Review of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag
75/100
Assassin’s Creed has fallen out of the mainstream, but back in the 10s it was a big franchise, teenagers and young adults who played games usually heard of the games and liked them.
You play as an assassin who takes part in a Milennia-long struggle between the assassins, active nihilists who like freedom, and the templars, the stiffy white guys who are controlling the world from behind the scenes. This premise fit really well into the zeitgeist of the 00s and 10s: anti-racism, anti-theism, and conspiracism, which is one of the two reasons why it got popular, the others is aesthetics:
As such, it’s not a surprise that Assassin’s Creed fell out of the public eye: aesthetics can get stuff into the mainstream, but the effect is fleeting. Culture has also shifted massively since the games were made.
I’m not surprised they tried to make an Assassin’s Creed movie; the entire franchise should have been movies and not games. Heard it’s not good, so I didn’t bother watching.
The actual game
The introduction of the game is very good, and strikes a balance between introducing the story and not being boring. The game then drags on a bit before you can explore the open world comfortably — about 5 hours or so. Pales in comparison to something like Skyrim where you can do basically whatever you want after you get out of Helgen.
The community is divided when it comes to the Abstergo interludes where you stop playing as an assassin and have to do stuff in real life (in the game). Personally, I liked them and found them relaxing. Others find them boring or tedious.
The game peaks around the middle where you’re messing around with your friends and looking for the observatory, after that I felt like it dragged on too long, which left a bitter taste in my mouth. Specifically, sequence 12 should have been half as long. Fortunately, the ending to both the real life and historical stories was nice.
Philosophically, the game is not deep. The assassins and templars have their own values, but they aren’t really explored in a meaningful way beyond giving some flavour to the factions. The most profound thing I heard all game was that the assassin’s motto “nothing is true, everything is permitted” is only the beginning to wisdom.
The combat is fine, but not worth playing for; it suffers from a lack of progression and a repetitive nature. The designers tried to patch this up by introducing weapons at different stages of the game, but after about 10 hours of gameplay I started getting lazy.
Overall, I can’t say I was too happy with this revisit. The two closest games I can think of are Metal Gear Solid and Skyrim; it doesn’t match Metal Gear Solid in terms of depth or flair, and it doesn’t match Skyrim in terms of gameplay. It’s quite a memorable game though, and I can’t deny feeling nostalgic about seeing the old guys again.
