Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag

 PC
User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 3161 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,500 out of 3161
  2. Mixed: 438 out of 3161
  3. Negative: 223 out of 3161
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  1. Demon2017
    Jun 18, 2022
    7
    Многие обожают эту игру, но по мне - она хуже даже третьей части. Да, в ней клёвый сюжет, но сами миссии очень скучные, ведь почти половина из них - это слежка за кем-то, что очень раздражает. В игре мало дополнительных миссий и основные дела в открытом мире - это собирательство всякой фигни. Игра неплохая, но на мой взгляд, переоценённая.Многие обожают эту игру, но по мне - она хуже даже третьей части. Да, в ней клёвый сюжет, но сами миссии очень скучные, ведь почти половина из них - это слежка за кем-то, что очень раздражает. В игре мало дополнительных миссий и основные дела в открытом мире - это собирательство всякой фигни. Игра неплохая, но на мой взгляд, переоценённая.
  2. Pharaoshka
    Feb 23, 2019
    7
    I played more than 100 hours in this game. I liked a lot of things, battles, pumping the ship and pumping the character. The weak points of this game are graphics, plot and sound. Mostly I am pleased with this game.
  3. Tilt1k
    Feb 6, 2019
    7
    Most overrated Creed for me. I dont have the Assasin feeling from this one it just feels very not assasin. Naval combat gets boring after like hour and two. Still an assassins creed, some good characters and fun to play through just not as good as previous titles.
  4. kuczmcym
    Feb 8, 2019
    7
    By far the best assassin's creed game. The pirate ship mechanics are unique and fun to play.
  5. res0nancer
    Jun 5, 2023
    7
    Доработанные морские сражения, геймплей, исследование мира, неоднозначный герой и приключения - похоже то, что вы точно получите от этой части. Лично для меня всегда было приятно вернутся в эту игру, но больше всего запомнилось изменение характера персонажа после всех событий в игре. Если зайдет геймплей, то сюжет станет неплохим дополнение, недотягивающим, конечно, до предыдущих частей,Доработанные морские сражения, геймплей, исследование мира, неоднозначный герой и приключения - похоже то, что вы точно получите от этой части. Лично для меня всегда было приятно вернутся в эту игру, но больше всего запомнилось изменение характера персонажа после всех событий в игре. Если зайдет геймплей, то сюжет станет неплохим дополнение, недотягивающим, конечно, до предыдущих частей, но он старается держать планку.… Expand
  6. elolugo
    Apr 27, 2020
    7
    Good game but bad assassin's creed game. Tying your shoes is more difficult than this game and there is no downside to being combat centered instead of stealth approach
  7. Wodzu_Andzej
    May 30, 2023
    7
    Another Assassin's Creed game. I miss some things from the previous ones. But he also has some new, good ideas. I miss parkour. The graphics are currently not knocking down, but it is acceptable. Story is acceptable. However, it still plays well, boating, side missions or clearing the map is fun.
    I honestly really wanted to play.
  8. Alvelian
    Dec 14, 2022
    7
    Интересное пиратское преключение. Если вы не являетесь душным фанатом ассасинов, а просто хотите добротную историю в духе пиратов карибского моря, то игра для вас
  9. shauntmw
    May 14, 2020
    7
    I play this on UPlay, and play exclusively on the single player campaign only.

    First of all, let's talk about the technical issues that I have faced. The game is very poorly optimized. Despite having a moderately high-end PC, I still get a very bad lag and framerate issue. Disabling V-Sync improves a lot on the lag, but the tearing is too terrible to play with it disabled. There are    I play this on UPlay, and play exclusively on the single player campaign only.

    First of all, let's talk about the technical issues that I have faced. The game is very poorly optimized. Despite having a moderately high-end PC, I still get a very bad lag and framerate issue. Disabling V-Sync improves a lot on the lag, but the tearing is too terrible to play with it disabled.

    There are some software tweaks that greatly improves the framerate. One of them is D3DOverrider. Another is to disable one of the CPU core assigned to the game via Task Manager. Also, the game will suddenly hang when my connection is bad.

    Technical issues aside, the game itself is great! This game put some very heavy emphasis on naval warfare and navigation. Although I hated the naval scenario in the previous game, I totally loved it in this game! The world is huge and full of things to do. The story is great, and I really like that fact they finally minimized the "modern world" part and made it trivial enough for me to not care, and yet put enough interesting backstory into the hacking mini-game for me to explore.

