Black Flag Resynced Review Roundup: Is the Remake Worth It?
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced has been out for a few weeks now, and the verdict is mostly in it’s good. Really good, in fact, by most measures. But “mostly” is doing some work in that sentence, and if you’re deciding whether to actually buy it, the full picture is more interesting than the headline score suggests.
The numbers look strong
Let’s start with the hard data. Black Flag Resynced landed an 84 on Metacritic across both PC and PS5, which puts it right in line with — and arguably slightly better than — how the original 2013 release scored across its various platforms at the time. On OpenCritic, it’s rated “Mighty” after 192 reviews, with an overall average of 84, ranking in the top 7 percent of games reviewed and recommended by 94 percent of critics.
Commercially, it’s performing even better than the scores suggest. According to reporting, the remake sold 2 million copies within its first 24 hours. For a remake of a game that’s already over a decade old and was already beloved by fans, that’s a genuinely impressive number.
What critics actually liked
The praise centers on how faithfully Ubisoft Singapore treated the source material while still meaningfully upgrading it. IGN called it “more than just a shinier version of the same game you remember,” saying it brings one of the series’ best entries up to modern standards. Visually, reviewers were consistently impressed — the remake runs on a newer Anvil engine that enables dynamic weather, time-of-day cycles, and a genuinely seamless open world, all while sailing the Jackdaw remains just as satisfying as it always was.
Story preservation earned specific praise too. Critics noted that every story beat and cutscene has been recreated shot-for-shot with the original voice performances intact, which matters a lot for players who already have an emotional attachment to Edward Kenway’s journey.
Where the cracks show
Here’s the thing, though — not every reviewer walked away convinced this needed to exist at all. PC Gamer’s review was blunter than most, calling it “a well-made, but inessential remake that loses more than it gains,” arguing that fundamental changes to combat, stealth, and encounter design pull Black Flag closer to the more modern, RPG-leaning Assassin’s Creed Shadows than the classic formula fans originally fell in love with.
Other reviewers flagged smaller but real issues too. Side content took some criticism — one review noted side activities like Assassin’s Contracts feel barely worth mentioning — and Game Informer pointed out that revisiting such a recently beloved setting, rather than a new historical era, robs the remake of some of the series’ usual sense of discovery.
The layoffs complicate the story
Then there’s the part that’s harder to feel good about. Despite the strong sales and reviews, Ubisoft announced plans to lay off 51 people who worked on Black Flag Resynced shortly after launch. That’s a rough outcome for a project that, by almost every commercial and critical metric, actually succeeded. It’s become an uncomfortably familiar pattern across the industry lately — a game ships well, and the team behind it still faces cuts.
If Ubisoft’s remake strategy has you thinking about how other publishers are handling their classic catalogs, it’s worth comparing this to how Square Enix has approached the scale question with its own library — Yoshi-P recently explained why a potential Final Fantasy 6 remake would require an entirely different structure than a single, faithful rebuild.
So, is it worth it?
If you loved the original Black Flag, Resynced gives you a genuinely gorgeous, technically improved version of that same adventure, with your emotional connection to the story fully intact. If you’re coming to it fresh or hoping for a bolder reinvention rather than a faithful rebuild, the more mixed reviews are worth taking seriously before you buy.