More gameplay! *Animal petting confirmed!*

Again it looks great. Hopefully it will fix my issues with AC3.

Highlights for me.

Ship combat

Dat map

Referring to the ship as a main character.

Pirate singing!

I know this is kind of a stupid thing... but I really missed the ABXY buttons and (expandable) health meter on the UI in AC3. Glad to see their back.

Though, AC3 is my favorite one in the series, so this looks like it expands upon basically everything new they implemented so I'm really pumped. Can't wait to pick this up with my X1!

This is going to be the only chance that Americans will ever get to visit Cuba. Har har.

Oh and pigeon coops are back!

I cannot believe you get to travel across the entire fucking island of Cuba and many surrounding islands... this is going to be a big game.

I guess this is the next gen version ? looks pretty smooth to me ! i will wait till this one goes down in price i was pretty disappointed in assassins creed 3

They brought animal petting back, yaaay.
Stab some guards, walk over to a pig, pet it and go "That'll do pig". Best friend in AC3, ever!

@xyzygy: You think the next gen versions will be available when the console is available ? i would rather play this on the ps4 for the smoothness rather on current gen hardware.

Ohmuhgosh, this looks SO-O good. :D

This looks as much like a Sid Meier's Pirates! sequel as it does an AC sequel and I could not be more happy with that.

I think they said that the Next gen versions will be available later on, so probably December or January. I too will be getting the next gen version, since I won't be picking an X1 up until next summer. It'll definitely be out by then.

AC4 is release title for X1 and PS4.

It really looks crap. I skipped to a random point (9:30) and the gameplay looks stale as fuck. Absolutely nothing that we havent gotten out of AC ten times over. Its damning on gamers that shite like this garners tens of millions of dollars worth of investment.

The only reason I can see for enjoying this is having not played the previous 5 AC games, either that or you're an absolute die hard fan.

@eskimo: To be fair if "this thing has been done ten times over already" was a problem for everyone we would've all stopped playing video games 20 years ago.
Why play FPS games when they're only, on PC at least, point(at head) and click(to win) games anyway. etc. etc.

@zeforgotten: Hey, if you enjoy playing the same game over and over again, power to you. etc.

Not me.

@eskimo: I do and thank you! Though it can probably be dangerous as well considering all the time I've been putting into Dark Souls and Rogue Legacy lately.

Where was it missing? I remember being able to pet cats or something in AC3.

That's the point. If they hadn't brought it back this time around it wouldn't be there....

But saying "they brought it back" implies that it went somewhere.

They're animals, who knows where they went between AC3 and 4.
Maybe they're the real culprits behind all the madness in the real world? At this point I wouldn't put it past them

Looks fantastic.

I just want to be on the record that I love that this guy parallel parks his boat every time he lands.

Say what you will, Ezio is one of the best and most recognisable characters from this last generation of games so the fact that Connor felt so uninspired was almost guaranteed. I'm really hoping this new cat is on that Ezio level of cocky/asshole/awesome/badass. Ubisoft makes awesome games, but they hhave a tendency to relegate franchises to B level status once they have a new hotness on their hands (see Prince of Persia). I'm hoping that doesn't happen with Assassin's Creed because that franchise is still full of potential.

Also I hope the glitchy mess that was AC3 was a result of current consoles being unable to handle the game and not just bad development. I will wait and see how it performs on next gen before making a purchasing decision. So far what they've shown looks solid.

I don't see any AC3 fixes in this game's footage. What are your AC3 issues and how is what you see in Black Flag an indication of them getting fixed?

The story was shit. Conner was boring to much Desmond stuff. Little to no explanation for a lot of the stuff in the game. Not to mention the shit ton of glitches in AC3.

At first I thought I was going to be bored by the vid, but the new AC game looks fun to play. I'm digging that tropical setting, it looks more interesting then AC3, but I wonder who's in the animus.

@the_laughing_man:

Same here, except my problems were more along the lines of "ideologically lopsided and about as historically accurate as Bill & Ted". Also, the game thinks it's a movie.

The ship parts were the best of AC3 and the only good thing about the game IMO. They better not fuck this up...

@zeforgotten: Careful with that stuff, its potent!

<3

I almost hope this is not an Assassin's Creed game because it certainly evolved into something in its own.

Great, Ubisoft, you've got me back on board. (aha on board, get it?)

Negative Nancy

1. Dive into water splash was weak.
2. Animation blending from swimming to walking looks bad when moving quickly
3. Still fucking hate the fucking UI in these games!! ARGH! GUH! Sorry. I just wish they had a completely different aesthetic for the menus. I can't stress enough how much I hate it. You know what? I would pay for DLC that changed the UI. "Pirate UI"
4. Broken ass game designer's story logic: "Edward has met the assassins, but hasn't taken the creed. At this point in the game, he still wants fame and notoriety. He gets that by... taking assassination missions." So what happens when he takes the creed then?
5. Just flat out bored and tired of the assassin outfit. The hood looks more and more out of place with every game. At least they made this one less hawk like. I honestly think this was a big part of people liking Haytham. He looked different. Really wish they would get over their "iconic outfit".
6. 300 man team at Ubisoft still can't figure out the "sheath sword animation" I guess. I'm going to write a great article one day about sheaths in video games.

Positive Pauly

1. Naval combat continues to look awesome. In fact, pretty much everything on a boat or that has to do with a boat looks awesome.
2. Pirates cheer when you get on board. nearly a selling point all its own oh god what is wrong with me
3. Next-gen bushes look impressive. All the foliage is purdy purdy.
4. Draw distance, weather = sweet.
5. Climbing trees was fun, I'll give them that. Curse you AC3 maybe you wasn't so bad after all.

Animal Petting should be a concept in the wiki.

Sea chanty playlist? Why can't this be a thing in more games.

So all you need is a good and simple, Desmond-free story and no glitches to be pleased by Black Flag?

I envy thee.

Time for some heavy petting!

@jouseldelka: I need a AC game that isn't utter crap like AC3

But can you pet a shark?

@chaser324 Do we have a Petting wiki page yet?

Very, very nice. AC2 is still my favourite Assassins Creed game but this is looking pretty good! Looks very fluid and they finally added a free-aim system!

This looks great, and I hope it plays so as well. I've been a fan since the first one, but AC3 really bored me at times. It looked good and the cities were somewhat interesting, but Connor was a hollow man compared to Ezio. I still replay AC2 and Brotherhood at times, I even know their maps by heart. The ability to turn of the HUD have always been one of my favorite features, something that will probably be in this one as it has in all its predecessors.
One concern is the force feeding of information the series has adapted over time. You are constantly reminded that this is that, how something works and blablabla. You can turn some of it of, but still... ah well, pirate creed looks interesting and I'm impressed by the seamlessness of land to boat to boarding. Heres hoping my PC can run it smoothly.