Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – Part 4-1
Will my resistance to doing side content finally bite me in the ass? Today, we find out!
Streamed at https://www.twitch.tv/newdarkcloud
It is always fascinating to do a series like this, playing a game that was beloved at the time of its release, but with the context of what has happened to the landscape in the time since. To do so, almost by necessity, requires one to examine and dissect their own nostalgia for a game like Black Flag. In my memory, this is one of my favorite games in the franchise, possibly its pinnacle depending on what metrics we’re going by.
And while it’s still, by any estimation, an excellent game, it is also at the tipping point of Assassin’s Creed. The rot of Far Cry 3, and the “standard Ubisoft open world” that it heralded, had already begun well before this, this was where it truly began to seep into the foundations of the franchise. It was now normal to poach five crocodiles in order to craft an upgraded gun holster or some other such nonsense. It was now normal to expect the player to do a bunch of side content so that they can upgrade their ship before taking it into a main story mission.
What were once optional diversions from the critical path were now starting to become less and less “optional”.
I’m grateful that I ultimately didn’t need to spend time raiding ships and diving into mediocre swimming levels just to gear out for the next big mission, but the panic definitely set in once I was destroyed by that massive gunship. I’m going to need to consider whether or not I play Black Flag off stream to ensure a smoother experience going forward.
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