However, this is still, for our money, one of the most entertaining of the main Assassin's Creed games simply by virtue of the fact it takes what made the stellar Black Flag so entertaining and just gives you more of it. It's not graphically as strong as Black Flag, its story and voice-acting (those Irish accents, yeeesh!) pale in comparison and its main campaign doesn't take too long to blast through should you eschew the bevvy of side activities and collectables its got for you to hoover up.
Shay's adventure was originally released as a bit of a stop-gap on PS3 and 360 as they came to the end of their lives, and in some respects, it shows. We won't give away too much in terms of story here, but Rogue was a bit of a departure for the series, with a central protagonist who turns his back on the assassins to walk the path of the series' staple enemies. It's all part of these game really stuff that didn't ever really get properly ironed out until Origins and Odyssey.Īlongside the swashbuckling adventures of Edward Kenway, you've also got Shay Patrick Cormac's Templar turn in Assassin's Creed Rogue. You'll find yourself caught out during stealth missions because protagonist Edward decides to get stuck to some bit of scenery, jumps up to grab a branch instead of ducking down into a bush or refuses to jump from a wall in time to hide from your enemies. Parkour can be sticky and fiddly, scraps can break down into farce very easily and controls can generally feel quite unwieldy at times. As good as Black Flag is, it suffers from some of the same problems as many of the series' other outings. But there's also a ton of side quests, assassin's contracts, naval contracts, ship and weapon upgrades, crafting, hunting, harpooning, rescuing your pirate brethren and treasure maps hunts to get completely lost in as well – and all of it is here on Switch, looking and performing as good as we could ever really have hoped. Battling it out with a particularly large enemy ship during a huge storm as the violent dark seas swell around your craft is worth the price of admission alone, to be quite honest. Of course, there's the amazing naval combat, the feather in Black Flag's cap, taken from Assassin's Creed III and turned to pure gold here it just never gets old and still feels and looks amazing. Besides the beefy main campaign here, starring one of the series' most charismatic and straight-up fun protagonists, you've got an absolute wealth of fun side activities to partake in as you breeze around the Caribbean.
So too the seemingly endless islands dotted around the map to discover, each one with a check-list of treasure chests, viewpoints, hostages and other activities that are just perfect for jumping in and cleaning up in a quick portable session.Įxperiencing this adventure again, it's easy to see why Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag became such a fan favourite over the years. Missions tend to be pretty short with a handful of fun additional objectives to give them replayability and you can polish most of them off in twenty minutes or so, give or take the odd long exposition-heavy chapter.
With its absolutely enormous world map stuffed to the brim with secrets and treasures, it becomes apparent that this is a game that's actually perfectly suited to dipping in and out of in handheld. Playing through Black Flag in portable mode is actually something of a revelation.