Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Freedom Cry
Xbox Series X|S (Xbox 360/PC)
Ubisoft · Ubisoft Quebec
For years, since the first time I played the original game on PlayStation 3, I’ve been a fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. The Ezio Auditore da Firenze character arc is one of my favorite out of all the video games I’ve played. I haven’t forgiven Ubisoft for how they butchered and abandoned the Desmond Miles half of the story, but that hasn't tarnished my love for the series. Assassin’s Creed III holds a special place in my heart for trying to include First Nations characters. Black Flag was not only an excellent pirate life simulator, but it also has a queer character that doesn’t feel shoehorned in. At the end of that playthrough I had full synched—achieved 100% mission success alongside all optional objectives—all six entries in the franchise to that point.
Sony released a spin off title called Liberation, which was a part of III’s story, for their PlayStation Vita portable gaming device. I used that as an excuse to get both the game and the system in 2012 but wouldn’t full sync until 2021, and then on the personal computer (PC) version of the game. That meant I’d let the series languish for nine years before resuming my quest for completion. In that time, Ubisoft had produced six more full length primary entries alongside three side-scrolling spinoffs and four mobile games.
I’m behind, but on the plus side I have hundreds of hours of premium quality video gaming ahead of me. But I’m still adhering to one of my personal video gaming tenets: no sequels before prequels. This meant I’d have to pick up where I left off, and that was with Freedom Cry (FC).
FC is a standalone title on PC. It’s short, as add-on content like this tends to be, with nine main missions and a handful of side activities. The ship-to-ship combat that Ubisoft developed over III and IV is present, and it’s a simple matter to upgrade your player ship to the point of near invincibility. This makes the side questing in the restricted ocean areas an insignificant grind.
The optional objectives necessary for full sync are all straightforward. Experienced assassins should have no trouble achieving them. The low completion percentage was surprising (see below).
The story of Adewalé—the protagonist and player-controlled character of FC—is passable. It gets a little disjointed halfway through, and his relationship with the leading female character makes no sense, but it all serves as solid development. Lore completionists will want to clear this title.
I’m moving on to Rogue now, the next title in release sequence. I hope it will be less than a decade before I see the credits roll on that one.
221221
Notable achievements:
- Only 1% of players on Xbox liberated the five hundred slaves necessary to unlock the “special” reward, which turned out to be the achievement itself.
- Only 1.4% of players on Xbox finished all the missions.
- Only 0.42% of players on Xbox full synched Freedom Cry.
