10 Best No. 4's In Gaming History

You know a game mechanic is successful when it keeps cropping up in later instalments of the series. Case in point: Black Flag's sailing, which has shown up in numerous Assassin's Creed sequels following its debut in 2013's piratical adventure.

Honestly, though, none of the subsequent Creeds have managed to match the high-water mark (har har) of the fourth entry in the series. Black Flag was the perfect marriage of theme and gameplay, with protagonist Edward Kenway's nautical lifestyle perfectly feeding into the game's systems of loot-upgrade-loot again. The game simply wouldn't have worked had Kenway been anything other than a pirate, so it's a good thing Ubisoft made simply being a pirate so damn fun.

Raiding other vessels, looking for sunken treasure, stabbing at sharks from hell's heart; all of these activities breathed life into the pirate fantasy Black Flag was selling, and it was glorious.

As the Assassin's Creed games become ever-more bloated, once again Frasier Crane's previously-stated belief that "more is more" comes to mind. The good doctor's maxim may have worked wonders for Gran Turismo 4, but there are some games where less really is more. In Black Flag, Ubisoft found the happy medium between the two philosophies and delivered the best game in the series to date.