Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft. It is the sixth major installment in the Assassin's Creed series. Its historical timeframe precedes that of Assassin's Creed III (2012), but its modern-day sequences succeed IIIs own. Black Flag was originally released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U in October 2013 and a month later for PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One. It was later ported to the Nintendo Switch as part of The Rebel Collection alongside Assassin's Creed Rogue in December 2019. The game was released for Google Stadia in September 2021.
The plot is set in a fictional history of real-world events and follows the millennia-old struggle between the Assassins, who fight to preserve peace and free will, and the Templars, who desire peace through control. The framing story is set in the 21st century and depicts the player as an employee of Abstergo Industries (a company used as a front by the modern-day Templars), who is manipulated into uncovering secrets related to the Assassin–Templar conflict and the precursor race known as the First Civilization. The main story is set in the West Indies during the Golden Age of Piracy from 1715 to 1722, and follows notorious Welsh pirate Edward Kenway, grandfather of Assassin's Creed III protagonist Ratonhnhaké:ton / Connor and father of antagonist Haytham Kenway, as he searches for fortune and a mythical location called the Observatory, which is sought by both the Assassins and the Templars. A major plot element concerns the attempted establishment of an independent Pirate republic in the Caribbean.
Unlike previous games, gameplay elements focus more on the ship-based exploration of the seamless open world map, while also retaining the series' third-person land-based exploration, melee combat, and stealth system. Multiplayer also returns, albeit with only land-based modes and settings. The game's setting spans the West Indies with the three main cities of Havana, Nassau, and Kingston, along with numerous islands, sunken ships, and forts. Players have the option to harpoon large sea animals and hunt land animals. For the first time in the series, naval exploration is a major part of an Assassin's Creed game, where Edward captains the Jackdaw, a brig he captures from a Spanish fleet in an early game mission. A number of downloadable content (DLC) packs were released to support Black Flag, including Assassin's Creed Freedom Cry, a story expansion that was later made available as a standalone game in 2014. Set over a decade after Black Flag's main campaign, Freedom Cry follows Adéwalé, Edward's former quartermaster who became an Assassin.
Black Flag is generally considered one of the greatest video games ever made. It received critical acclaim and became one of the best-selling games of 2013, with over 11million copies sold . Critics praised the open world gameplay, naval combat, side-quests, graphics, narrative, characters, and pirate theme. However, the modern-day story and combat received a slightly more mixed response, while criticism fell on aspects of the historical story missions which were considered repetitive. The game received several awards and nominations, including winning the Spike VGX 2013 award for Best Action Adventure Game. It was followed by Assassin's Creed Rogue and Assassin's Creed Unity in November 2014. A remake, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, was released on July 9, 2026.
Gameplay
Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is an action-adventure, stealth game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The game features three main cities: Havana, Kingston, and Nassau, which reside under Spanish, British, and pirate influence, respectively. In addition, locations like Port-au-Prince and Greater Inagua are used as main story points. It also features 50 other individual locations to explore, including atolls, sea forts, Mayan ruins, sugar plantations, and underwater shipwrecks, with a 60/40 balance between land and naval exploration. The game was designed to be more open than previous Assassin's Creed titles, with a map of a large section of the Caribbean from where the smaller, individual locations may be accessed. It also features fewer restrictions for the player compared to Assassin's Creed III, which had very scripted missions and did not give players the freedom to explore until the game was well into its first act. The player will encounter jungles, forts, ruins, and small villages, and can engage, board, and capture passing ships or swim to nearby beaches in a seamless fashion. In addition, the hunting system has been retained from Assassin's Creed III, allowing the player to hunt on land, and fish in the water, with resources gathered used to upgrade equipment via a crafting system.
A new aspect in the game is the Jackdaw, the ship that protagonist Edward Kenway captains. The Jackdaw is upgradeable throughout the game, and is easily accessible to the player when needed. In addition, a new underwater component has been added, allowing players to explore shipwrecks at several marked locations. The player has access to a spyglass, allowing the examination of distant ships, along with their cargo and strength. It can also help determine if an island still has animals to hunt, treasures to find, high points to reach for synchronization or additional side-quests to complete, such as assassinations and naval contracts. An updated form of the recruit system introduced in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is present in the game, allowing Edward to recruit crew members. While Kenway's crew will remain loyal to him, they can be promoted to captain acquired ships, and are needed to assist in boarding enemy vessels. They cannot assist in combat or perform long-range assassinations, as in previous games; Ubisoft removed this aspect of the Brotherhood system, believing it allowed players to bypass tense and challenging scenarios too easily.
In the present, at the offices of Abstergo Entertainment—a subsidiary of Abstergo Industries—in Montreal, Quebec, players control an unnamed protagonist from a first-person perspective and engage in modern-day pirating through the exploration of Abstergo's offices, eavesdropping, and hacking, all without combat. "Hacking" minigames, similar to the cluster and glyph puzzles from the previous games, are also present, and completing them uncovers various secrets about Abstergo.
