The following is a general Q&A regarding Ubisofts upcoming game Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag;

What are the creative challenges of designing and implementing a completely open, unified and totally seamless world? How much of the Caribbean can we explore?

Merging land and sea is our true challenge and i think its the only way to make this work. By achieving this, we create a place with tons of opportunities. It is one game that combines a new and fresh pirate fantasy with the classic AC gameplay (combat, free-running).

The open-world will constantly bring fresh, always interesting and fun content to you. Even if you have visited an area before the events will always surprise you. Let’s take an example of an open-world event. You might be enjoying traditional AC city gameplay, free running across the rooftops of Havana, and suddenly you fall upon a citizen being harassed by Spanish troops. You can save him using all of your Assassin skills, either using stealth or by charging in, two cutlasses in hand. After saving him, he asks you to help save his family from slavers, who are hiding on a plantation near Kingston. You run to the Jackdaw and set sail towards the plantation.

On the way there, you might see a couple of merchant ships you want to loot, as they contain goods too valuable to pass up. Or you might see the rare White Whale on the horizon. You might spot a new island that you’ve never seen before, with its own secrets and content…

What kind of ships will you meet on the ocean?

The player will encounter and fight a wide variety of ship models: from the merchant ship to the feared Man of war, there will be plenty of captains awaiting you and your crew. You will have to take into account their speed, their behaviour and the current weather to find the most appropriate tactic to prevail against enemy ships. Everything happens systemically in the ocean which makes every encounter a challenge for the player. Not to mention the pirate hunters when your wanted level becomes critical.

How have you managed to narratively balance the life of an assassin with that of a pirate?

At first glance they don’t seem to be easily linked.
That’s exactly what interests us the most narratively about Edward. He is, at heart, a pirate. And he’s not a “good” pirate like you see in children’s tales; he is a criminal with a taste for glory. A pirate trained by Assassins, there’s endless possibilities to explore.

How does a criminal, who is looking out for himself, fit with the Creed?

The clash between these two ideologies within Edward is one of the most exciting things about him, and it is at the heart of our story.

Can you go into a little more detail on what players should expect from raiding forts?

The forts serve a new gameplay purpose this time around, as they are naval forts. They act not only as strongholds for your enemies, but also as watchtowers for narrow sea passages. If you want to get to a specific new island off the coast of Cuba, for example, you might have no choice but to defeat a fort that is guarding the passage. This adds a further element of strategy and progression to the game.
Once the forts have been taken over they will defend your ship by firing upon pursuing vessels.

It was mentioned during the presentation that the ‘open ended assassination set-ups’ will be returning from Assassins Creed 1. How will these play into Black Flag?

These assassination missions will take place in a wide variety of environments, but each of these set-ups will be largely self-contained (similar to the Far Cry 3 outposts).

Assassinations are the heart of Assassins Creed, and we feel that AC1 had the best set-ups and supported all kinds of different play styles. We are simply leveraging our franchise history to make the best assassination scenarios possible for the player. They will tackle challenges the way they want.

Stealth will always be a viable option for players, regardless the location or the type of mission.

After the shocking conclusion to Desmond’s story in AC III – what can we expect from the Science-Fiction/present day elements?

Though the story of Desmond Miles has concluded, the plot line of the present day keeps going. Now, the player is the hero, and he or she is a new employee at Abstergo Entertainment. His/her first mandate is researching a famous pirate named Edward Kenway.

We took the opportunity presented to us by Desmond’s absence to bring the player one step closer to the Assassin. Instead of playing as an avatar who, in turn, became the Assassin in the past, now you are actually logging into your own Animus station at Abstergo Entertainment and researching Edward Kenway. This brings the player closer to the fantasy!

 What can players expect from the Companion app?

The companion app is your second screen (we support Android and iOS). Players will be able to use it to improve their exploration of the West Indies. Among other uses, it allows players to localize their ship in real time, share discoveries with their friends (eg: the coordinates of rare animal) and manage Kenway’s fleet.

Describe some of the visual features, special effects, higher fidelity that are possible on PS4 compared to existing platforms?

Visually, the player will absolutely see the difference: from environments to characters, everything will be much more realistic. That’s the direction we have pushed for Assassins Creed: visual enhancements are selected and pushed only if they improve the immersion in the game.

A couple of examples are the plant physics (whenever you must hide from your enemies), the water droplets (on the trees in the jungles) or the volumetric fog (brings more intensity in the naval fights).

Have you had to upgrade the Anvil Engine much for Black Flag?

Absolutely. Anvil Next is an extremely powerful and versatile engine. The new setting and the structure of our open world come with their own set of requirements. In AC3, for example, the naval and land game-plays were completely separated—almost like two different games put together. For ACIV, we had to modify the engine to join these to enable the AC land gameplay to live at the same time as the naval gameplay. The player can sail anywhere, and leave the wheel to jump in the water to go explore an island or to board a ship by using free-running.

