The game looks basically the same, but PlayStation 4 (and in all likelihood, Xbox One) players are getting a more sophisticated presentation at 1080p. Visually, it's a somewhat different story. The mechanical differences only manifest in moments on current-generation consoles where the game has difficulty maintaining a consistent frame rate, which occasionally made certain twitch-based bits more difficult on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Black Flag is the same game on every platform and plays essentially the same. Players who wait a couple of weeks to pick up Assassin's Creed 4 on next-gen systems have a more attractive game waiting for them, but current-gen players aren't getting shafted. However, many of the traversal problems that hung over Assassin's Creed 3 are gone. Combat is more or less the same, emphasizing a system of parries, counters and instant kills, and Edward still free-runs like his ancestors and descendants. This was difficult to reconcile amid some cleaned-up basic mechanics. Assassin's Creed 4 is more comfortable wandering the ocean in search of one big score. The inclusion of Assassin's Creed's fiction feels haphazard and often cursory even assassination feels perfunctory. Edward isn't the series' traditional lead, and his absence of allegiance hangs throughout the game. Assassin's Creed 4 is content to sit on the edges of that greater conflict. Previous Assassin's Creed games - particularly the main, numbered games - have revolved around the war between Assassin and Templar, the turning points, the meaningful moments. Edward is shipwrecked and soon drawn into the conflict between the authoritarian and power-hungry Templars and their enemies the Assassins.

Assassin's Creed 4 stars Edward Kenway, a pirate in the turn-of-the-18th-century Caribbean.

Assassin's creed black flag ubisoft