As part of their deep dive series, Ubisoft revealed more information on how combat works in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced. The game launches this week, on July 9th.
13 years later, the iconic pirate adventure returns with a slew of new features, story content and gameplay improvements.
Set in the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy, Black Flag Resynced tells the story of Edward Kenway, a brash Welsh privateer turned pirate who inadvertently gets swept into the ancient war between Assassins and Templars. On the hunt for the Observatory – a mythical device capable of tracking anyone in the world using a blood sample – Edward must face the consequences of his greed and chart a path of redemption that will lead him to the Assassins Brotherhood.
Resynced's combat focuses on breaking the enemy's defense to then use a takedown to kill them outright. You can simply attack to do this, but there are much more creative, fun, and quick ways to accomplish the task.
- Hidden Blade Takedown: Breaking an enemy’s defense with a Perfect Parry will trigger a Hidden Blade takedown.
- Chain Takedowns: Triggered by timing a Perfect Parry, Edward can chain his takedowns to up to four nearby enemies, depending on the sword he carries.
- Wall Takedown: Kick an enemy into a wall to initiate a fatal takedown.
- Ground Takedown: Grounded enemies (from an explosion or Sweep move) can be killed by a Ground Takedown
- Kick and Sweep: The kick can also stagger enemies and send them back, great for crowd control. The Sweep will allow Edward to perform a Ground Takedown.
- Rope Dart: Use the Rope Dart to open up enemies for attacks and bring them closer to you. You can use it to interrupt attacks from range as well. To make the Rope Dart a much more strategic item for Edward, he will be able to get his hands on it much earlier (sequence 3 in Resynced vs. sequence 11 in the original).
- Each of Edward’s main weapons employs a Heavy Attack (by holding down the attack button) which causes more damage and can break defence easier but has a longer wind up time.
- Rapier: Heavy Strikes are more damaging and can pierce through foes.
- Cutlass: Heavy Strikes cover a wide area, hitting multiple enemies.
- Pistol-Sword: Two damaging shots are fired, allowing Edward to focus fire on one enemy or spread the damage on two.
Enemies will fight back in kind, with Brutes being especially difficult to combat, but you can use various tricks like chain takedowns or Quick Shots to instantly break their guard. You can even turn enemy skills, like the Demolitionist's grenades, against them by pulling enemies into the AoE using your rope dart.
As an assassin, stealth is almost always going to be your go-to method of killing enemies. With that in mind, Edward can now crouch anywhere with his visibility shown on the HUD. If you want to stay in stealth, you'll need to disable the alarm bells spread around most enemy encampments.
To aid in stealth, you have a number of tools and social options at your disposal:
- The Blowpipe has Sleep Darts (which cause an enemy to sleep for a period of time) and Berserk Darts (which causes enemies to attack each other).
- Smoke Bombs can be thrown at enemies or dropped at your feet when Edward is in need of a quick escape.
- The Rope Dart can be used to pull enemies in for an assassination or used to hang enemies from a perch which will serve as a distraction.
- Hiring NPCs. You can hire the Dancers to distract guards and blend in passively while walking the dense urban environments of the Carribean.
- You can blend in crowds of 3 or more to remain unseen. Benches, walls, haystacks, and closets are also classic returning hiding spots.
- Edward will be able to throw money to create chaos and lure guards and citizens to a location.
- Edward will also be able to toggle his hood on and off at any time.
Jumping into Parkour, Advanced Parkour is back, and you can turn it on in the settings. This gives you more control over movement, including a manual jump. More ziplines have also been added across the game world to help you get around faster.
Ubisoft then gets into more miscellaneous information about the game, including naval customization, the hideout, new missions, game settings, and more. You can read the full post here, and for more on all things Assassin's Creed, stay tuned to GamingTrend.
