You can’t talk about Edward Kenway’s Caribbean adventures in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag without talking about his true partner in crime: the Jackdaw. More than just wood and canvas, this ship is a character all on its own. While veterans will instantly recognise her magnificent prow, she’s gotten some sweet upgrades in the Resynched iteration.
In a developer deep dive, some of the big ticket items got a bit of a highlight – including the best way to deal with an open world that has lost all of its loadscreens: AutoPilot.
With a big arse map of the Caribbean waters at your behest, you’ll need to get around it. Sailing is a fantastic activity in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, so no worries in doing a lot of it – but the simple addition of being able to place a Pathfinder Pin on the map and get both a heading and an easy to follow route is a no brainer.
But AutoPilot? Well, the developers are calling this one ‘Follow Sea’, but the implementation is what you’d expect. Fancy name aside, it is literally cruise control for your galleon. Lock in your coordinates, activate it, and watch the wheel spin itself. You can then sit back and enjoy the views – and more importantly, the shanties of your crew.
Imagine if you could pick the shanty. Oh wait, you can.
Yeah that’s right, the addition of new shanties also comes with the ability for Edward to actually call for a specific one when he wants it. With your controller in hand, you can press the Dpad down and call for whatever tune tickles your particular fancy at that moment. There’s nothing stopping you from enjoying them the old fashioned way, with a random shanty popping up – or even going for a little silence with another button press.
Considering the lofty number of shanties in the remade game (35 original ones, and 10 brand spankers) you’d likely need a way to dig up the new ones and make sure you don’t miss them.
These barely scratch the surface of the amazing uplifts within Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, but these are the ones that immediately appeal to my salt-addled brain. It is the kind of game that I can absolutely see myself setting an enormous trek across the waves just to drink in the ambience and the shanties. I give it all of a few hours before such a video appears on YouTube as a future vibe vid.
Are you itching to get back at the helm? Do these upgrades sound like a magical uplift for the Jackdaw? Let us know in the comments or on social media.
Known throughout the interwebs simply as M0D3Rn, Ash is bad at video games. An old guard gamer who suffers from being generally opinionated, it comes as no surprise that he is both brutally loyal and yet, fiercely whimsical about all things electronic. On occasion will make a youtube video that actually gets views. Follow him on YouTube @Bad at Video Games
