I (finally) tried 'Assassin's Creed: Black Flag' again... 

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The npcs in Havana speak Spanish. In an age when AC games have English voice actors clumsily trying to do an accent and failing, that is actually refreshing.

I have to admit Black Flag is a magical masterpiece

AC Black Flag was truly a magical game for me. The first time I saw those sunkissed beaches and that clear, green-blue water, and those sea shanties, I was in love.

Its like we reached a golden age of video games quality and went into a decline and lost that era

The old combat system was amazing. Made you feel like a badass and it always looked cool.

My First and Favourite Assassin's creed. Edward, The Characters The Vibe of the game the story the music all hits different ❤️

10 years on, I still love this game. It isn't perfect, none of the ACs are, but it's probably the last time I was truly in love with the series. The story is great, the acting is great, the characters don't feel like cartoon versions of themselves like later games do, Edward's arc is fantastically done. The sidequests are actually interesting!

Black Flag is still my favorite Assassin's Creed game, even after all this time!

Imagine a Red Dead Redemption 2 type Black Flag game. Pirate themed with that amount of detail... Add some supernatural lore like my man Davy Jones, I'd play that game till I die

As someone from cymru (wales) it was so cool to see a main protagonist from wales with the history of pirates, the environment and world is so unique and I loved the travel and ship combat, was and still is my favourite assassins creed

As an extension of your idea about "working your way up" to piloting a full-on pirate ship, I think it would be a pretty cool idea to let us use the different classes of ships, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Schooners are fast and small but super weak, brigs are stronger and have a ram but are slower and easier to spot, frigates lose the ram and some speed but get more cannons and armor, and man-o-war's are massive tanks but are obviously sluggish. It would be fun starting off w/ a junky schooner and working your way up to having a series of proper swashbuckling vessels that you could swap out and use as needed (i.e. schooners would be great for stealth/tailing missions and man-o-wars for massive sea battles).

Cool tips for maximizing your enjoyment of AC Black Flag: Go to the HUD options and disabled Health and the Mini-Map. Health on foot isn't kinda needed since Edward can tank a ridiculous amount of damage (even without health upgrades) and while a health bar is handy on the ship the ship actually shows it's health diegetically. When the ships sails look tattered it's on the second section of the health bar and when the ship has visible holes with embers it's on its last third of the health bar. The minimap isn't needed for a smooth experience as your mission objective markers show up on your HUD, plus that any object you highlight on the big map also shows up on your HUD (plus it shows distance). Stealth becomes a bit more difficult as you can't cheat by looking at which way your enemies are facing via the minimap, but what it does is that it makes your eagle-vision actually feel highly useful. Sailing also gains a bit of difficulty as you must now keep your head on a swivel. You have to look at the sails to assess the wind, remember to look around to avoid hitting rocks during combat and the coolest part is that rogue waves become far more scary as you either have to spot them yourself or hear a warning from one of your crew mates. Your crew also points out any flotsam or aggressive enemy ships with either starboard or larboard/port-side and if you haven't learned before what those directions mean you absolutely will after having played Black Flag without the minimap. While these small changes do make the game a little bit more difficult it shouldn't actually be a problem as one of the common complaints of AC4 has always been that it is too easy. P.S. I always had trouble getting properly immersed into the settings of the AC games having an ever present GPS navigator and a health-bar that showed me that I'm almost impervious to damage and it took me far too long to realize that I should've turned those HUD options off.

By far the best AC game. They captured a real magic with it that they haven't managed to recreate since.

for me, black flag is the only game i can come back to and play for weeks without getting bored. That might just be nostalgia but there's so much fun to be had in this game.

I like how in AC Odessey you have to find the bounty holder in forts and kill them to clear the bounty. It added a little fun to the game and you had mercenaries chasing after you the whole time.

VAL-HA-LLA You must be trolling 😆

The ship mechanics are amazing. Sailing in high speed only slowing down to pick up a wreckage, a crew mate or to plunder

I think why "Edward" was such a good and interesting character, also "Bayek" from Origins because they both were made by the same team and also the same Game director Ashraf Ismail. He also was the game director for AC Valhalla. Sadly he was fired. He was the only one who was keeping the franchise still floating, with now him gone idk in which direction the franchise will go because he was innovative and brought in new ideas when games like Ac Unity and Syndicate failed.

