Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced review bombed on Steam over $85 of day-one DLC

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launched on 9th July to strong sales but an immediate backlash on Steam, where players are review bombing the game over a day-one microtransaction store that totals roughly $85 in optional content — more than the $60 base game costs.

The store includes eight cosmetic character and naval packs priced at $10 each — covering new outfits for protagonist Edward Kenway and cosmetic reskins for his ship the Jackdaw — plus a $5 map pack that auto-reveals collectibles, Mayan stones, and treasure locations. A resource pack selling gold and crafting materials for £4.29 has also drawn fire as a perceived gameplay shortcut. Players who bought the Deluxe Edition for £59.99, which bundles a handful of extras, found themselves greeted in-game by over £75 worth of additional paid content they didn't own. Some reviews also flag that certain store items redirect you to Assassin's Creed Shadows to complete the purchase. PC Gamer notes the shop is accessible in fewer button presses than the save menu, and that the main menu and pause screen both surface store adverts. Ubisoft responded on Steam: "The standard edition is the full, complete experience. Every mission, every island, the full story and the complete world are all there, with nothing held back. The additional packs are entirely optional extras for players who want them, never a requirement to enjoy or complete the game."

Microtransactions have been a fixture in Assassin's Creed since Origins in 2017, but Resynced's implementation feels particularly pointed because it's a single-player remake of a 13-year-old game rather than a live-service title. On top of the paid store, Ubisoft has added Animus Projects — free reward tracks that look like battle passes and require completing weekly Anomaly challenges — and an Exchange store where Keys can be traded for iconic outfits like Connor's robes. PC Gamer points out that Altair's and Ezio's robes, which were unlockable in the original Black Flag, are now absent from normal gameplay and may surface in the store later. Despite the controversy, critics have been broadly positive: IGN gave the remake a 9/10, praising it for bringing the game up to modern standards while adding new islands, ship officers, and extended Caribbean story content.

Sales numbers tell a different story from the Steam reviews — Resynced set a new franchise concurrent player record on Steam with a peak of around 100,000, more than a third higher than Assassin's Creed Shadows' peak, and had already pulled in roughly $14 million in gross revenue before launch. The Steam rating has climbed from Mostly Negative back to Mixed as the review wave continues, and Ubisoft says it is still reading player feedback — though it has not announced any changes to the monetisation model.