Multiplayer also returns, with new settings and game modes, though it is entirely land-based.
Synopsis
Characters The main character of the game is Edward Kenway (Matt Ryan), a Welsh privateer-turned-pirate and eventual member of the Brotherhood of Assassins. Edward is the father of the Colonial Templars Grand Master Haytham Kenway and grandfather of the Assassin Ratonhnhaké:ton, the two of whom are playable characters of Assassin's Creed III. During the game, Edward meets and interacts with several real-life historical figures, including notorious pirates Edward "Blackbeard" Thatch (Mark Bonnar), Benjamin Hornigold (Ed Stoppard), Mary Read (Olivia Morgan), Stede Bonnet (James Bachman), Anne Bonny (Sarah Greene), John Rackham (O-T Fagbenle), and Charles Vane (Ralph Ineson).
Setting As is the case in previous Assassin's Creed games, the story is divided into two intertwined halves. One is set in the time of the game's release and the other in a historical setting. Although the modern-day story had previously established that an Animus was required to view ancestor memories, the ending of Assassin's Creed III reveals that Abstergo can now view a host's genetic memories simply by sequencing the host's DNA. As such, the unseen player character is hired by Abstergo Entertainment to investigate a pivotal character in Desmond Miles's ancestry, Edward Kenway; this occurs in 2013. A notorious pirate and privateer operating during the Golden Age of Piracy, Kenway's story is set in the Caribbean and mixes open-ended ship-based exploration with combat and land-based adventures in Cuba, Jamaica, various Caribbean islands, southern Florida, and eastern Mexico, as well as Principe and Charlestown, South Carolina.
Plot In 2013, months after Desmond Miles's death in Assassin's Creed III, samples taken from his body allow Abstergo Industries to continue exploring his genetic memories with the Animus's newfound cloud computing abilities. The unnamed player character is hired by Abstergo Entertainment, a subsidiary of Abstergo Industries, to examine the memories of Desmond's ancestor, Edward Kenway, an eighteenth-century pirate. Ostensibly, this is to gather material for an Animus-powered interactive feature film. In reality, Abstergo—the Templars of the modern day—are searching for a First Civilization structure known as the Observatory which Edward interacted with.
Edward's story begins in 1715 when he stumbles into a conspiracy involving high-ranking Templars within the British and Spanish Empires. Under the guise of cleaning up piracy in the Caribbean, they have used their positions to locate the Sage—later identified as Bartholomew Roberts (Oliver Milburn)—the only man who can lead them to the Observatory. This device can monitor anyone anywhere in the world when provided a blood sample, which they intend to use to spy on and blackmail world leaders. Edward inadvertently becomes involved when he kills a rogue Assassin, Duncan Walpole. Seeing an opportunity for profit, Edward takes Walpole's place at a meeting of Templars in Havana, and meets Woodes Rogers (Shaun Dingwall) and Cuban Governor and Templar Grand Master Laureano Torres (Conrad Pla). His recklessness endangers the Assassin Brotherhood, prompting him to pursue the Sage and the conspirators from the Yucatán Peninsula to Jamaica, eventually catching Roberts on the island of Príncipe off of the Central African coast.
Meanwhile, a band of notorious pirates—including Edward "Blackbeard" Thatch, Benjamin Hornigold, and Mary Read (operating under the alias "James Kidd")—dream of a pirate utopia where people are free to live beyond the reach of kings and clergy. Thatch and Hornigold had previously seized control of Nassau and establish a pirate republic, but poor governance, lack of an economy, and disease threaten to collapse the republic. Edward attempts to resolve the dispute but is too late to stop the Templars from exploiting the situation, resulting in Blackbeard being killed by the British, Hornigold joining the Templars, and Mary devoting more time to the Assassin Brotherhood in Tulum. Edward, Rackham, and Charles Vane attempt to locate Roberts, but Rackham betrays the others and leaves them marooned.
Eventually, Edward finds and joins his crew with Roberts' men and uncovers the location of the Observatory. However, Roberts' betrayal leads to Edward's arrest. He is imprisoned in Port Royal, but escapes when Ah Tabai (Octavio Solorio), the Assassin Mentor, infiltrates the prison to rescue Mary Read and Anne Bonny. There, he learns that Rackham and Bonnet have already been hanged while Vane is in prison awaiting execution. Mary dies from complications in her recent childbirth and a disheartened Edward joins the Brotherhood. Chasing down and eliminating Rogers, Roberts, and Torres, Edward seals away the Observatory. He receives a letter informing him of the passing of his wife, Caroline, and the imminent arrival of the daughter he didn't know he had, Jennifer Scott. Edward moves to London, promising Ah Tabai that he will continue fighting the Templars. Years later, Edward attends The Beggar's Opera at the Royal Opera House with Jennifer and Haytham.