#466: Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
Caribbean capers and morally-grey murder in stabbing series’ popular pirate prequel
Initial release: 2013
Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
Platform: Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, Wii U
In 2007, in response to Bioshock’s confused approach to morality vs. gameplay, game developer Clint Hocking coined the term ludonarrative dissonance. In short, it refers to the split between what a game’s story expects you to do versus what the gameplay expects (or allows) you to do, and how that can break immersion. A good example of this can be seen in Grand Theft Auto IV, in which you play a morally-grey former veteran of the Yugoslav Wars who moves to America and, in the story, is trying to make good and start a new life — but this is Grand Theft Auto, and you can pretty much run over people in your car from the word go. (There’s arguments to be made that Niko is basically already unhinged regardless of what his stated goals are, but that requires a deeper reading of the game’s text, which — to be completely fair — tends to be poisonous to many claims of ludonarrative dissonance, even Bioshock’s.)
That leads us into Grand Theft Arrr — er, I mean, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. Positioned as a prequel to the American Revolutionary War-flavored Assassin’s Creed III, we play as Edward Kenway, the grandfather of that game’s protagonist, a Welsh pirate who tools around the Caribbean looking for plunder and chasing down a mysterious treasure called the Observatory.
After five games of playing characters who were, if not morally unambiguous, were pretty solidly a lighter shade of grey, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag dispenses with much of that moral rigidity to place you in the shoes of a pirate. And not a good pirate who never takes another person’s property, but an actual pirate, who sails around the West Indies sinking ships, hunting treasure, and robbing plantations blind. Edward is an amoral himbo who’s mostly using pirating as his means of getting rich enough to go back to England so he can prove himself to his estranged wife (who comes from a wealthy family, a fact that had Edward struggling with his sense of self-worth.) To that end, when a man in a strange outfit tries to kill him following a shipwreck, Edward kills him and dons that strange outfit to pose as his would-be murderer in the hopes of getting paid. Little does he know that his employers are Templars, and the man he killed was an Assassin-turned-traitor who was on the verge of taking everything he knew to the Brotherhood’s enemies.
While he does eventually make amends for his crimes against the Assassins, his primary interest for most of the game is tracking down the Observatory, convinced that he could either use it for his own gain or sell knowledge of the location to someone else. On the one side, most of his compatriots — as well as his crew — think his quest a fool’s errand, and aren’t afraid to tell him so; on the other, the Assassins, represented to him largely by Mary Read (masquerading as the bastard son of Captain Kidd) keep begging him to work with them to find the Observatory, as it’s important to them too, being an ancient place of Isu bullshit. (As a side note, Edward firmly earns the title of Captain Himbo through his absolute obliviousness to the fact that Kidd is a woman in drag and his utter surprise when she lets her hair down and puts on lipstick to distract some guards.)
On the modern day side, Ubisoft seemed a little lost on where to go next after the events of Assassin’s Creed III, given that the series’ primary modern-day protagonist is dead now. (Yet another reminder that if you care at all about the modern-day storyline, trying to play this series in chronological order of its historical settings is a terrible idea, given that Black Flag’s historical plot is a prequel to III, but the modern day stuff is not.) The plot revolves around a nameless, faceless analyst (implied to you, given that it’s in first person) working for Abstergo Entertainment, using a miniaturized Animus system to sort through the genetic memories of any given DNA sample (a big step up from previous iterations of the Animus in which it only really worked with a blood descendant.) The modern-day plot is mostly an afterthought and centers around being blackmailed into doing tasks for an Assassin agent who turns out to have been using the Assassins for his own ends, with cameos from Shaun and Rebecca, who survived the last game and would go on to make regular appearances in the franchise going forward. There’s also fun little gags in the emails and stuff, with Abstergo (remember, they’re an evil corporation) actually having made an in-universe version of Assassin’s Creed: Liberation in cooperation with Ubisoft. I dunno, given Ubisoft’s sexual harassment scandal and general scummy history I can’t tell if that’s extremely self-aware, or extremely not.
Assassin’s Creed III is sometimes seen to be a weak entry in the franchise, with poorly designed cities (which, to be fair, is true to life at least in Boston’s case,) bad pacing, a weak approach to its historical context and the real-life figures therein, and an unlikable protagonist (who, again to be fair, had some big shoes to fill with Ezio’s departure from the series.) Black Flag in contrast is a huge step forward for the franchise, introducing a truly open world with multiple locations dotting the West Indies. The ship mechanics from III are greatly expanded upon, appropriate given that most of your time in the game will be spent sailing around the Caribbean and blowing shit up. While the story doesn’t have a whole lot of impact on the overall myth arc of the franchise, it’s a fine yarn in its own right, with a big cast of characters, some of whom are quite charismatic. (And in case you’re wondering, yes Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet are in this, but their relationship is less like Our Flag Means Death and more like a high school bully befriending the biggest nerd in school.)
Black Flag has a lot to do and see, with multiple side quests (including a laundry list of assassination and naval contracts, but also stuff like building Edward’s private island compound, searching for sunken treasure, and tracking down mysterious Mayan keystones to unlock a door in a ruined temple.) Hunting returns from III, with the primary goal being to find materials to upgrade your equipment. (There’s also plenty of domestic animals for you to pet, from dogs to cats to parrots to even chickens, pigs and cows! Quality petting simulator 10/10) In a way the game feels a bit like the prototype for what Odyssey would become.
Probably the most frustrating element, besides some of the missions that have you tail someone through heavily-guarded restricted areas (I really hate this) revolves around the DLC. I play on PC, and Ubisoft have fucked up the DLC yet again. Having bought the game’s Gold edition on Steam, imagine my surprise when the season pass stuff was not available to me on Ubisoft Connect. Google search results are pages upon pages of people asking where the hell their DLC is, and a community manager saying “that sucks bro! we’re investigating it bro i promise bro please submit a ticket bro i swear bro.” This has been going on for years with no results to show for it. I’ve submitted my own ticket, but I’ve yet to receive a response at this writing.
Fortunately(?) it’s not a total loss, as the Freedom Cry DLC, starring Edward’s onetime quartermaster-turned-Assassin Adéwalé, on a quest to liberate Haiti from slavery, is available as a standalone game. The irony of this being a shameless cash grab when Freedom Cry is not terribly large is only compounded by the fact that in order to actually play the DLC, I had to buy the standalone version because of Ubisoft’s mistakes.
In spite of this, Black Flag is still a great game that for the most part avoids the obvious disconnect between what you can do in game vs what the game expects you to do, though it does still warn you that Edward didn’t attack innocent people. I enjoyed my time with Edward, and I think his game serves as a decent entry point into the franchise.