A bit late to the party but hey here's my two cents: Black Flag was my first ever AC game I got it on PS4 and I 100% completed it inside of 2 weeks, I loved it so much I bought it again on PC specifically so I could mod in the Legendary Ships and become the true scourge on the high seas, while doing that is fun I really think it also shows a side of the game that it was never designed for mainly the Man of war ships sure you make use of one for a mission but the fact you cant upgrade the Jackdaw to a man of War with absolutely absurd resource costs feels like a missed potential. After Black Flag I got AC Rogue which I read a review that said "AC Black Flag except instead of sandbars there are icebergs" I quite thoroughly enjoyed it in-face I enjoyed it so much I have 8x more total time played on Rogue then I do on Black Flag, also that Templar Assassin killer outfit is next level design wise. (I could gush about this specific title for at least 9 paragraphs but really that's not something I want to leave here...) After that I decided to try AC3 but I gave up on that game despite being in the american revolution era and being an american myself I never completed the game because of a number of issues I could never get over, the instantly respawning guards for one thing, another is that child connor sequence I simply couldn't stand it I very near quit the game during it, but I stopped at about 70% completion and uninstalled the game because I just stopped caring.

I first played this when I lived in the Northeast U.S.. When I lived in the Caribbean a few years I replayed this game. Mind-blowing. The habitat and the water and the beaches... I could literally look out my window past the TV and see the same views. The plants and trees are pretty close to the same. It was amazing to be familiar with the jungle finally, first hand and play this game while randomly being distracted by "Oh wow, a travelers palm... neat."

Honestly, this is my favourite Assassin’s Creed game of all time. I’ve played through it 4 times and still, this video makes me want to play it again. Cheers for another great video man ❤

Was my first and last Assassin's Creed game. It was the first PS4 game I bought and loved every minute of it.

I’m quite literally replaying it currently, just got the 25% synchronized achievement and am progressing steadily through the game. It is indeed special.

i actually enjoy the modern time elements of AC, they’re an integral part of the story. the whole story is based off of the triple helix allowing for going through the memories of your ancestors and so mission completion is down to how accurately you recreated that memory. so you are playing as a person in modern times who is exploring those memories. i just wish they were more fleshed out. like in AC 3 you could actually do stuff as desmond. in black flag you were able to go back to modern times whenever you wanted, but there’s hardly every anything to do. i did like what they did let you do, i just wish there was more

Thanks for having us Luke, great video! We can't wait to fully immerse ourselves in the new Black Flag remake on VITURE One. 😎🏴‍☠

