10 years in the past, Ubisoft launched Murderer’s Creed IV: Black Flag, an open-world pirate-themed RPG that set the stage for the trendy iteration of the long-running sequence by revitalizing its open-world exploration and including exceptional naval fight. And in that point, hundreds of thousands of individuals have performed the sport.
Learn Extra: Murderer’s Creed IV Is Nonetheless Nice
Ubisoft took to X (previously Twitter, or no matter Elon Musk will change the social media’s title to in the course of the night time) on October 29 to announce that over 34 million individuals have performed Black Flag since its 2013 launch.
That’s a staggering variety of gamers for any recreation, particularly one which’s a decade outdated. However Black Flag has aged higher than most. It places you within the boots of the Welsh pirate-turned-assassin Edward Kenway as he explores early Seventeenth-century Caribbean seas to unravel an historic thriller.
Whereas its predecessor, Murderer’s Creed III, gave you a ship to command, Black Flag expanded on the vessel’s restricted use, with thrilling sea battles that allowed you to dodge cannon hearth and board ships to sink them within the deep blue. It additionally improved on a few of Murderer’s Creed III’s failings, reminiscent of permitting you to freely enter and exit your ship with out ready for a loading display, whereas placing much less of an emphasis on the modern-day storytelling so you possibly can simply stab individuals to your coronary heart’s content material. This was the primary recreation within the sequence to discover piracy, which Ubisoft introduced again and refined in 2020’s Murderer’s Creed Valhalla, which featured sturdy ship crusing and village pillaging mechanics.
In actual fact, it’s the ship steering that made Black Flag so revered. As former Kotaku staffer Luke Plunkett wrote in December 2017, this Murderer’s Creed recreation is nice due to “how lovely it was to easily sail over a peaceful sea at midnight,” and he ain’t flawed. Black Flag actually blew the door vast open on our expectations of what Murderer’s Creed could possibly be thanks, partly, to the Jackdaw. Ubisoft’s worlds are usually large, however Black Flag’s rendition of the Caribbean felt exceptionally huge with its linked waterways solely traversable by sea. And the vastness of the ocean gave the sport an eerie sense of isolation and intrigue, as you by no means knew what lurked within the distance in entrance of or beneath you. Ubisoft’s bloated design ethos could have fallen out of trend, however Black Flag felt like lighting in a bottle.
A number of of us mirrored fondly on Black Flag to mark the event, a lot of them sharing their recollections of the sport in Ubisoft’s mentions. Black Flag ranks among the many greatest Murderer’s Creed recreation to this present day, and it practically made the highest of Kotaku’s very personal ranked listing.
Learn Extra: Sources: Murderer’s Creed Writer Remaking Black Flag, The Pirate One
Whereas most people have been getting misty-eyed about Black Flag, a couple of have been hoping Ubisoft would both drop a current-gen patch for PS5 and Xbox Sequence X/S, or simply straight-up remaster the sport. Kotaku reported earlier this 12 months that a Black Flag remake is within the works, however Ubisoft nonetheless hasn’t formally confirmed it. Let’s simply hope it isn’t caught in Davy Jones’ Locker the identical approach the still-MIA RPG Cranium and Bones has been.