    The stealth mechanic has improved quite a bit, but I don't really like the battle mechanic in this game compared to the older games. The enemies are too easy to kill, but sometimes the battle camera or controls are so bad that you will get killed just by 1 or 2 combos by an enemy, despite having full health.

    I hated the underwater area. It is so bad that I have given up on fully complete the collectibles just because I can't be bothered to play all the under water stages.

    I would have given this game a score of 9/10, but I have decided to deduct a few points because of the bad PC port.    … Expand
  10. Kujin
    Jan 27, 2021
    7
    AC4 is one of those "if they gave it one-two more years, it would've been a masterpiece" situations. This is pretty much the best Assassin's Creed game of the pre-Unity generation, combining great story, a lived-in open world and innovation to create a uniquely fun action experience. It's full of pirate's romance, great music and vibrant folliage. Black Flag's bugginess is pretty much deepAC4 is one of those "if they gave it one-two more years, it would've been a masterpiece" situations. This is pretty much the best Assassin's Creed game of the pre-Unity generation, combining great story, a lived-in open world and innovation to create a uniquely fun action experience. It's full of pirate's romance, great music and vibrant folliage. Black Flag's bugginess is pretty much deep in it's core, and with how overkill the road to 100%-ing it was, there're a lot of little things that bring the whole game down… Expand
  11. zzz_DeV1L_zzz
    Jun 13, 2020
    7
    On the advice I decided to try playing. It seems like at the beginning it was not bad, but I did not like the plot, in the middle of the game it became boring and I had to finish the passage. 7 points.
  12. Svetlendrius
    Jun 19, 2020
    7
    A good assassin, with a good plot, is held in one breath, a large world of beautiful locations.
  13. Zinaldo
    Jun 10, 2023
    7
    boring game-play , did not have a good story , less interesting than Assassin's creed 3
  14. Tsunowa
    Sep 25, 2020
    7
    Didn't like many aspects on gameplay, too much tailing and boring puzzles, but the thematic and all the ambience was really cool, a plus for pirate's songs.
  15. YIshuishen
    Oct 24, 2020
    7
    说实话，这一部不错的刺客信条，海战与海盗元素十分新颖。 但任务很无聊，画质很不好，优化太烂。
  16. Noble21
    Jan 6, 2021
    7
    This game is quite good to play even in 2021. Pretty serviceable graphics, tight combat, and amazing set pieces. Black Flag has its epic moments however they are burried under hours of boredom like Chasing/Trailing Missions and this game has alot of them . The Naval Combat is just pure epicness and the Ship-to-Ship combat really Added to the excitement .
  17. Mazma
    Dec 25, 2020
    7
    Il migliore della saga, ma solo per il comparto navale. il resto? identico a tutti gli altri.
  18. elefsar
    Apr 22, 2021
    7
    A mediocre game of assassin's creed games. Good in the sea but mediocre fighting, mediocre story.
  19. Yaav13
    May 9, 2022
    7
    My truthful honorable incorruptible conclusive rating of this considered game: 7.
  20. qzzzeee
    Jan 2, 2022
    7
    A very good game. Exciting sea battles. Assassins are few, the game is about them, but there are almost none. In general, it is a solid project.
  21. Ocmah_
    Mar 30, 2023
    7
    This is not AC game.
    Graphics 7
    Gameplay 8
    Controls 6
    Sounds 8
    Story 7
    Main Character 8
    Side Characters 7
    Quests 7
    -----------------------------------
    Overall 7
  22. Vixremento
    Dec 2, 2013
    6
    Being a fan of AC2 and brotherhood I'd been rather let down with anything that followed and even with the over-hyped AC3 I got seriously burnt. I then waited...cautiously...for the Black Flag reviews and in general it all seemed to point out that they'd corrected their flaws and gone back a little to their roots. Is it true you ask?
     
      Well yes for some bits and sadly...no for the most    Being a fan of AC2 and brotherhood I'd been rather let down with anything that followed and even with the over-hyped AC3 I got seriously burnt. I then waited...cautiously...for the Black Flag reviews and in general it all seemed to point out that they'd corrected their flaws and gone back a little to their roots. Is it true you ask?
     
