Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced will give you more Edward Kenway: "It feels like the original, but on steroids 10x"

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced feels almost like a moment for Ubisoft’s beloved pirate game to break out from the rest of the series. The first to move away from initial meta-protagonist Desmond Miles, it always felt like a dramatic departure, and while the assassin elements were certainly still present, it was much more about swashbuckling and sailing the high seas. For the long-awaited Black Flag remake, actor Matt Ryan is lacing his boots up again as protagonist Edward Kenway, and he says there’s more of the enigmatic lead to dig into this time around.

“Getting back into the studio, getting back into the mocap suit was a really nostalgic, wonderful experience for me,” Ryan recalls during an interview with Daemon Hatfield at IGN Live. “It felt, in a way, like putting on an old jacket that I hadn’t worn for 13 years – and it still fit, you know?” While he says that Black Flag Resynced still uses “a lot of the original stuff that we did in 2013,” he notes that “the technology’s advanced so much now,” and you can expect a good amount of fresh detail.

“There are more cinematics that we did, and also new lines and stuff like that,” Ryan explains. “We’ve really added to the character to give him more depth and fill him out – I’m really excited for you guys to play it, because I’ve played a little bit of it and it really blew me away.”

“It feels like the original, but on steroids 10x.” If you’re returning as a fan of its 2013 incarnation, Ryan hopes you’ll enjoy “all the great work that everybody’s been doing on the game and all of the added story stuff.” But he admits being even more envious of those coming to it fresh, “because they get to go on this journey for the first time.”

“13 years after the original game, I’ve been on a journey myself in life,” Ryan remarks. “I feel like I have much more of an affiliation with that big character arc that he goes on now, because it’s been 13 years. So yeah, bringing that kind of depth to the characters has been really great.”

Ubisoft has overhauled the combat for the remake (Tom came away from his preview very impressed), but for Ryan, it was the more personal moments that proved challenging to record. “What I find with the mocap is when you’re doing a scene and you’re close to someone, or it’s an intimate scene or something, you’ve got this camera in your face. So, you know, you keep butting heads somewhat… and you’re in that suit, you know, there’s nothing that’s left to the imagination. It’s a fun process, I’ll tell you, really revealing there.”

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced launches on Thursday July 9. As for Ryan’s favorite protagonist across the rest of the series? Well, it’s Ezio, which might be the safe answer, but it’s a hard one to argue with.