This is such a great timing. I just finished replaying the game for the 6th time, I think. I'm glad I was able to grab it for free way back then. Here are some of my suggestions too for the remake, if it ever gets to see the light of day. 1. AI - Please for the love of piracy, crowded combat (such as when boarding) can be quite annoying. Your crew attempts to attack an enemy and if you happen to be standing in from of him, you're the one that's gonna get hit, and yes, while it does not damage you, it certainly interrupts your movement, making you vulnerable to enemy attacks. I understand that's "semi-realistic", but to be fair, in actual fights, if your allies have decent IQ, they will definitely know when to stop an attack if you're in front of them, unless they've already committed, and your stupid ass deliberately stood up in the line of fire. 2. I also hope the enemy's line of sight and hearing is improved. I noticed the enemies do not really notice it when you're making loud noises, except for instances where you're firing a gun, throwing a smoke bomb, or shooting an explosive barrel. You can also assassinate an enemy from a hiding spot, and you won't get noticed even if the victim's ally is standing right in front of them. In addition, weather conditions IMO should affect their senses (and maybe even yours), so if it's heavily raining, your footsteps are "covered", thunder can hide a gun shot, low light conditions and fog affecting their line of sight, etc. 3. Some collectibles are scatted on smaller islands (or islets?) and shorelines, and it can be quite tedious to be honest. My idea is to approach a highlighted area near the locations (same thing with docks/ports, wreckages, whaling spots), and then you press E or S to interact with it and then a short and skippable cutscene plays out with either Edward or his crew going to it. 4. Speaking of cutscenes, I hope we can skip ALL of it if we want to. There are some cutscenes related to boarding that are unskippable and yeah... it gets tiring real quick. 5. Diving can be annoying at times, because if you control Ed to turn left or right, he does it unnaturally IMO (I could be wrong here), like from 0 degrees straight to 90 degrees if that makes sense. I think that doesn't work that way in real life lol. The camera angle gets glitchy too. 6. I hope we can actually build our own crew. They do not have to be actual historical figures, but I would like to see a doctor, a shipwright/carpenter, cook, helmsman, etc. Ade already covers the role of a Quartermaster. This means introducing other systems in the game. For example, after naval combat, some of your crew members get injured, if left untreated they can die, so recruiting a doctor solves that problem. Ship damage is obviously present, so hiring a carpenter or a group of carpenters solves that problem as well. In fighting can also occur so Ade can act as a mediator for that one. 7. The legendary ships are also an amazing inclusion, but I feel like you can only enjoy them once your Jackdaw is like 70 - 100% fully upgraded. You can use a trick to defeat them quite easily, but it's not as challenging IMO. You also cannot capture them so that's a bummer. I hope we can fight them earlier on and get rewarded for doing it well. For example, the La Dama Negra boasts nigh impenetrable armor so I was thinking, what if you can board the ship, kill the captain, and get rewarded with the Elite Hull upgrade with reales and other resources. The HMS Prince boasts a strong broadside cannon, so you board it, kill the captain and get rewarded with the Elite Broadside Cannons if not the Elite Heavy Shot upgrades with reales and other resources. The El Impoluto boasts a strong ram attack and is the most difficult of the 5 to defeat so, same thing, if you can board it and kill the captain, you are rewarded with the Elite Ram upgrade, the special ram attack, and resources. Lastly, the "twins" HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign, both boasts a nice pincer attack, so I would imagine killing both captains from each ship should give you either Elite Broadside Cannon Upgrade or just plain 10k real from one, and then other resources from the other. 8. Pirate Hunters are kinda meh even at level 4, so I think a level 5 would be nice. I'm thinking one Man O War, 2 frigates, 2 brigs, and maybe 2 schooners if not 4 gunboats coordinating to definitely offer you a great challenge. 9. I am not sure about this, but a land bounty system would be a nice addition too, I think. For instance, after acquiring 1 star raises suspicions, meaning the patrolling guards would pause frequently to spot you. At 2 stars, they will immediately get alerted with your presence if you're nearby. At 3 stars they will actively search for you over a larger area (represented by a circle on the minimap). This means that you'll have to be more cautious, using cover more frequently, and SWITCH OUTFITS more often. 10. Speaking of outfits, I think Black Flag was the first ever AC game that introduced item stats, although it's not really in your face. Remember the Templar and Mayan outfits? Both outfits protect you from gun shots at varying degrees. I think the former has like a 50% chance to "dodge" gun shots, and the latter completely absorbing it. I actually welcome it, just as long as, it doesn't make your character rely on it. Let's say, the Whaler outfit provides X% more damage to the harpoon, the Feline outfit reduces fall damage, the Governor outfit provides you with discount from vendors, the Pirate and Pirate Captain outfits provide you with more plunder, etc. Sorry for the long post. I'm just hyped for the remake haha.

AC Unity has a really bad ass sequence that's crossed over with the "real world" aspect of the game. It's like a crossover of a bunch of time periods because of a "firewall shutting down Abstergo systems". That's about as far as they need to take the "real world" game sequences IMO

it's sad for me that this is the best pirate game i've ever players, because there's only two and one you need to play multiplayer. the age of pirates is such a cool theme to not being explored.

Black Flag was the first AC game that I 100%'d. I've 100% completed over half of the AC games and beaten every one except Syndicate. Great game, and it's predecessor Rogue is an underrated and beautiful prequel to AC3 and eventually Unity.

The Order 1886 could make a good open world game set in London or Paris, etc. It has huge potential to be Ghostbusters : 1886. Kinda like AC 2, meet new personalities that get you weapons. Side quests that that takes you to of the beaten path places to fight supernatural enemies while maintaining the overarching narrative. And make it an RPG. Possibly with multiplayer..... Multiplayer is not for me, but it could work for the folks that want it.

