14 DAY TRIAL // Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed franchise is a modern success story about great ideas, novel mechanics, and a collaboration between the French company's many different worldwide studios.
With Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, the game is going into a new, more focused direction, as it opts to emphasize the surprisingly popular naval warfare aspect from last year's Assassin's Creed 3 while telling the story of Edward Kenway, the grandfather of AC3 hero Connor.
While quite a few different videos and details about Black Flag have already appeared online, Ubisoft opted to show off a few new things at Gamescom 2013, offering members of the media hands-on experiences with the PlayStation 4 edition of the game and tasking them with taking over a pirate stronghold as well as engage in different things such as harpooning a shark.
The naval warfare from Assassin's Creed 3 has been fleshed out a bit more in the fourth installment, as Edward can interact with his ship, the Jackdaw, in many different ways, as well as with its crew. The targeting and firing have been improved, while enemy ship AI has gotten a bit smarter, even if it will sometimes smash into rocks or piers when trying to reach the player.
The combat is also a bit more cinematic, as your canon volleys are shown in a special way when delivering the final blow on the last enemy ship in the vicinity.
Edward can also adopt a more hands-on approach with enemy ships, as once the craft has been lured in, he can jump into the water and infiltrate it. After killing five different crewmen, the other will automatically surrender.
Besides engaging in ship-to-ship battles, Edward can also take a small boat and engage in some harpooning, as he can take out different species of shark by harpooning them and making sure they don't destroy his boat.
These are just a few of the different activities possible in Black Flag, and Ubisoft also showcased the companion app running on a tablet, through which players can manage their own private fleet, as well as drop special waypoints on the in-game map, plus much more.
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is out this fall for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.