RPS has an article today in which they postulate that AC4 might be piratical in nature, as in you taking the role of Edward Kenway,the father of Haythan Kenway…
The reason for this speculation is this Kotaku poster reveal calling the game AC4: Blag Flag…
It makes a certain kind of sense, since the nautical adventures were the best part of AC3, but its not a direction I suspected the game would take. I loved Haythan Kenway…such a cool character compared to the stupid main protagonist, Connor the wooden sulk.
I haven’t played Assassin’s Creed 3, so I don’t know what their ship implementation is like. But if it’s anything like the original Sid Meier’s Pirates, I hope they also have treasure maps so that you go around the Caribbean looking for treasure based on the map.
How about not-assassins-creed-4 black flag instead? All of the assassins creed gameplay except for the ship stuff is pretty weak, and the ship stuff by itself is not enough to carry a full game. So combine the sourced ship gameplay with the AC art direction and get someone new to do the Caribbean towns and forts and RPG-ish gameplay and just forget about the stupid AC story completely…
I certainly like the looks of this. Maybe it can fill the gaping hole in my heart left by the cancellation of that Pirates of the Caribbean open world game.
Mind you, it makes perfect sense that the next AC title might involve pirates, given what we’ve seen in AC3. But while I can believe in an Assassin’s Creed 4, or an Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag, I just can’t believe in an Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag.
That’s not how AC games are named. The first installment for each number is just AC + the number: Assassin’s Creed 2, Assassin’s Creed 3. The colon + subtitle is reserved for standalone expansions and/or spin-offs - Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation. This has both a new number plus a subtitle, which to me adds up to shenanigans. Why go straight to the subtitle?
Has anyone done a trademark search? If these posters are really supposed to go up on March 4, that would solve the mystery in about 5 minutes.
I’m rather sure that AC IV: Black Flag is the real deal. Most of the people who write about the ‘rumours’ probably know. Btw., trademark search is only going to help you so much because you’re not going to find “Assassin’s Creed III” (or “Assassin’s Creed 3”) in the database either.
Looking forward to learning more about the game. I was really bummed when Disney cancelled that Pirates of the Caribbean game Propaganda was working on - maybe AC IV will fill that gap.
This does make sense. They’ll get to use much of the same tech from 3 (boats, wilderness running), and they’ll be able to recycle a lot of assets as well. At the same time, they get to give players something relatively fresh after the long slog of the AC2 series.
Well, the thing that’s potentially contentious is the “Black Flag” part, not “Assassin’s Creed” (which is already a registered trademark) or the number. Ubi would have to be confident that no other company is out there lurking with a solid game trademark on “Black Flag” before they went to market with the phrase so prominently displayed.
(Or maybe they figure it’s not distinctive enough to be trademarkable? That’s probably true of “Brotherhood” or “Revelations” but less clear with “Black Flag.” It seems to be distinctive enough for the insecticide guys.)
One of the reasons you tack things on after colons in titles is to avoid trademark problems. Sure, you can’t go with Assassin’s Creed: Coca Cola, but they should be safe from the bug spray people and probably from the band too, because neither of those trademarks (assuming a punk rock band actually bothered to trademark themselves) is going to apply with a universal scope.
True, the bug spray trademark if it only applies to bug sprays wouldn’t interfere even with a pure game title “Black Flag”, but for some mysterious reason, when you tack it on to a base brand family name that already has been trademarked, it’s even less prone to legal attack.
I’m definitly surprised we’re getting a 4 so soon. I doubt it will mirror the leap from 1-2, or 2-3. My guess is they got the message that fans felt burned out by the spin-offs, so they’re just giving it a new number.
Well, AC III is selling way, way, waaaayyyy better than AC: Revelations, so yeah, I’d guess that would be one of the reasons why this one has the “IV” in its title.
