One of the most revered pirates in gaming history returned to the spotlight earlier this month with the highly anticipated release of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.
Ubisoft Singapore's ground-up remake of the hugely popular 2013 title using its flagship Anvil engine received rave reviews for its gorgeous graphics and the nostalgia factor for many fans of Edward James Kenway's adventures in the Golden Age of Piracy.
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However, in the weeks since its release, legacy gamers as first-time players of the game have highlighted a few issues with the remake—in terms of the remake by itself, and in comparison with the 2013 game. Here are five such issues:
Microtransactions
One of the first issues to get Resynced off to a stormy start with fans was the $85 worth of microtransactions—from the Master Assassin Character Pack to the Sea Serpent Naval Pack—for a game that typically costs about $60.
It was the sheer scale of the paid extras that had fans as angry as Blackbeard could possibly get—some Deluxe Edition users claimed even they were not given the $85 DLCs for free.
Goodbye, optional objectives
Removing optional objectives in main missions has surprisingly received mixed opinions from netizens on Reddit and Steam. This is because going back to finish optional objectives later into the game was an important part of achieving 100 per cent synchronisation.
While fans who like putting in effort to achieve this were obviously unhappy with the change—saying that the game was not punishingly difficult anyway—some have been glad to see the feature go, opting for more freedom to end the game their way.
The $5 Map Pack
While Ubisoft claimed that their microtransactions were "entirely optional extras for players who want them", gamers were quick to point out that offering the $5 Map Pack was clearly throwing convenience behind a paywall.
For the unversed, the Map Pack instantly reveals the locations of all hidden treasures and collectibles across the Caribbean—something that true fans have said has to be earned.
No 'real-world' gameplay
Though the first-person Abstergo gameplay outside the Animus was not exactly everyone's cup of tea, fans argue that removing it completely crucially alters the stories of the old games for the sake of the post-AC Shadows games.
You instead get optional "rifts", which are these distortions in spacetime—somewhat like the glyphs in the Ezio trilogy games—that show you what-if scenarios if you want to access them.
New controls
Though Resynced allows you to customise the essential controls, the default changes in things like sprinting and basic combat have made it hard for most fans with muscle memories from 2013.
Many have also felt that though Kenway’s movements have been smoothened, as developers typically do for remakes, it has made the game more automated, rigid, and excessively fluid.
