Assassin’s Creed fans are reacting with disappointment after a new report on Ubisoft’s long-expected Black Flag remake has stated that the game will no longer contain any modern day gameplay.
The report, published by French outlet Jeuxvideo, states that all of Black Flag’s modern day sections have been removed from the upcoming piratical remake.
In the original Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, players occasionally pop out of the Animus to explore the offices of Abstergo Entertainment, unlocking clues to how the story of pirate Edward Kenway is tied to the series’ overarching modern day narrative.
Ubisoft is reportedly adding extra content from Kenway’s pirate era to make up the lost gameplay hours (including additional story for his fellow pirate Mary Read that never made into the base game, which would indeed be welcome).
Other changes for the remake include overhauled combat and gear systems that act closer to other more modern Assassin’s Creed games.
Overall, though, the excision of Black Flag’s modern day portions looks to be the most noteworthy change — and one that is not going down well with some fans, especially after the threadbare modern day storyline in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
“I hope it’s not true that they removed the modern day sections,” wrote havewelost6388, in a long reddit thread discussing the report. “Without the modern day storyline and ancient aliens sci-fi stuff, modern AC games are just Witcher 3 clones with stealth mechanics.”
“They need to stop removing modern day content,” added ZeroZelath. “It’s honestly one of my favorite parts and that stems from the earlier games. I was actually looking forward to it in Shadows after how Valhalla ended but then… Shadows had literally nothing. It was such a big disappointment on that front. Like genuinely, the modern day stuff is part of how the franchise works so it should always be present in some form and be telling an overarching story.”
“Omg, Ubisoft! STOP REMOVING THE MODERN DAY SEGMENTS!!!” added kamuigui. “The best of the series is the fact that was very clear that we were in a simulation!”
As well as adding to Assassin’s Creed’s overarching story, the modern day sections in Black Flag tie closely into the narrative of Kenway’s historical quest — leading some fans to question how Ubisoft will handle the lack of wider context.
“Wouldn’t removing the modern day scenes remove a pretty big part of the story regarding the sage?” questioned Ari441.
“I don’t see how you can do the story without the modern day stuff tying it all together,” Pizzaplanet420 added. “The ending of the game [in the modern day] is literally the bookend to the entire story…”
Of course, delving back into the series’ previous modern day storyline featuring long-term antagonist Juno would require a bit of re-explaining at this point — but considering how that storyline ended up being dropped and concluded in a spin-off comic, this could have been a good opportunity to do more there.
Ubisoft is yet to formally announce its highly-anticipated Black Flag remake, though its existence is an open secret after years of leaks — including from the voice actor behind Edward Kenway himself, as well as a company making collectible figurines for the game. IGN has contacted Ubisoft for more.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
