Developer : Ubisoft
Release date : October 29, 2013
Synopsis :
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is a 2013 action-adventure video game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sixth major installment in the Assassin’s Creed series. Its historical timeframe precedes that of Assassin’s Creed III (2012), but its modern-day sequences succeed III’s own. Black Flag was originally released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U in October 2013 and a month later for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. It was later re-released on the Nintendo Switch as part of The Rebel Collection alongside Assassin’s Creed Rogue in December 2019. The game was released for Google Stadia in September 2021.
The plot is set in a fictional history of real-world events and follows the millennia-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight to preserve peace and free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through control. The framing story is set in the 21st century and depicts the player as an employee of Abstergo Industries (a company used as a front by the modern-day Templars), who is manipulated into uncovering secrets related to the Assassin-Templar conflict and the precursor race known as the First Civilization. The main story is set in the West Indies during the Golden Age of Piracy from 1715 to 1722, and follows notorious Welsh pirate Edward Kenway, grandfather and father of Assassin’s Creed III protagonist Ratonhnhaké:ton / Connor and antagonist Haytham Kenway, respectively, as he searches for fortune and a mythical location called the Observatory, which is sought by both the Assassins and the Templars. A major plot element concerns the attempted establishment of an independent Pirate republic in the Caribbean.
Unlike previous games, gameplay elements focus more on the ship-based exploration of the seamless open world map, while also retaining the series’ third-person land-based exploration, melee combat, and stealth system. Multiplayer also returns, albeit with only land-based modes and settings. The game’s setting spans the West Indies with the three main cities of Havana, Nassau, and Kingston, along with numerous islands, sunken ships, and forts. Players have the option to harpoon large sea animals and hunt land animals. For the first time in the series, naval exploration is a major part of an Assassin’s Creed game, where Edward captains the Jackdaw, a brig he captures from a Spanish fleet in an early game mission. A number of downloadable content (DLC) packs were released to support Black Flag, including Assassin’s Creed Freedom Cry, a story expansion that was later made available as a standalone game in 2014. Set over a decade after Black Flag’s main campaign, Freedom Cry follows Adéwalé, Edward’s former quartermaster who became an Assassin.
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag received critical acclaim and was one of the best-selling games of 2013, with over 15 million copies sold as of 2020. Critics praised the open world gameplay, improved naval combat, side-quests, graphics, narrative, characters, and pirate theme. However, the modern-day story and combat received a slightly more mixed response, while criticism fell on aspects of the historical story missions which were considered repetitive. The game received several awards and nominations, including winning the Spike VGX 2013 award for Best Action Adventure Game. It was followed by Assassin’s Creed Rogue and Assassin’s Creed Unity in November 2014.
In 2013, months after Desmond Miles’ sacrifice in Assassin’s Creed III, samples taken from Desmond’s body allow Abstergo Industries to continue exploring his genetic memories with the Animus’ newfound cloud computing abilities. The unnamed player character is hired by Abstergo Entertainment, a subsidiary of Abstergo, to examine the memories of Desmond’s ancestor Edward Kenway, a famous eighteenth-century pirate. Ostensibly, this is to gather material for an Animus-powered interactive feature film. In reality, Abstergo—the Templars of the present time—are searching for a First Civilization structure known as the Observatory in Edward’s memories.
As Edward, the player unravels a conspiracy between high-ranking Templars within the British and Spanish empire. Under the guise of cleaning up piracy in the Caribbean, they have used their positions to locate the Sage—later identified as Bartholomew Roberts (Oliver Milburn)—the only man that can lead them to the Observatory. It can monitor anyone anywhere in the world when provided a blood sample, which they intend to use to spy on and blackmail world leaders. Edward inadvertently becomes involved when he kills a rogue Assassin, Duncan Walpole. Seeing an opportunity for profit, Edward takes Walpole’s place at a meeting of Templars in Havana, and meets Woodes Rogers (Shaun Dingwall) and Cuban Governor and Templar Grandmaster Laureano Torres (Conrad Pla). His recklessness endangers the Assassin Brotherhood, prompting him to pursue the Sage and the conspirators from the Yucatán Peninsula to Jamaica, eventually catching Roberts on the island of Príncipe off of the West African coast.
Meanwhile, a band of notorious pirates—including Blackbeard, Benjamin Hornigold, Mary Read (under the alias “James Kidd”) and Charles Vane—dream of a pirate utopia where man is free to live beyond the reach of rulers. With Edward’s help, they seize control of Nassau and establish a pirate republic. However, poor governance, the lack of an economy, and an outbreak of disease bring the republic close to collapse, with the founders divided. Edward attempts to resolve the dispute but is too late to stop the Templars from exploiting the situation, resulting in Blackbeard being killed by the British following his retirement, Hornigold joining the Templars, and Vane going insane after Jack Rackham’s mutiny.
Eventually, Edward and Roberts uncover the location of the Observatory and retrieve the artifact powering it. Roberts betrays Edward, and the British arrest him. He is imprisoned, but escapes when Ah Tabai (Octavio Solorio), the Assassin Mentor, infiltrates the prison to rescue Mary Read and Anne Bonny. Mary soon dies in the aftermath of childbirth, and a disheartened Edward decides to join the Brotherhood. Chasing down and eliminating Roberts and the Templar conspirators, Edward retrieves the artifact and returns it to the Observatory, sealing it away. He receives a letter informing him of the passing of his wife and the imminent arrival of his hitherto unknown daughter, Jennifer Scott. Edward returns to England, promising Ah Tabai that he will continue fighting the Templars. Years later, Edward attends The Beggar’s Opera at the Royal Opera House with Jennifer and his son Haytham.
In the present, John Standish, Abstergo Entertainment’s information technology manager, persuades the player to investigate what their employers are trying to hide from them. Under John’s guidance, they hack several Animus terminals and deliver the information to Shaun Hastings (Danny Wallace) and Rebecca Crane (Eliza Schneider), undercover Assassins who have infiltrated Abstergo. When the facility is locked down after the hacks are discovered, John instructs the player to access the Animus’ core, at which point Juno (Nadia Verrucci) materializes into an incorporeal form. She reveals that the world is not ready for her yet, and that she is unable to possess the player as her agents intended. John is revealed as the reincarnated Sage and attempts to murder the player to cover up Juno’s failed resurrection, but is killed by Abstergo’s security, implicating him as responsible for the hacks. During his time as Roberts, the Sage admits to Edward that he owes no allegiance to the Assassins or the Templars and instead uses whoever represents his best chance of achieving his ends. With the Sage dead, the player is contacted by the Assassins, but neither side is able to explain the Sage’s presence or identify his followers, the Instruments of the First Will.
Source : Wikipedia
