Remember the rumored Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag remake? It sounds like it’s going to be a bigger deal than we expected.
As reported by MP1st, a LinkedIn profile revealed that Ubisoft is doing more than graphical upgrades to the title. To quote their report:
“As listed in the project’s description, the Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Remake will feature new systems, with combat and ecosystems around wildlife specifically mentioned. There’s not much else to mention beyond the team hoping that these new systems will make the classic an “outstanding game to rebirth as the next-gen AAA game.””
We first reported on this rumor last June 2023, and details were still scarce at the time. But as MP1st pointed out, Ubisoft president Yves Guillemot revealed that they were planning to make a series of Assassins’ Creed remakes, and that seems to be intended to be safe bets after the company went through way too many flops recently.
But we think we know why this Assassins’ Creed in particular is getting the go-ahead before other titles. As a refresher, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag’s naval combat systems were developed by Ubisoft Singapore. After seeing that success, Ubisoft made the foolish decision to make a deal with the Singaporean government to secure more funding, in the promise that they would make their Ubisoft studio a giant in the industry.
And the big game that was supposed to elevate Ubisoft Singapore was Skull and Bones. We won’t go through the whole story here, but now Ubisoft has a dud, but they also still have a studio very capable of making naval combat games.
If the 2021 insider report by Kotaku is true, Ubisoft also has a lot of money on the line with the Singaporean government. So they have to find something for Ubisoft Singapore to make that will make them money.
So Ubisoft Singapore could have been sent back to remake the game that made their name, but that’s not so bad as these things come and go. Hopefully they can take what they did learn on Skull and Bones (AKA what works and does not) and use that to polish this upcoming remake.
Given that nothing is certain about Ubisoft’s future, we don’t even know if this game is certain to come out, but if it does, we certainly hope it reminds people that Ubisoft actually knows how to make this kind of game.