With discourse surrounding the highly anticipated Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag Remake soaring, fans have reached a boiling point after Ubisoft seemingly confirmed that the modern-day segments will be completely removed.
This isn’t a good sign. Personally, these modern-day scenarios have always been the focal point of Assassin’s Creed titles. Otherwise, what would be the point of diving into the past with zero context about the present? We all know the Animus still exists, and we all know someone is still using our favorite Assassin’s Creed protagonists as mere avatars. But without a guiding hand or named presence at the helm, all of the stealth assassinations and historical journeys feel futile.
The removal of Black Flag’s modern-day setting is yet another result of Ubisoft’s continued abandonment of this plotline. We’ve already discussed the implications of this in a previous piece, where the series completely went downhill after moving away from Desmond following his death. Even the Isu mythology has been mostly shelved, kept alive only through minor callbacks.
Eliminating the modern-day segments in Black Flag doesn’t make sense, as one of the game’s major plot points revolves around the elusive “Sage,” who is directly tied to Isu lineage, specifically Juno’s husband Aita. Both the modern-day perspective and Edward Kenway’s Animus journey involve the Sages, playing a crucial role in the overarching story about ancient civilizations and great catastrophes. This ultimately leads to Assassin’s Creed’s looming confrontation with an Isu survivor, only for fans to discover it was resolved in a comic book.
Without that connection, what is the point of a Black Flag Remake beyond replaying another pirate adventure with better graphics? It’s like cutting off limbs from a perfect body, leaving only a torso with no moving parts. As morbid as it sounds, it's clear Ubisoft no longer cares about modern-day Assassin’s Creed stories, aware that most players keep coming back only for the historical segments.
This is not a sudden move either. Ubisoft has long been phasing out modern-day scenarios after a minority of fans found them uninteresting. Following the closure of Layla’s arc in Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla, the mainline games simply stopped incorporating them.
In Ubisoft’s latest title, Assassin's Creed: Shadows, controllable modern-day sequences are virtually nonexistent. Players instead take the role of an unnamed avatar, piecing together the present-day narrative through snippets and reading emails, more like reading a novel than playing a game.
To be fair, there is some good news. Ubisoft has promised to expand Mary Read’s missions and flesh out her character, which is a welcome addition. But it’s still disappointing to see the studio steering away from the modern-day mystery that has always been a personal highlight of the franchise.
Assassin’s Creed without a modern-day storyline doesn’t feel like Assassin’s Creed. Those segments give weight to why we’re even inside the Animus in the first place. We aren’t just hunting down Isu artifacts and reliving history on repeat; we’re supposed to be confronting present-day consequences and doing our usual Templar vs. Assassin’s battle. Ubisoft removing that has been one of the franchise’s biggest fumbles.
I stand with the fans calling Ubisoft out on this, and I hope the company finally listens and puts more effort into the modern-day narrative that once made Assassin’s Creed so compelling.
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