Why Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Is The Best Assassin's Creed

A pirate is nothing without his set of cutlasses and pistols, and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag has one of the most complete set of weapon arsenals in the entire franchise. Players start up with two pistols and two sword sets at the start of the game, but arriving in the first set of missions in Havana soon brings out the AC classic features of hidden blades and smoke bombs.

Revelations and III had both tried to revolutionise their games with the introductions of everything from tomahawks to bomb crafting, but it's clear that there is a set list of weapons gamers want from their Assassin's Creed games at this point. And whilst something like the hookblade was a genuinely interesting concept at the time, it wasn't worth having to go over the entire world and throw in a load of unnatural ziplines and out of reach ledges just to make it playable.

Edward Kenway and co. do away with all of these complications and strip everything back to a simple, hyper-aggressive style that makes sense for a series of pirating adventures. Stealth and sneaking mechanics were also given serious boosts in Black Flag too, with long grass and bushes slowly starting to replace hay bales and benches being placed everywhere, all of which helps make this world stand out as feeling more real and natural to play in.