Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is an impressive remake/remaster of Ubisoft’s iconic pirate adventure that brings back everything you loved about the original with plenty of brand-new additions to boot. It plays and looks better, but has enough new meat on the bone you’ll need to get familiar with before everything begins to feel natural.

Naval combat possesses more weight and nuance than before, combat has additional depth, while the open world also hides more alluring secrets than ever before. This is the pirate epic you know and love, but after thirteen long years, here are some tips and tricks to ensure you get the best out of it all over again.

Take Your Time In The Early Hours

Edward Kenway is pretty useless in the early hours of Black Flag Resynced. The Jackdaw is only capable of taking on the smallest of vessels and going close to enemy bases you’re not remotely prepared for is going to result in a quick death. So, when you have finally escaped from the first few hours of tutorials and can tackle the West Indies on your own terms, take your time.

Open up the map and try and experience all the locations both big and small that surround you, ensuring you are gaining extensive knowledge of combat and even take out a few lowly schooners and frigates along the way.

After I tried to take on a few more powerful ships, or I simply wandered into a part of the open world I wasn’t ready for I knew to retreat, earn some money that could be spent on ship upgrades once they become available, and have plenty of wins under my belt before the adventure truly gets started. You’ll thank me later, I swear.

Don’t Stop Boarding Ships

It can be easy to reach a certain point in Black Flag Resynced where you’re in desperate need of resources for upgrades in order to get past a wall of artificial difficulty, but you just haven’t been paying much attention to gathering the things you need.

My advice is to make the attacking and boarding of ships a common part of your routine. If you find a nearby vessel you can take on while travelling to an objective or en-route to your next destination, why not have a scrap for some valuable spices and metals?

Boarding the ship also offers an opportunity to decrease your wanted level, open the captain’s chest, or recruit the vessel into Kenway’s personal armada. You can also repair your ship, which is great for taking on multiple ships at once without swimming with the fishes.

Visit Every Location You Come Across

Similar to consistently staying on top of ships, if you adopt a semi-completionist mindset when exploring the world of Black Flag Resynced, you will definitely not regret it. If I was working my way towards the main quest using the Jackdaw and saw a few little question marks between myself and my destination, I always made sure to stop by.

Some locations might be guarded by patrolling ships, but with enough patience you should be able to sneak the Jackdaw around and dock anyway.

This might result in just a single synchronisation point and a couple of treasure chests, but other times you might stumble across an incredibly rare weapon or a legendary outfit. It’s always worth taking a few minutes out of your session to do this, and it also factors into gathering resources like I mentioned earlier.

The L2 Button Is Your Best Friend

Eagle Vision is present and accounted for in Black Flag Resynced, but aside from a few key missions, I didn’t find myself using it much. The other in-game icons do a good enough job of pointing out objectives, while you’re rarely going to find yourself stuck with a hard puzzle.

But L2 — or your platform's equivalent — is invaluable when it comes to completing locations or finding everything they have to offer.

Orange will lead you to less valuable treasures and the location of keys needed to unlock treasure chests and warehouses, while a blinking white is always going to lead to either a chest or a secret. I always head to the nearest synchro point and hold L2 to see what I might have missed, or, failing that, simply open up the map.

Don’t Worry About Mastering Combat

The combat system in Black Flag Resynced does not have a lot of depth. You can wipe out an army of approaching Spanish or British soldiers by simply performing a never-ending series of parries and takedowns. While a smoke bomb can be thrown on the ground to murder the majority of standard enemies around you with swift assassinations.

I would also recommend gaining upgrades or wearing trinkets that ensure heavy enemy types are vulnerable to subsequent takedowns and abilities like the incredibly broken kick.

Yes, you can use things like the rope hook, berserk, and sleep darts during combat, but when the easiest route to victory is spamming the same basic attacks and counters over and over, it feels pointless to do anything else. So, don’t panic too much about going down in a scrap.

Naval Combat Is All About Positioning

If you jump into a large naval battle in the early hours of Black Flag Resynced you are going to be absolutely battered. The majority of larger ships can take you out in a few small strikes while you won’t have the upgrades or equipment required to stand a chance.

But once you’ve upgraded your ship, expanded your homebase, and have recruited one of the three new specialist officers, you should be capable enough to take on forts or even the Man O’ War if you feel brave enough.

If you’re running low on health in a battle against multiple ships, you can board one and defeat its crew to increase your health while other enemies have no choice but to wait.

My advice to emerge victorious in most naval conflicts, though, is to keep on moving, and to develop a habit of strafing around targets so they can never get a bead on you. Hit hard in the first few moments before streaming around the back for a quick ram, and keep this up until you can destroy them with a distant mortal or come in close to the board. Stay on the move and you’ll be just fine.

Build Out Your Base Right Away

After making some decent progress through the campaign, you will gain access to Great Inagua, an expanded version of Edward Kenway’s pirate hideout from the original game.

Not only does this grant you access to a new line of Templar quests and a fancy manor to customise with all manner of weapons, armour, and trinkets, you also gain access to new forms of passive income and the ability to construct unique buildings across the island.

Make sure to build all the available facilities, like the tavern, general store, shipwright, and so on right away so you have access to a new selection of goods at lower prices. Many can also be upgraded, although this will require a more comprehensive investment. Get on top of these before going further into the story so you have a reason to keep coming back.

Don’t Forget To Check The Animus For Goodies

The Animus Hub returns in Black Flag Resynced, remaining as a tool to link all games in the series together and also offer individual assignments with battle pass-esque rewards.

I made progress through a number of its challenges without even noticing, meaning that when I first opened it I had enough points to progress through my chosen pass and unlock some stellar cosmetics and weapons, one of which was Connor’s costume from Assassin’s Creed 3.

You can also complete extra missions throughout the open world to earn extra fragments, but these are very generic and often boring, so only do them if you want everything these Animus Hub passes have to offer. It’s worth opening it up every once in a while though.