Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag review — sails into familiar waters

The Assassins Guild, it seems, was everywhere. Its members, clad in customary hooded garb, prowled Jerusalem during the Third Crusade, made merry in fifteenth-century Florence and even helped George Washington on the frontlines of the American Revolution.

It turns out they were pirates too.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag is the fifth major release in five years and the thirteenth entry in the franchise. Read that again – thirteenth. Ubisoft has made it clear that as long as there’s a historical period to pillage, a story with an assassin can — and will — be made to fit. The problem with any yearly release, of course, is that there isn’t enough time to radically change anything barring the window dressing. Black Flag, then, plunders rote Assassin’s Creed ground, but the formula is starting to make me yawn.

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