Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag "not the legacy of AC3 only"

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag will not simply import mechanics from much-criticised Assassin's Creed 3, preferring to cherry pick from the franchise as a whole.

In an internally produced interview with creative director Jean Guesdon, Ubisoft described Assassin's Creed 3's gameplay mechanics as not "attractive or not introduced properly", asking how the development team will ensure that "the player has a fun, intelligent and progressive experience from start to end".

"AC is a great franchise that allows us to learn from previous iterations. We’ve identified some areas of improvements and will definitely make sure that all systems are properly introduced and relevant to the player’s own motivations. We’re not the legacy of AC3 only but of all previous AC games and we spent a lot of time analysing the best things we could use from all of them," Guesdon said.

One of the features the team is hoping to bring back is stealth, which has gradually decreased in importance and was somewhat poorly implemented in Assassin's Creed 3.

"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," Guesdon said.

"So yes, stealth will be back. Infiltrations, tails and exploration of islands are all part of it. We are making sure that the level design not only support but encourage stealth. We’re working hard at providing missions and environments that always allow the player to choose this type of play."

Guesdon said the key challenge of Black Flag is delivering a realistic, fun, open world naval and pirate game while remaining true to the pillars of the Assassin's Creed franchise.

"Ultimately my objective with [Black Flag] is to provide a very good, polished and fun game that players will enjoy as much as we enjoy creating it," he said.

"I would be thrilled to receive testimonies 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."

Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag is headed to PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U and Xbox 360, and is also expected on Microsoft’s new console.