I recently played this game. It's amazing how well it holds up! The mechanics still work, and the story is great.

We should have had a trilogy with Beyek and Kenway

Almost 10 years old ... omg... I still remember playing it at a dorm every day after school when it came out.

Love that you mentioned “My Octopus Teacher”! I did a study abroad in college and got to spend a week with him swimming around the sea kelp forests. The dude is just as wild as he looks in that documentary and his team is awesome!

People knock all the trailing missions but man….. I like the conversations and listening to the dialogue

I honestly miss the modern day with Desmond. Mostly, I miss the intrigue of the animus and going into the past for a reason.

I worked on this! It was amazing fun - definitely one of the best projects I've been on.

It's unbelieveable that the older Assassin's Creed games has much more dialogue, it's not like AC Odyssey or Valhalla, looks like they are lagging when they're talking. And the storylines is not that good than the others. AC BF, is one of the best in the franchise (imo). Great video as always.

what i didn’t like about the story is that edward just starts being able to do everything assassins can do without even training or ever having been exposed to the creed. like imagine in AC 3 connor not meeting his mentor, just finding his dad’s hidden blades and then just being a boss

Love the game to pieces. This and AC2 were both super special gaming experiences for me as a young teen. One thing I remember about black flag however is how broken sword combat is. Literally with the counter button you can just instant kill every enemy around you when they try to attack. I did this for almost an hour nonstop in the plaza of the first town you visit at the beginning of the game when the guards attack you. Literally broke that playthrough because of how much money I looted off all those guards. Whats really funny too is that the game will run out of guards that are loaded into the level and you have to wait a second before an entire new pack showed up.

"It has limitations." Oh thank you sweet mother of mercy.

Man I love this game so much.. I remember playing this when I was in high school and staying up till three exploring the forests.. truly a masterpiece

I honestly would love a Dark and Gritty Linear narrative Pirate game that embraces a more Mature tone like you said.

ok so i still cant get my old saves back ? im acually pissed bro i wanted to continue where i was last time i played it was 2 years back all my game saves are there like unity and rouge but not black flag bro i dont want to start over again ...what is this ?

Bottle this memory and cherish it, because we both know the remake is gonna suuuuuk major donkey balls! In just 10 years, Ubisoft have totally forgotten how to make great games, but improved immensely at implementing _'cash shops'._

When I play this game I always don’t pay bounties and the only time that I lower my wanted level is when I have an encounter with a pirate hunter ship. It is more fun that way to me.

This game is essentially brotherhood with hella pirates.. and boats.. and like super sick nostalgia from getting the ps4 when it was low stock. It's so good. Can't wait for console refinement.

This is still a great looking and playing game. And I am happy the naval combat and water physics were also (partly) implemented in Odyssee.

Ah, the Golden Age of P̶i̶r̶a̶c̶y Assassin's Creed when genuine love from its creators was still able to shine through.

Black Flag will always hold a special place in my heart because I bought a PS4 at launch with my own hard-earned money; I had just recently started working my first job and saved up for the system and a couple of games, Black Flag being one of them. It was very worth it because it quickly became one of my favorite games in the AC franchise and in all of gaming. If they do make a remake, I really hope they do it justice.

always amazed and love the actual time and effort you put into your videos man

AC4 black flag and AC 2 the goated AC games.!!!

My favorite Assassin’s Creed game.

Black Flag is the first AC game I played start to finish and definitely one of the best. Instead of remaking it they should make a sequel.

Bro the water animations in this game for 2014 is still amazing even on the switch!

11:01 Yes please! The Order: 1886 had such an interesting world that I felt like we were barely able to dip our toes into, and it's a tragedy that the negativity feeding frenzy surrounding it destroyed any chance of a sequel.

I actually prefer the older style of combat vs the newer ones, especially the combat in AC Brotherhood my personal fav AC title. The old style just seemed to flow a lot smoother with really cool animations. Not a fan of the newer style but that's just me.