On top of this, we are also modifying the engine to get the most out of the increased power we have got from the next gen platforms.

Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag is a project developed by world-wide studios. How do you manage to ensure a global consistency of the game with so many studios working on it?

Ubisoft Montreal is the lead studio for Black Flag and has been since summer 2011. But it’s a real co-production with other studios (Ubisoft Singapore, Ubisoft Sofia, Ubisoft Quebec for the Single Player, Ubisoft Annecy and Bucharest for the Multiplayer part as well as Ubisoft Kiev).

We are extremely efficient with this kind of process now. Multiple studios have been involved in parallel on AC games starting since AC2.

This time, we’ve put in place a dedicated team to ensure the best possible communication with tools and processes to make sure that every team knows what they have to deliver to make the best possible game.

Ultimately, what is your objective with Black Flag? And what’s the “take away” you want players to have when they finish the game?

Ultimately our objective with Black Flag is to provide a polished and fun game that players will enjoy as much as we enjoyed creating it. We would be thrilled to receive feedback telling us that the way we’re depicting this period in history helped some of our audience to realize what the Golden Age of Piracy was really like.

Stealth was once a key element in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, but that has become less and less prevalent in recent games. How much stealth is there in Black Flag?

We are putting a lot of effort to improve that pillar of the franchise. Being a pirate was also about taking places by surprise, and this would require stealth abilities. So yes, stealth will be back in ACIVBF. Infiltrations, tails and exploration of islands are all part of it.

The team aims to come back to the assassination missions the fans liked so much in AC1 and AC2.
We feel that with our tools and the design philosophy behind the missions, we will be able to make the players create their own memorable moments.

What is Assassins Creed Initiates and what is its purpose?

ACI is the definitive destination for Assassin’s Creed fans, it is a multi-platform service which enriches the Assassin’s Creed experience and unifies its fans and content.

What is the story of Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag? Where does it take place?

Black Flag tells the story of Edward Kenway, a young British man that left the navy to embrace piracy during the final decade of the Golden Age of Piracy in the West Indies (now known as the Caribbean). Edward will be thrown in the middle of the ancient war between Templars and Assassins. He will be trained by them and finally become the first Kenway member of the Assassin Order. He’s the father of Haytham, Connor is therefore Edward’s grandson.

What is the percentage split between land and sea missions?

Land missions will represent approximately 60% of the game and naval ones 40%. But if you take the global experience that players will leave with Black Flag mission wise talking about 50-50.

The Seamless, systemic open-world system (Horizon System) packed full of sea and underwater activities will represent a big part of the game.

Will the Jackdaw be the only vessel players get to command, or can larger enemy ships be commandeered after boarding?

The Jackdaw is Edward’s ship, and will be the only one he can upgrade and customize. It’s like the second character in the game and you have to take care of it whenever it takes damage.
During side-quests, Edward will command other types of ships but the vast majority of the time, players will sail on the Jackdaw.

What are the different weapons Edward will be using on his missions?

Edward’s main arsenals are the dual swords and multi-pistols. The multi-pistols are a tool that can be combined with any other weapon to have insane kill counts. Edward also gets a blowpipe with multiple effect darts, the double hidden blades (AC classic) and is able to use all the weapons enemies carry (Rifles, single sword, knives and Heavy Axe). The Rope Dart will also make a return.

But another element of Edward is The Jackdaw, his Ship. This will also receive new weapons as the game progresses. These include the Round shot (base weapons), Heat shot (shotgun like weapon), Mines, Mortar, Swivel guns, Chain shot and Ram.

How much can you realistically change things like the combat without getting too far away from the core AC experience players know?

Assassins Creed’s melee combat has always tried to remain somewhat grounded and realistic, so we have dealt with the issue of “scaling” the hero’s enemies; it’s just not possible to increase a human’s destructive power exponentially. The Agile Guards and the Brute guards remain human sized, no matter what you do. But with naval ships, the difference between a 6 gun schooner and a 100 gun Man-O-War is massive, and will provide players with incredible challenges. At the very beginning of the game there will be enemies that players cannot defeat at first. This is something that has never been present in an Assassins Creed game before.

Ground combat will be more difficult and challenging for players. We want to support stealth gameplay as much as possible. For example, the gunners (like snipers) will be very hard to take down and very aggressive if they detect you.

There were a lot of unexplained features in AC3.
What are you doing to improve the tutorial in Black Flag?

The team has worked very hard at revisiting the visual feedbacks sent to players (via the UI) as well as the tutorials to train players into using new features. We have had many playtests and they have proven to be very successful on that specific matter. We want players to feel in control and to weight their options in any circumstances.

Assassins Creed IV:Black Flag is set to release in November 2013.