After 3 hours, Ubisoft's new Assassin's Creed is now my most-anticipated game of the summer

Ubisoft's remake is more than just a wave of nostalgia Few things can warp an older video game more than the prism of nostalgia. Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag! Can you believe that’s an “older” game now? Its 2013 release marked a technological high-water mark for the era, with its glimmering Caribbean seas and ground(heh)breaking naval combat. So when Ubisoft announced a remake of Black Flag, I’ll admit, I was skeptical. Black Flag? The same one that just came out the other year? Do we really need that? Well, it turns out 13 years might have been longer ago than I’d care to admit. After a three-hour session playing Assassin’s Creed Black Black Resynced this month, I’m no longer skeptical of its necessity. In fact, I’m convinced it’s time to revisit every “technological highwater mark” from the PlayStation 4 era. Screw it. Just redo them all. Forget the macroeconomic factors that would preclude such a thing, let’s just make every game the best version of itself. Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced isn’t just a remaster — it’s a total remake of Black Flag, widely considered one of the best games in Ubisoft’s series of stabby historical tourism sims. In Black Flag, players were sent