2:27 the part about the monstrosity ships is so true! I've done that so many times no matter how many run-throughs i do and i almost get the sea floor wiped with me each time because i was dumb enough to challenge them. Black flag is honestly and amazing game, and even though i only have the PS3 version its still awesome to play!

i got black flag when it came out and played it everyday for a year, this game will always have a special place in my heart.

Black Flag=GOAT

The only issue stopping Black Flag from GOAT status is all the tailing missions.

I’m playing AC 4 again after probably 10 years while I wait for some stuff to come out and it holds up amazingly well. It’s just as fun in 2023 as it was in 2013. It’s blows my mind that there’s yet to be a pirate themed game to top this in all these years and no sea of thieves doesn’t count and now seeing the footage from skull and bones, it’s a downgrade. In ACBF you can do everything, wanna attack a fort? Cool, destroy the walls then dock and run into the fort you just destroyed and kill the commander. Wanna loot a warehouse? Cool. Jump off your ship, find the guy with the key, disable the alarms and empty the whole thing. Now 10 years later, we’re pulling up to land and doing a mini game to harvest resources. Wanna know how you got resources in ACBF? Plundering ships just like it should be

I just installed this game again last night, to mark the 10th year anniversary I loved this video, I would love to see A new updated Black Flag Game!!!! The sea shanties are amazing, one of the best gaming experiences I ever had, maybe my best. You touched on all the things I would like to see changed, especially the Ubisoft parts, I would love to see the Unity combat Engine used for Black Flag. It seems more challenging and more nuanced, You should play / review Pirates Gold (the grandfather of all Pirate games) I still love that game, I wish that could get a massive update,

I can't help but feel the main thing fueling love of Black Flag is nostalgia. So many people think it's the best in the series and while it does so much right, it's main missions are very boring and repetitive and have you tailing or eavesdropping on someone in about 75% of them, it's so boring. The side missions can be repetitive as well. I literally could not tell you anything about the plot of the main story.

It’s amazing to me that people can say “it takes 20-30 minutes to get going” without batting an eyelid. That’s a quarter of a movie. That’s a full episode of TV.

I love the cut from "The Gall!" To Edward wearing Duncan's uniform and what that implies😊

Your remark about the wanted system and the ease of getting out of trouble is definitely a change I would make. Coming to this after AC3, it was jarring how on land there's...virtually no consequences once you are no longer detected, and at sea it's a simole pay off. I think the notoriety tiers of 3 were great, just needed to be a bit tougher to clear your notoriety and become incognito again. Maybe on top of that...a way to swap flags to blend into one set of ships or the other?

If they would make a game like this again with a longer storyline and more places to explore… 😍

I can't believe this game is 10 years old. I still have memory of this game like it was last year.

I love historical settings so for me in the older assassin's creed games I found the modern day stuff immersion breaking but I understand that is personal preference

Best game ever! So much nostalgia. Loved watching you love on it, Luke!

Besdies AC 3, I think I spent a huge amount of time playing black flag, probably my most played AC game, not including the RPG era. I do agree that a more grounded story representative of the time would be really cool to experience. I did think they did a great job with Edward's character and how he evolves and grows considering the limitations, but yeah, I'd love that. Also I did like the animated combat, it did make you feel pretty OP, but I loved it anyway haha

How ironic that I just listened to you say that the trailing missions were completely absent from Valhalla just as I finished the trailing mission in the Ireland dlc. Looking forward to more trailing missions with a detection system that alerts the enemy instantly without fail! 👍

We all know every great detail of the game, but can we appreciate the music? Like when you first get into Havana... The sea shanties... Oh man it's so good.

This was my second favorite game in the series but over time. I think its my favorite. Its just so fun to play and replay over and over. There's just something spacial about this game.

I played Black Flag 9 years ago on the Xbox 360 and haven't played it since. I recently bought it for the Xbox One and can't wait to play it. It's my favorite Assassins Creed game. I have the Sea Shanties in my car and I listen to them while I'm driving. Over the last few years I've been playing all the Assassin's Creed games and the dlcs.

