep. So that was me chasing sea shanties on the rooftops there.

Yeah. I had one pretty funny glitch where I was swimming to shore, but my animation to stand up never played, so I kept swimming through the shore and I was swimming through the town. Oh, that's funny. I actually, I had very little bugs, believe it or not. Like, I mean, the parkcoring was a little weird at times. I didn't have a lot of bugs, but yeah, the parkoring was, I was so frustrating sometimes.

It definitely didn't feel great to me. It was, it was whatever. And I will say real quick. That's a step up from what we've been getting. Real quick, from only playing one and two and stuff, I felt like the game itself was like very low. Like for a, for an Assassin's Creed where you can climb in parkour. Yeah, yeah. Well, they're not building sky scrape.

I understand that, but like, I don't know. I just felt like it was, I never could really get, like, to the height I wanted. And it didn't feel satisfying climbing up because it was only ever like a three-story tower or whatever. You know, there wasn't a lot of height to the game, but it wasn't very vertical. I don't know. I decorated a town with hung red coats. So I'd just wait for them to come around and just hang them all up. I'd like four of them up there.

It was fun. Did you really? Yeah. Um, I'm right there with you guys, honestly. I really, really enjoyed this game. Um, it doesn't, I mean, it's a 13 year old game that was, that was modernized. So like back when it first released, I think like it, you know, if they had released this with the quality of life issues, I could see this game being like a nine. You know, it's not reinventing the wheel. It's not doing anything that we haven't seen before. I think part of it, honestly, is like my, my favoritism towards this game. is simply that it's like, oh, this was when Ubisoft was good. And Ubisoft became a gaming juggernaut because at one point in time, they made incredible video games until they lost their way. And this is like, this, this is that glimpse into the time when Ubisoft actually made

really, really good video games. And so like, I think that's the part where I went from like, oh, I don't love this to like, oh, I'm actually really, really enjoying this now. and I can't wait to play it and I want to continue this mission and I want to do that side mission and I want to branch, I want to make sure I explore this character's storyline and it really started to draw me in at that point. There wasn't much jank for me. There was a little bit of busy work, but again, it kind of fit into the world and it

wasn't nearly as bad as what we've seen from Ubisoft in recent days. So I was a little bit more forgiving for that. You know, if anything, if I had any criticism for this game, it's that it does. does so much. It was so many different systems and they all kind of work, but none of those systems stand out as like exceptional. You know what I mean? In any specific way.

The story was good. The combat was good. The naval combat was good. I really liked the characters. The world was beautiful. It's definitely my kind of setting with the Caribbean islands and stuff like that. I'm going to give it like an 8.7. I'm a little bit higher than both of you.

guys, I think. And maybe that was just, I was kind of amped to play a game that was sucking me in. And I found myself enjoying after maybe initially thinking I wasn't going to enjoy it so much. But I think there's a lot to appreciate with this game. It's a $60 game. You know, I think it's well worth 60 bucks. I mean, it's a 40 to 50 hour game. If you, if you want to say, hey, what's the time to complete this game? It's about 40 to 50 hours. And across the board, it's enjoyable. man and so for $60 it's kind of a no-brainer in my opinion man like you can get lost you can do collection type stuff and side quests and hunting rare armors and weapons and things like that's probably not going to matter because like none of the combat's super hard in the game or anything gun swords but like for people that like this stuff you can do all that you know um so there you go uh 8.7 from me uh ace would you say 8.6 8.6 8.7 around there so i said 8.7 around there so 8.6 and then Ryan 8.5. So we're all right there. I feel like we're all pretty dang calibrated on this. It's a really enjoyable video game, man. Like, that's honestly the easiest

way to say it. All right. We're going to give Aces couple minutes here, Ace. Don't talk their ear up because we don't need the entire history of Edward Kenway. I just want to talk about him a little bit. All right. Well, you see the way it started with. So Edward Kenway started off. Well, he's a Welshman who was born in Swansea, you see. So listen, if you're not going to play this game and you wanted to kind of know the ending results of the story because the story is really good. If you plan on playing this game,

this is the end of the episode for you. Thank you for joining us. Follow the show, join our Discord, sign up on Patreon, all that good stuff. If you're not going to play this game and you just want to kind of know a little bit more about the story, Ace is going to give you, we're going to put a two-minute limit on this,

so Ace doesn't go crazy. All right. So listen, this is your spoiler warning, people. We're going to give you a second or two because in case you're driving, and the phone's in your pocket and you're at the gym. I'm stalling out here so nobody can yell at us for spoilers that they didn't want. That's probably long enough for you to have turned this off. So Ace, two minutes.

Give people why this story is amazing. All right. Well, the whole story revolves around this place called the Observatory, which is what the Templars and Assassins are fighting over. It's a artifact that if you put a vial of blood into it, could spy on anyone in the world, meaning the Templars would have complete control and know everything all the time. Very bad. Very bad thing. Edward does not care about this at all at first. He is willing to sell the observatory to the highest bidder.