     
    Well yes for some bits and sadly...no for the most part. AC2 had you really involved and it made sure that you had to do a little more than just "point and shoot" so to speak. Black Flag comes along and introduces us to some more intensive ship control and ship battles that really do feel pretty good to take part in initially. Soon though you do feel that this "pirate-battle-ship-thing" is a bit flat and it starts to get quite boring pretty quickly so it's sad that it has such a huge focus in the game because it really stops being fun after the first two hours or so.
     
     
    Platforming it's just gone I'm sad to say. Every bit of navigation required now is only made more difficult by figuring out which bit of the map it is that you have to navigate around everything in-between that is just pointing and holding down the shift key to get there (and then sometimes you just can't "disconnect" because you've become a sticky monkey to anything that is not at ground level). It's fun right in the beginning but then you soon start to realise that there is actually no challenge to doing any of it.
     
     
    Combat: Pretty much nothing new here boring and as easy as ever (in fact it felt even easier this time around). Sure, you'll have to dodge a few grenades, counter (feels very much like Batmans counter-moves) and break defenses by using a key press...rather un-rewarding in the end especially when you know that a monkey could pull off the same moves.
     
     
    Once again I'm left rather disappointed (and I haven't even touched on the "future" bits that feel about as fun to play as just watching a clip of someone else play the game...hell even that would have been more fun!) and after having played through the somewhat long and fairly boring story I just didn't feel anything special about this game (I actually had to force myself to keep playing through it and all the time I kept thinking "maybe I should just re-install and play through AC2 or AC:Brotherhood again instead). With promises of an upgrade system similar to Far Cry 3 (sure, it's mostly true but pretty much damn boring and not very much required) and the usual "hunt" for collectables being slapped in there I eventually stopped because the game just become sooo long in the tooth.
     
     
    Ah well I guess I should have realised this after revelations that the game has just been effectively dumbed down to a more simplistic experience that what we were introduced to before in the previous titles...maybe I'm just getting old or maybe I'm just trying to expect too much when consoles dominate so heavily. My conclusion: if you loved AC2/Brotherhood and despised AC3/Revelations then give this one a skip. In the end this one looks pretty and plays fairly nicely with my PC hardware yet in the end it just feels overly simplified and too heavily story-focused without really giving too much of a damn about game-play.    … Expand
  23. freacrou
    Dec 29, 2013
    6
    It is totally missing the epicness of AC2 and AC1, there are no cathedrales or dungeons, instead you can swim in piss with make you feel like a real A$$ pirate and blonde. You would think the world is huge, but there is so much rehashing of content, it is nowhere as big as AC1 and pointless to explore. The characters are rather bland and the killing of Desmond in AC3 made story about theIt is totally missing the epicness of AC2 and AC1, there are no cathedrales or dungeons, instead you can swim in piss with make you feel like a real A$$ pirate and blonde. You would think the world is huge, but there is so much rehashing of content, it is nowhere as big as AC1 and pointless to explore. The characters are rather bland and the killing of Desmond in AC3 made story about the ancestors lose its connection. Whats positive is the sandbox that the developers created. Also they got rid of QTEs, its not as as AC3, but still lacking big storywise. When AC2 was a 10, then I am giving this a 6.… Expand
  24. Thatweirdguy
    Nov 28, 2013
    6
    Good Game but with issues the PC versions always faced Fps bugs, and graphics issues and poor performance other then that it can be considered as a great game
  25. DanielCorfour
    Nov 26, 2013
    6
    Assassin's Creed 4: 90% pirate, 10% assassin. To see a summary of this review scroll to the end.

    Ubisoft went ahead and did the obvious. They took, the best part of Assassin's Creed 3, really the only really good part, and made a game out of it. Literally, they retrofitted the game engine used in the previous title into this a new game, while barely adding or changing anything. This    Assassin's Creed 4: 90% pirate, 10% assassin. To see a summary of this review scroll to the end.

    Ubisoft went ahead and did the obvious. They took, the best part of Assassin's Creed 3, really the only really good part, and made a game out of it. Literally, they retrofitted the game engine used in the previous title into this a new game, while barely adding or changing anything. This whole game felt like an AC 3.1, rather than a new title.. which, I wouldn't have had a problem with, if they would have fixed the problems that plagued AC3, or actually gave us a good, satisfying story, like AC2, but they didn't.

