Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag trailer targets multiplayer features

Over the course of the last few months, Ubisoft have released what seems like every single scene from Assassin's Creed 4: Hooray for Pirates! in an unstoppable parade of trailers. Having run out of campaign chum to throw into the waters, they've turned to the multiplayer, providing a quick run down of its features, modes and customisation options.

Okay, so there's no open sea boat showdowns, and that's something of a disappointment, but the series' multiplayer has always been one of the better superfluous online attachments to a primarily singleplayer game. Taking the basic form of the Hunted game type - as seen in The Ship - you get to hide in plain sight among an assortment of AI identiclones, tricking fellow players and attempting to assassinize your chosen prey. This version seems to add more layers onto that, with the demoed mission involving some CTF fluff.

The ability to tailor your own game types seems like a nice addition, although whether it works in practice is another matter. While the showcased style - only guns - sounds insufferable, the opportunity to reduce all the extraneous abilities and weapons in favour of a purer stealth game type sounds appealing. Because, if you remember, this was once a series about stabbing people. Or about being a bartender strapped into a virtual reality history-'em-up. I forget.

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is already out on the consoles. We'll be getting it on November 21st.

Phil Savage
Editor-in-Chief

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.