Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced scores 84 on Metacritic — best for the series since 2013

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced has launched as the first major release of July 2026, and the critical reception is the strongest the series has seen in over a decade. The remake currently holds a Metacritic score of 84, drawn from 83 critic reviews — a notably larger sample than the original Black Flag's 88, which was based on just 36 reviews.

To put that 84 in perspective: every mainline Assassin's Creed game released between Black Flag and Resynced fell short of that mark. Odyssey came closest at 83, while Valhalla landed at 80, Mirage at 76, and Shadows at 81. The all-time series highs still belong to Assassin's Creed 2 at 90 and Brotherhood at 89. Resynced is available in three editions — Standard at $60 for PS5 and Xbox Series X, Digital Deluxe at $70 adding PC, and a Collector's Edition at $200 across all platforms.

Black Flag — the 2013 original — is widely regarded as one of the franchise's creative peaks, built around open-sea naval combat and a pirate setting that felt genuinely distinct from the rest of the series. Ubisoft's decision to remake it rather than continue the modern RPG direction signals a deliberate look back at what made the series click. The remake's score landing above every post-2013 entry suggests that nostalgia and execution are both working in its favor, at least for most critics.

Not everyone is fully on board, though. GameSpot's Jordan Ramée wrote that while the remake shows exactly why the original was the definitive pirate game for years, it "doesn't manage to take the crown from the very game that it's remaking." Whether the broader player community agrees will become clearer as launch-week impressions roll in.