Black Flag Resynced is skipping the RPG format

It feels kind of weird for there to be only one big Ubisoft game on the horizon, doesn't it? They've got Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon, Watch Dogs and a million other franchises kicking about, and yet the biggest thing they have teed up this year is a remake of a game from 2013.

Not that I'm complaining about the recently-announced Black Flag: Resynced, though. The original was a swashbuckling adventure that was honestly too good for the Assassin's Creed brand, and I'm excited to see it redone on current-gen hardware. Development on the project even seems to have progressed further than the announcement — which featured only a single piece of concept art — would have you believe.

Tom Henderson, a proven-reliable gaming industry insider, has revealed that Resynced will drop on July 19th, with the game entering full-on marketing mode soon. He also reports the game has been completely reworked with new content, and — crucially — it's not an RPG.

"This remains a solo adventure and character-driven experience. It is not an RPG," the presentation revealed.

I was sure Ubisoft would reinvent Black Flag in the style of the bloated, repetitive, grindy, 100-hour pseudo-RPGs that have made up the Assassin's Creed series of late. The fact that they're not doing that is a good sign, and I hope it means they're starting to get over their allergy to good decisions.

Of course, being optimistic about the triple-A sector these days feels like a fool's game.

Previously:

• The Assassin's Creed: Black Flag remake is real
• Leaked plans show Ubisoft backed away from Reconstruction-era game featuring Black protagonist
• Skull and Bones, Ubisoft's follow-up to its most acclaimed game, is here and it's not very good