Ubisoft’s upcoming pirate-assassin mash-up Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is set for a release later this year and already there have been a lot of speculations about the internal features of the game and gameplay functionality. While Ubisoft has given us a gameplay walkthrough (that lagged so much) of the upcoming game, nearly nothing has been stated about the ever-present side missions. However, that all has now changed.
Side missions saw a lot of criticisms with the arrival of the last Assassin’s Creed 3, alongside the likes of predictable campaigns, a lackluster protagonist, and a lot of bugs. Obviously, Ubisoft will want to fix all that for the next game, and it seems like the company has already started off on that path by renovating the in-game side missions.
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag creative director Jean Guesdon was recently in an interview with Gamingbolt where he put an end to all such speculations surrounding the side missions. He stated: “We have a huge Caribbean open-world that is full of activities and side-missions. We have forts to raid, shipwrecks to discover, smuggler caves to infiltrate, ally ships to escort, trade routes to disrupt, animals to hunt, collectibles to find, etc.”
“The key thing here is that all of these activities make sense in the context of the open-world—you will never feel like any of these activities are superfluous, they are all present for a reason, and they are all fun to complete. You are completing these activities to become a stronger pirate and a better assassin.”
Additionally, as far as in-game control mechanics is concerned, Guesdon said that Black Flag’s combat mechanics “plays very similarly to AC3’s combat, but those extra additions that you mentioned really take it to a whole new level.”
“The multi-pistols mechanic enables you to shoot any enemy mid-combo, so it gives a whole new dimension to how you approach a combat situation. Free-aim enables you to pick off some enemies before the fight even starts, which also helps a lot,” he added.
Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, arrives in North America for PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii U on Oct. 29, and releases for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One later down the line. The game takes place some time around 1713, and feature locations such as Nassau, Havana and Kingston, and historical figures such as the infamous pirate Blackbeard.
