Ubisoft has been rolling out deep dives for Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced in the weeks leading up to its July 9 launch, and the latest one covers how the remake expands on the original Black Flag. When the release date was announced back in April, we learned that dedicated storylines for Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet were on the way, and now creative director Paul Fu and game director Richard Knight have detailed exactly what those entail, along with a long list of other additions.
The headliner is A World Without Gold, a new endgame chapter with eight additional missions that expand Blackbeard’s story, unlocking at the start of the game’s final sequence. Stede Bonnet gets a new mission and epilogue of his own starting in Sequence 9, with Edward summoned to Mystery Island to learn what happened to the gentleman pirate, while a separate treasure quest from Blackbeard kicks off in Sequence 8. Four optional Animus rifts tied to characters like Edward, Blackbeard, and James Kidd round out the new story content. As Knight puts it, the team wanted to give both pirates a proper send-off and “tie a bow on this Bonnet.”
The three Jackdaw officers introduced in Ubisoft’s naval deep dive now have recruitment details. Lucy is imprisoned aboard a Man-o-War at Salt Key Bank, the Padre is a holy man with a checkered past serving a small village in Punta del Caracol, and Tobias “Deadman” Smith joins through the A World Without Gold questline. You won’t need to finish each officer’s questline to recruit them, though reaching the midpoint unlocks a gameplay perk for the Jackdaw, and their full stories conclude in the remaining missions.
Every quest in the game was rebuilt from scratch, according to Fu, with the directors playing through the original and flagging anything confusing or outdated by modern standards. The most player-friendly change involves tailing and eavesdropping missions: getting caught no longer results in a desynchronization. Instead, your objective switches, which might mean fighting through enemies to find a note, chasing down your target, or continuing the investigation elsewhere. The Rope Dart also unlocks much earlier in Sequence 3, assassination missions have been expanded with optional objectives and secrets, and a new Skip Time feature lets you cycle between day and night outside of combat.
Edward’s Hideout on Great Inagua has been given a sense of progression as well. The village now features unlockable and upgradeable buildings, from a General Store with rare and legendary gear to a Tavern with three mini games, along with two locations new to Resynced: a Fisherman’s Wharf and a Treasure Dealer. Even the Brothel confers combat perks now. Milo van der Graaff, who only existed in letters in the original, appears in the flesh to hand out naval contracts, while a new butler named Bernard Woodhouse ties narrative to the villa’s collection quests.
Resynced also splits difficulty into four separate settings for combat, naval combat, stealth, and activities, each with Forgiving, Intended, and Hard options that can be changed on the fly. Intended is the default and closely mimics the original Black Flag. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced launches July 9 on PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S, and PC, and Ubisoft says more deep dives and reveals are coming between now and then.
