Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is getting a real-life treasure hunt with a prize worth half a million dollars

A real-life treasure hunt based on Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is starting later this year, with a prize valued at $500,000.

Run by French company Unsolved Hunts, the treasure hunt is named Gold & Crystal: The Lost Treasure of Edward Kenway, a reference to the game’s protagonist.

Players who want to take part in the treasure hunt will have to buy a pack from Unsolved Hunts, with the hunt officially starting on November 9.

The hunt will consist of 15 riddles, which players will have to solve to find the location of a treasure chest buried in the Caribbean. When players solve all 15 puzzles and figure out where the chest is located, they submit it via the hunt’s digital interface.

The first person to correctly find the chest wins a physical treasure chest filled with gold coins, and a crystal skull set with an opal. The total value of this prize is estimated to be $500,000.

Treasure hunt packs range in price from €34.99 (for a digital version of the hunt) all the way up to €199.99 (for a physical version, a notebook, a bonus 2-4 player strategy game, a bonus 6-8 hour investigation game, Kenway’s flag, a coin from the hunt and a seal, wax and calligraphy set).

Those who pre-order a pack ahead of the hunt’s official start on November 9 will be given immediate access to their digital interface, with a prologue mission which takes around 10 hours to complete and will give players a taste of the logic and deduction required for what lies ahead”.

Players who complete this prologue quest will get access to the first puzzle of Gold & Crystal before everyone else , with all 15 puzzles releasing to pre-order customers the week before the official November 9 start date.

While this will give pre-order customers a head-start, it doesn’t mean the treasure will be found before November 9. Unsolved Hunts predict it will take between two and five years for the first person to solve all 15 riddles and find the treasure.

After numerous reports about its existence, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was finally officially announced last month. The game will be released on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC on July 9.