    Assassin's Creed wasn't particularly good when it came to game mechanics, AC1 and 2 were kind of bad actually, instead, it was built by it's amazing storytelling, beautiful setting, and wonderful soundtrack. I still listen to Ezio's Family by Jesper Kyd from AC2. That song brings back a kind of emotions that I rarely feel with games. AC4, however delivers only one of these, the setting. I'm going to start by criticizing the story itself. It's terrible. First off, it has nothing to do with Assassins, they barely make a cameo appearance, both inside and outside the Animus. The whole game revolves around pirates, and that wouldn't be a problem, if it was a good story. And it starts out good, but then it gets riddled with plot holes, poor writing, scenes that don't make sense, and although they stayed away from the obvious parrot cliches, they added a bunch of them story-wise. The story does make a few twists, but most of them you'll see coming a mily away, and most of them don't make sense. There is no main enemy in the game, and most of the things that happen in the game make no sense. And if you were expecting a great ending.. don't.. it is terrible. The only plot-twist you won't see coming in this game is the ending.. they drop it on you out of nowhere, just when you were expecting the game would truly begin, and then they hit you in the face with a poorly done cutscene, and leave you confused.

    Here's a tip, dear Ubisoft. A story, every story, follows 5 basic steps, not necessarily in this order: Exposition, Rising Action, Progression, Climax, Ending. The 4th is completely missing, and the fifth leaves you confused, when it should leave you satisfied.

    Then there are the actual missions in the story. Boring, repetitive and most of them don't make sense. All you do is follow this guy, eavesdrop on that guy. And on rare occasions you kill someone. Missions involving ships can be interesting, but at times they are the same boring "follow that ship" nonsense. In comparison with GTA 5, or Red Dead Redemption, where every mission was unique and intriguing, here they are boring, unimaginative and repetitive. The same goes for side missions. Assassinations, Naval Missions and Templar Hunts. All of them are basically the same. If you did one then you did all, there's no point in continuing. You play through it once, but you won't want to play through it a second time.

    What saves the game is the beautiful and huge open world game, the side activities(not missions) and the naval combat. The setting is really amazing, although some fans of the series will find it irritating that you won't visit cities that much, only a couple times, and they are small with not a lot of things to do, the setting just didn't allow for that. Most of the time you will do what the game is all about: pirating. Naval combat is really fun, and it's been expanded upon a lot.: you can board ships, capture them, steal their cargo and send them to your fleet, you can attack naval forts and capture them. You can use those resources to upgrade your ship and so on. There are also underwater places you can explore, but there are limited, and in comparison with GTAV, where there was an entire open-world you could explore, here there are only ten locations, but it still looks great, and avoiding sharks and medusas is great fun. You can also raid plantations, which are a ton of fun... basically the side activities are really great, and make this game enjoyable, even though the story brings it down.

    In summary, it looks like this game was made just so Ubisoft can make more money off of the ship mechanics in AC3. Combat and land based mechanics are basically the same as the previous game, although they did need changing and improving. The game engine is the same as it was in the third title, with very little improvement, or change, when it, again needed it. And all of this would not be a problem if the game offered a good story, but it doesn't. The story seems like an excuse to sell an adapted version of AC3, and the story is driven by the game mechanics, and not vice versa. Luckily the beautiful setting, graphics and excellent pirate game save the game and prop up the rating to a 6/10. You can't help but feel, if they only spent a little bit more time, and wouldn't pump out a game every year, it could've been an amazing game.    … Expand
  26. serp86
    Nov 24, 2013
    6
    Great pirate game with stupid Assasins/Templar non-sense. I really dislike the storyline of the Assasins Creed series with it's convoluted non-sensical mystic mumbo-jumbo In this you can mostly ignore those and just sail around pirating you can have tons of fun for hours very early. The rest of the game outside the naval battles is pretty eh. At least the protagonist is aware of howGreat pirate game with stupid Assasins/Templar non-sense. I really dislike the storyline of the Assasins Creed series with it's convoluted non-sensical mystic mumbo-jumbo In this you can mostly ignore those and just sail around pirating you can have tons of fun for hours very early. The rest of the game outside the naval battles is pretty eh. At least the protagonist is aware of how stupid the stuff he sees is and comments on it .

