In a series as storied as Assassin’s Creed, the reverence held for Black Flag is evidence enough of its quality.

The prospect of a remake of AC’s fourth game brought forth more excitement over the years than many of gaming’s heaviest hitters. When Black Flag Resynced was announced, that anticipation reached new heights.

Following a hands-on preview of the game earlier this year, Radio Times Gaming spoke with game director Richard Knight to dive deeper into why Black Flag was chosen to be remade, and why in 2026.

“If you ignore the numbers, Black Flag has a lot of really incredible things behind it,” Knight began.

“It has this great setting in the Caribbean. It has this really cool character players love in Edward [Kenway]. It’s got assassin gameplay, and it’s got naval gameplay.

“And so, when you put all those things together, it sounds like, ‘Wow. That’s a great thing,’ and then you go, ‘OK, what are the things we could do to bring that forward into the future and make it a modern game?’ There’s a lot of opportunity there too.”

Much of Resynced’s marketing has focused on how faithful a remake it is. I probed Knight on why it was so important it was to recapture that same feeling, instead of iterating.

“Everybody remembers Black Flag. Everybody loves Black Flag. So it was critical for us to nail that feeling, so when people play, they go, ‘That’s Edward; that’s not just an imposter,’ right?

“Internally, we had authenticity passes to make sure things are in the right place, and then we worked closely with the community to both look at Edward himself and to play the game and give feedback.

“It’s not important in a remake for everything to be pixel-accurate, but it’s important to have the same feeling and spirit across everything you do, so even the new stuff feels like it’s authentic to the old.”

But as with many remakes, some things need to be updated to bring the title in line with what players expect of today’s new releases. But how do you decide what needs updating and what evokes the feeling and spirit of the original?

“It’s on a case by case basis, but there are certain things where, when you play the original, they were great for their time but they feel a bit hard to deal with now,” Knight, who also directed AC Shadows, explained, “like tailing mission that kills you instantly, or not being able to crouch anywhere.

“So those are easy things where it’s like, ‘OK, we can improve. We can take from the latest games.’

“There’s stuff like the combat system, where we knew that Shadows wasn’t a fit for us, but the original Black Flag also wasn’t quite right for where games should be today.

“So this is one where we needed to start fresh and stick to the spirit of how Edward fights, but have a new sort of skill-based approach that allows you to still win quickly if you know what to do, but also be based a lot on how you play.”

A core part of striking this balance between new and old has been community feedback, which Knight credits as having been “critical” to Resynced’s development.

“Everybody’s memory is more 4K than 4K; they’ll remember Edward looking maybe even better than we have him now, right?

“And they’ll remember little details that maybe won’t be there until we show them what he actually looked like.

“[The feedback] has been very important because we can use those memories to help align where we go, because part of it being a faithful remake is not just what exactly was original game, but what was the feeling players got from it, and what did they take away from it?”

Resynced is the latest entry in what appears to be a golden age of video game remakes. The likes of Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and even Oblivion have seen tremendous success after their respective makeovers.

I asked Knight why he believed players were so eager to relive these experiences.

“Some of it is nostalgia, for sure. But what I’d like to think is that games in general have just evolved over the years, and we all have our nostalgia about what games were, but we’d love to see ‘What if I could play that today we these features that I think are integral to the game?’

“There’s one little thing we added [to Resynced] that’s near and dear to me, which is you can put the hood up and down whenever you want. And it’s such a small thing, but you weren’t able to do that before.

“Having those ‘what ifs’ and bringing those new things to that authentic old experience, it just makes your imagination think about what else you can do now with that thing you thought you knew.”

Putting my party-pooping cynic hat on, I posit to Knight whether the recent trend towards remakes is representative of an industry more interested in cashing in on nostalgia than pursuing new ideas.

He responded thoughtfully, “I would say that sometimes it’s the industry’s response to realising, ‘Oh, how did we build that thing back then that people loved?’, and sometimes it’s a way to reconnect that feeling, right?

“So, I’d like to say with Black Flag Resynced, we’re not just trying to dive back in and say buy this game again.

“We’re trying to make you dream a bit and go, ‘What if that game came out today? What if this was this fresh idea?’ Based on everything you know about Assassin’s Creed and other games, what kind of experience can you have today?

“And the cool thing about games is that they’re not just a story that’s told over two hours.

“There’s something for you to dive in and explore, and we hope with this one that there’s enough new and interesting things there – in terms of content, your controls, your gameplay – that you’ll want to experiment. You’ll want to see what can happen.”

Knight is, understandably, single-mindedly focused on Resynced at the moment, but he was certainly not against the idea of future AC remakes.

“The cool thing about the brand is that any time and any place, there’s always interesting characters. There are always interesting things going on.

“I always like to dream a little bit, and you never know what the future might bring.”

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced releases on 9 July 2026 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

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