Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Has a Gameplay Mechanic Borrowed From Assassin’s Creed Shadows — and Plenty of Blood, After All

Ubisoft has released a deep dive look at the parkour, stealth and combat features found in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced — and most importantly, given fans a look at the game with its blood effects enabled.

Last month, Ubisoft offered fans a tantalizing look at Black Flag Resynced, its ground-up remake of the franchise’s beloved pirate entry. While much of what was shown went down very well with viewers, questions were asked of why the footage lacked any blood.

Regardless of the reason, Ubisoft’s new blog post that goes into more granular detail on several of Black Flag Resynced’s systems has plenty of bloody gushes, spurts and sprays as pirate hero Edward Kenway stabs, slices and skewers his foes.

One other notable reveal here is that the Observe mechanic has been added into Black Flag Resynced. This is a gameplay system directly inherited from last year’s feudal Japan-set Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which allows players to quickly tag enemies they have highlighted using Eagle Vision.

In earlier RPG-lite Assassin’s Creed entries, the same functionality was available via your eagle drone (though, as Ubisoft has repeatedly stated, Black Flag Resynced is not an RPG, and there is no eagle here — or in Shadows, for that matter.) In a nutshell, Observe is a useful and quickly learnable mechanic that also gives you more of a reason to gaze around your surroundings.

Other changes highlighted today include a short speed boost when mantling after a wall run, the ability to roll after hitting the ground to maintain sprinting speed, and other previously-detailed changes: the ability to manually crouch (for better stealth), jump (for better parkour) and raise or lower your hood (which just looks cool).

Ziplines have been added to enable more fluid traversal, while Edward can blend into any group of three or more civilians to activate social stealth. And, as well as hiring dancers, you can again throw coins to create a distraction (at the cost of 10 Reales).

After years of leaks, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is now just a few months from launch. The long-awaited remake is currently set to arrive on July 9 for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, with a $200 Collector’s Edition also available — including the same Edward Kenway statue that popped up on Vinted earlier this year.

Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social