Money, money, money, many, many, money. Unfortunately, that greed will catch up to Edward and he will lose everyone along the way. And halfway through the story, he will be betrayed by what is known as the sage Roberts and turned into a Jamaican prison where he will for several years and lose the other person that mattered him most, which was James Kidd, who introduced him to the assassins and tried to set him on a right path. And that is what finally snaps Edward out of his greed-induced trance that for everything he has, for all his notoriety, for all his wealth, none of his friends are left standing beside him at the end of the day.

And that's something he just can't live with. And then he kind of just realizes, I've got to give this all up. I've got to get back to my wife. So Edward goes to set his wrongs right. He stops the Templars from taking the observatory, sets everything right there. And he gets a letter back from home. His wife's been long dead. She's no longer alive.

And he has a daughter that he needs to go take care of. And that's it. Edward's going back to England at the end of the day. He is not going to be a pirate anymore. He's hanging up the whole thing. He's going to still be an assassin. He has joined the assassins. he is devout to their cause because he screwed them over and he kind of owes them.

And he gives the assassins, uh, his, the mansion and then he walks down to the dock and goes home with his daughter. And they play the song, the parting glass as he looks at a table where all his friends used to sit and there's no one there anymore. And he just sees their ghost all sharing. I had goosebumps. Yeah. I know, I did too.

This is one of the things that I honestly was taken aback because you really start to care for Edward Kenway and you also go, dude, you are a freaking idiot, dude. He's just, he's very insecure. He's insecure about the fact he's poor and his wife is rich and he's not providing enough. You could tell what, yes. She already loves him. In the beginning with the chocolate.

And he's like, he's like, have you ever tasted something from the Americas? And she's like, well, my dad's a merchant. Like, yeah, I've had it a bunch. I've had chocolate all the time, Edward. You know, but she still loves him anyway. She's like, you have it. You know, and she gets it to him still. So like, yeah, you could tell how insecure he is for me.

not having all that and the wealth and the provide. Was it James Kidd that was talking to him about saying, like, you had everything that you wanted at home and you left it? Like, she loved you the way that you were and you left her. And James Kidd. To be something that she didn't care about. James Kidd tries so hard to set Edward Wright because James Kidd is actually a girl named Mary.

But Mary is just like, I see potential in you. I understand that you are a good person and you. can do good things and that your wife loved you and you're an idiot. But it's just, it's too late by the time things are ready to go. It's six years on sea at the sea. His wife is dead and his daughter's alone. Yeah.

He didn't even know he had a daughter. He had no idea. No. Right. That's the conversation. If you play through the credits, you get to sail back with Edward and his daughter for a little bit. And she's just grilling him the whole time about things.

And he's like, you know, I left to take care of you and your mother. he's like, you didn't even know I exist. He's like, that's true. Yeah. That's true. Yeah, this story, it makes you care, man. There's some heartbreaking moments.

You know what I mean? There is the flawed character of Kenway, even though he's a very likable person, you know, you do kind of go like, dude, you're, you're dumb, you're an idiot, you have issues, but he's kind of working through those issues. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So.

And this. All right. Well, listen. I was just one more thing. This. It's like more. Ace, I gave you two minutes and you're on like six minutes now. That was way over two minutes.

All right, whatever. I'll tell you later. It's fine. Yeah, yeah. You can talk about it in our community. Listen, if anybody out there wants to know more in-depth lore and story, Edward Kenway's genealogical line, how he ties into future installments of assassins. Ace is your guy.

You don't want to know how Edward's story ends. All the information you need to know if you want to die further into this. I know. I know. Ace, I'm sorry, Ace. I got to, I got to put this off somewhere, man. Is this an NSA's a street podcast? It's a great story. That's the takeaway. And you really do care about the characters. You really do feel like what they are feeling. You kind of sympathize with them. You go, hey, you're being an idiot right now. Be better. And then you hope for them to be better. You get invested. And that's kind of the takeaway here. So all right. That's going to do it officially for this. episode. The game is well worth it. If you're in the mood for a good pirate Assassin's Creed game, this is absolutely the one to pick up, especially if you're like Ryan and I and you've never experienced this before. It is well worth the experience in our opinion. So there you go. All right, I said it once, but I'll say it again. Thank you to everybody that has come out to support

this show. Thank you to all our new members. Thank you to the community that we have for the awesome support and hijacking the three of us. We'll see if we regret that or not, but a deal is a deal. So we'll find out there as well. Remember to follow the show. Hit that plus button, that follow button. This way you get our episodes the day that they release. It also helps the algorithm so that we show up as one of the top gaming podcasts in the world.

So we can take our rightful place as leaders of the industry. All right. That's it, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. See you. Peace out. I've done for want of wit to mess so fell to me parting glass

light I their sorry for and all the sweethearts that ere I've loved they'd wish me one more day to stay But since it falls onto my lots that I should rise and you should know, I'll gently rise and softly calm. Good night and joy you all.