Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced mod makes Blackbeard playable — just don't think too hard about historical accuracy

A new mod for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced lets you play as Blackbeard himself, courtesy of modder Kamzik123. The playable Blackbeard mod is available on Nexus Mods and drops you into the boots of the most famous pirate in history — cannon fuses in beard, galleons to capture, ports to swagger through.

The article uses the mod as a springboard to flag some genuinely grim historical context. Archaeologists excavating the wreck of Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, found a urethral syringe used to inject mercury as a syphilis treatment, along with a clyster pump for medical enemas. The BBC has noted Blackbeard "probably had syphilis," pointing to mercury being among the expensive medical supplies he demanded during his 1718 blockade of Charlestown, South Carolina — an event that's actually depicted in both the original Black Flag and Black Flag Resynced.

Black Flag Resynced is a fan-made overhaul of Ubisoft's 2013 open-world pirate game, sharpening and expanding the original experience while keeping Edward Kenway's story at its center. Blackbeard is one of several real historical pirates woven into the narrative, which makes the mod a natural fit — though the historical reality of pirate life was considerably less romantic than the game suggests. The piece draws a parallel to Red Dead Redemption 2, which commits to historical grimness by having its protagonist slowly die of tuberculosis.

The mod is live on Nexus Mods now. No mercury syringes are required to download it.