The combat system back then served the narrative and fantasy that the game was trying to present, whether that's good or not is up to what the player is expecting from the game that they're playing. There are many combat focused games out there, but you wouldn't expect such complexity in those terms from Naughty Dogs for example. I think AC Revelations did the best enemy variety to grant some sort of difficult combat, and I think Black Flag should've gone that way a bit more rather than every enemy being killed easily.

Gameplay & animations was what mostly impressed me in this so far. Also that maps arent enormously large at start, like todays games. A side note is the sound effects, which are on spot as well.

Maybe I need to revisit this game, but I remember hating it. I probably played for less than 10 hours before I got bored and just moved on.

As a fan of Pirates of the Caribean from 2007, I would like to see some trading mechanics between the islands. That game from 2007 did it perfectly, where you had both standard and smugglers mechanics developed. It was so fun planning your purchase ahead of a trip according to the sell and buy prices on each island.

Thank you for glazing one of the best ACs. I remember the sails having physics feeling so realistic as a kid. You could just plunder for hours and never get bored.

I played this through again a couple weeks ago, such a goat game

One thing that not many people talk about, that's the main negative of the game: the parkour. Holy shit, this game (and Rogue) have the clunkiest parkour in the franchise, constantly getting stuck or refusing to jump. When boarding there's also a very common situation where you grab the rope that takes you all the way to the top of the boat, where there's two gunners, and due to how clunky the game is you'll often get hit by one of the gunners without being able to counter them due to the angle they attack you from, which pretty much makes them clip through the mast of the ship.

As an og ac fan I can say that coming back to your fav Assassins Creed game is just.. perfect

I found the Abstergo stuff interesting but couldn't get far enough into it because I suck at the Frogger-type minigame one needs to solve to pick up all the necessary clues.

playing as a pirate is so much fun.first time i played this was in 2022.this is the first and only AC I have played so far

I actually really liked the modern day stuff in this game, but I’m a lore nerd so hacking and getting all the lore drops that they put a lot of effort into really drew me in and fleshed out the modern world of AC. Also black flag had the awesome reveal in the modern day that John from IT was in fact a Sage that Edward was running around with back in 1720, rogue also had a great reveal at the end when Melanie offers you a ring into the Templar order and Berg is just behind her holding a gun in case you refuse

We have the same bucket list game. Glad to see someone with the same heavy bias to this incredible setting and aesthetic. If you haven't I beg you to watch the series Black Sails. Some of the best writing and dialog reliant on the heavy weight performances, paired with exceptional storytelling devices in a series. I'd love to see these storytelling devices used in games, where I believe they fit perfectly.

Luke explaining the terrain limitations in engine are strangely prophetic with that Todd Howard audio clip the editor added. Now that's what I call foreshadowing.

I recently started playing it for the very first time, I really regret not having played this before. I LOVE everything about it. I love pirates, and Edward is just a badass pirate and assassin at the same time🔥. Plus the world and story Are amazing too🤩

Last time I rode Pirates of the Caribbean I thought “Damn, Rockstar would make a damn good (RDR2-style) pirate game”

I replayed it this year for the first time in like 5-6 years and its still my favorite despite being a bit outdated and so frustrating at times but literally all assassins creeds are frustrating lmao

Soooo pumped they remaking this. It was the best one… loved it.

37:11 so true, they could even add the brutal punishments known that occured on pirate ships with the gore and everything

I hope when they remaster or remake this game. They add a manual hood toggle button and a lock on system to fix the buggy free flow system where Edward just randomly decides not to pull his weapons out…

Id like to see all those green areas that are not explorable become explorable in the remake...and would would be built like the frontier in ac3, where theyre essentially parkour playgrounds with all the climb able trees to free run through

Just one word for ya: PIRATE it was the shit!! Raiding, going back to pirate land ( my bad, I don't remember the name of it) to drink and celebrate with your crew, fishing with the harpoon, "fighting the system", enhancing your gear, hearing the crew singing some pretty cool stuff... This game is a gem

I still play this game every couple of years ..... When I played it a year ago I found several mods that enhanced the LOD's, fixed/enhanced the shaders and added RTGI .... There is a newer mod I haven't tried yet that gives the main characters 4k textures

My vote is for a Battle of New Orleans AC game with Jean Lafitte the pirate… or does he show up in any places in this or Rogue?