Is the Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake worth the 13 year wait?

ByTom Gerken

Technology reporter

You don't need to look hard to find a film or TV fan who will say a reboot is never as good as the original.

Yet gamers often beg studios to remake their favourite titles and give them a new lease of life with modern tech.

Some 13 years after its original was launched, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced has been released to cash in on leaps in graphics and gameplay.

But is it worth the wait?

Assassin's Creed is one of the most popular franchises in gaming, having sold an estimated 230 million copies across its various iterations.

I have played every single one of them and, like many gamers, would rank Black Flag among the best.

That mainly comes down to its excellent setting - players take control of fictional Welsh pirate Edward Kenway in the Caribbean during the 1700s.

While hardly the first game about piracy, it was by far the most successful. So it is no real surprise Ubisoft chose this as the first game in the series to remake.

It opens with pirate ships in battle, swiftly followed with a lush tropical island on a sunny day. It all looks good, as you would expect from a big budget game in 2026.

Early on, players are encouraged to dive underwater and are met with a fantastic coral landscape.

The developers are keen to show off the fancy new graphics, and here the game holds its own.

It is a lot brighter than the original, which suffered from something unaffectionately referred to as the "muddy era" of gaming (amongst other less publishable names), where developers used darker colours to help games look gritty and realistic.

Released right at the tail end of this era, the original Black Flag was not the most egregious example of this - but still suffered somewhat.

It is a game which, in hoping to live up to the original's legacy, photographs well.

Andy Farrant, co-editor of the YouTube channel Outside Xbox, told the BBC he was excited to play it.

"I firmly believe Black Flag is the best Assassin's Creed game," he said.

For Farrant, its only downsides had been "the boring modern day bits" which saw a pirate's life swapped out for meetings and water cooler chat in a Montreal office - a section of the original axed in its remake.

"The world and the characters of Black Flag is what made it so appealing," he said.

"The chance to dip back into that world with some shiny new visuals and more screentime for fan favourite characters like Edward Kenway, Anne Bonny and Stede Bonnet can only be a good thing."

Some fans might even call Black Flag Resynced a love letter to the original, though more cynical gamers may be inclined to call it a cash grab.

If it is a hit, there is no question it could mean big money for Ubisoft.

It would deliver some relief, too, given the company began 2026 by closing two studios, cancelling six games and delaying seven others.

Remakes are big business in the gaming industry - something gaming expert Christopher Dring said can come down to "financial necessity".

"The big video games are taking longer to make, and to fill gaps in the schedules, you're getting major companies turn to older classics, dusting them off and sometimes updating them for a modern era," he said.

"These games are typically very successful... as an industry, this remake, remaster, nostalgia business has become big."

The new game, much like the original, offers a wide variety of activities ranging from swashbuckling and boarding ships to exploring the islands of the Caribbean.

And that is really at the heart of what made the original so good - you have a map, you to pick a spot, and sail there in search of treasure.

It is the same basic idea which made The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker a hit for Nintendo in the 2000s, and Sid Meier's Pirates a success before that.

And in a world where Mario Kart costs £75 and the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI costs £70, Assassin's Creed comes in at just £50.

Fans will be relieved to see Ubisoft bucking the current trend in game pricing, though perhaps it is appropriate for a remake.

But despite all the new assets and graphics, there is no escaping the fact it is based on a game first released in 2013.

Ubisoft had to make lots of calls about what to reuse and change from the original.

Welsh actor Matt Ryan's performance is excellent, but some of the initial game's animations - such as characters repeatedly biting and spitting out a cork from a bottle - might have been best left in the past.

The game also suffers from a problem all too common in modern gaming: it holds your hand far too much.

In the most extreme case, at one point it gave me less than 10 seconds to figure out a puzzle before a character spat out the solution.

The combat also clearly draws from modern Assassin's Creed games, but preserves some of the timing-based battling of the original.

It's a nice marriage between the two, albeit disappointing that some things were not recreated - such as the ability to wield your assassin's hidden blades in combat.

That combination of modern and classic combat is a good example of where the game shines. And if Ubisoft uses this as the template, we may be set to see many more remakes in the series' future.

So perhaps the question is not whether it worth the wait at all, but how long we will have to wait for the next one?