Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced Combat Overview Tips Smarter Enemy AI, AC Shadows Parkour Touches

With a little over a month left before the launch of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced, Ubisoft has given us a look at what to expect from the latest entry into the long-running game franchise, specifically the overhauled combat, parkour, and stealth. The game studio showed off a long list of features and updates to the game, but the gist of it is that Ubisoft has invested time making the combat more reactive and challenging, the parkour more responsive and fluid, and the stealth gameplay more engaging and intuitive.

Possibly the most important and exciting new mechanic coming to Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced is a combat rework that makes enemy NPCs more interesting to face off against. According to Ubisoft, the combat in Black Flag Resynced will be “more demanding,” thanks to what it calls Adaptive Enemies, which will spot attack patterns and adapt to them over the course of a combat encounter. “For example, wait around too much for a Parry, and enemies will react by performing Unstoppable Attacks that cannot be parried. Abuse a Kick too much, and enemies will quickly dodge them. The trick is to alternate between offense and defense. Varying your combos helps. Rotate between Kicks, Sweeps, Rope Darts, Pistols and Heavy Strikes at the end of your attack combos to confuse enemies.” Enemies will also come with different archetypes, each of which have their own strengths and weaknesses, like the soldiers, who prefer to work in pairs and coordinate attacks, or the Brute, Captain, and Demolitionist, which will require players to break their guard before going in for a takedown.

On the topic of parkour and movement, Ubisoft confirmed that parkour will feel “snappier and more deliberate” than the original game, with special attention given to make Edward feel less cumbersome. He will recover faster from drops, launch into jumps more quickly, and be able to roll from a drop when sprinting to make parkour feel more fluid. Advanced Parkour, features that were available in the original Black Flag and recently added to Assassin’s Creed Shadows, will also make a return in Black Flag Resynced, but Advanced Parkour will also include the enhancements and modernizations introduced with Shadows, giving players more freedom and allowing them to jump freely to find their own shortcuts, side and back eject at will, even without a target, and parkour up and down walls more freely.

As with the jump mechanic, crouching will be untethered from hiding behind specific cover. This will allow players to sneak around more easily and execute stealth kills from the safety of the shadows. The stealth gameplay also includes a full array of stealth weapons, including a blow dart, smoke bombs, and a rope dart.