    Ubisoft should just completely drop the Assasins stuff and make game full Naval/Pirate game Cause thats awesome and i fully recommend to buy the game it at a lower price just for that.

    Optimization isn't optimal but it runs very well on my PC on basically maxed details with some glitches here and there. Didn't run into anything major yet.    … Expand
  27. dsj556
    Dec 29, 2014
    6
    This game is great as long as you don't play the main storyline. Lots of tailing missions. The ship to ship combat is pretty cool and one of my favorite aspects. Graphics are amazing as with every modern game. Story didn't hold my interest despite trying to watch all the cutscenes. You can tell this game was pushed out to make more money as with a little bit more time invested itThis game is great as long as you don't play the main storyline. Lots of tailing missions. The ship to ship combat is pretty cool and one of my favorite aspects. Graphics are amazing as with every modern game. Story didn't hold my interest despite trying to watch all the cutscenes. You can tell this game was pushed out to make more money as with a little bit more time invested it could be amazing.… Expand
  28. red259
    Nov 25, 2013
    6
    I took the time to write a review, because I don't want people to get misled by the hype and run out and blow all their money on this game. There is no way this game is a 10. The premise of the game is interesting and the game is ambitions. I enjoy the graphics. However, the controls are absolutely terrible. Its even worse than I remember from brotherhood. Its very difficult to do anythingI took the time to write a review, because I don't want people to get misled by the hype and run out and blow all their money on this game. There is no way this game is a 10. The premise of the game is interesting and the game is ambitions. I enjoy the graphics. However, the controls are absolutely terrible. Its even worse than I remember from brotherhood. Its very difficult to do anything without the game thinking your trying to do something else. I have found the game to be extremely frustrating due to the poor control design. Unfortunately, since the story is not that great the only thing that could save this game is the game play, but you need intuitive controls for that. If this had been the first attempt of a company at a game maybe I could be a bit more forgiving. However, this is another game in a long series of games and apparently the company could not be bothered to fix problems that have existed in their prior games. Bottom line is that it was a game with potential, but poor game design has really taken the fun out of it.… Expand
  29. Dragz
    Feb 3, 2014
    6
    I love all of Assassin's creeds games. But this one wasn't that good like the other ones. It was fun yes, but I didn't liked that you are a pirate and almost always are in a ship. It just didn't feel like the other games. But the graphics are good and most of the game play is still really fun.
  30. dyspeptic
    Feb 3, 2015
    6
    VERSION: Steam (XBOX controller)
    PROS: + ship combat is better than before + stealth is more important (i.e. "don't be detected" objective is common) + all weapons have situations where useful
    CONS: - uninteresting protagonist and nonsensical story - annoying stuff = sharks, eavesdropping missions, grinding (stealing ships), op'd "legendary ships" Okay but not compelling. The cracks    VERSION: Steam (XBOX controller)
    PROS: + ship combat is better than before + stealth is more important (i.e. "don't be detected" objective is common) + all weapons have situations where useful
    CONS: - uninteresting protagonist and nonsensical story - annoying stuff = sharks, eavesdropping missions, grinding (stealing ships), op'd "legendary ships"

    Okay but not compelling. The cracks are starting to show in the series: being better than AC3 is not very high praise but seems to be what everyone liked best about this installment. Definitely disregard the stuff about a great story, too: pirates were/are selfish thieves and their motives really aren't a strong enough basis for an entire storyline as you'll find out if you bother with this.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

31
#31 Best PC Game of 2013
15
#15 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
16
#16 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
84

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. GameCritics
    Mar 5, 2014
    60
    Ironically enough for a game which centers around the concept of genetic ancestry, however, it continually lets itself down by refusing to break away from its own tired and worn-out heritage,
    Read full review
  2. DarkZero
    Jan 16, 2014
    90
    Fans that were bummed out by Assassin’s Creed III will most likely find Black Flag to be a welcoming return to what they love about the series, with a great story, amazingly crafted world and smart additions to the sailing that make it a refreshing part of the Assassin’s Creed formula.
    Read full review
  3. PC PowerPlay
    Dec 30, 2013
    90
    Makes up for the failings of AC3, delivering a fantastic, engaging open world experience. [Jan 2014, p.78]
See all critic reviews »