Black Flag Resynced Is the Best-Reviewed Assassin's Creed Game Since 2013
Reviews dropped for Black Flag Resynced, and the number is 84 on Metacritic from 75+ reviews. That sounds fine on its own. In context, it's the highest score Assassin's Creed has gotten since the original Black Flag launched in October 2013 with an 88. The remake releases tomorrow, July 9, on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC.
How Long the Drought Actually Was
Here's every mainline AC Metacritic score since Black Flag, in order:
- Rogue (2014): 72
- Unity (2014): 72
- Syndicate (2015): 76
- Origins (2017): 81
- Odyssey (2018): 83
- Valhalla (2020): 80
- Mirage (2023): 76
- Shadows (2025): 81
Odyssey got to 83. Nothing else topped 81. The series spent eleven years not matching what it did in 2013, and the closest it got was still a point short. That's a long time to be chasing your own high water mark.
Worth noting: the original Black Flag's PS3 version has the most Metacritic reviews of any version, and it scored 88. The remake's 84 is below that, but it's comparing a full remake to a critically beloved original. Getting within four points while also being the best-reviewed game in the series since then is genuinely notable.
What This Actually Means
The franchise has had some genuinely good games in that stretch. Origins was a solid reinvention. Odyssey is a lot of game. But nothing landed like Black Flag did, and critics have been consistent about that for over a decade.
Resynced being a remake of Black Flag specifically makes some sense as a strategy. The original scored the highest of any AC game on the last generation of hardware. The pirate setting still stands out in a series that's done ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, Viking England, and feudal Japan. If you're going to rebuild something, start with the one that worked.
This could mean Ubisoft has actually found the formula again. One possibility is that the source material was strong enough that a faithful remake was always going to land well with critics. Hard to say without playing it.
But an 84 from 75+ reviewers, releasing tomorrow, is the first time in a long time that "new Assassin's Creed" and "actually good reviews" have shown up in the same sentence. Worth paying attention to.
Source: Kotaku