Assassins Creed Black Flag IV

Assassins creed is a open-world action-adventure stealth video game owned by Ubisoft with the first installment releasing in November 2007 for the xbox 360 and ps3 called 'Assassins Creed'.In 2002 Ubisoft ranked among the top 10 independent publishers in the world for the first time. In all assassins creed games you are a character descended from a key assassin in historic timelines and you work for abstergo to jump into your assassins ancestors memories by using abstergos simulation technology and help to collect the hidden pieces of eden lost in history. 

Most of the assassins creed games are mainly released on the playstation, xbox consoles and the PC however there are a few odd ones on Nintendo.However the amount of franchise games released can be overwhelming 

     Most recent Game released in 2020 on ps5

Assassin's Creed grossed $54.6 million in the United States and Canada and $186.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $240.9 million, against a production budget of $125 million. This does not include the amount of money Ubisoft has made from the Assassins Creed movie and products like hoodies shoes, funko-pops posters keychains. without mention of special video game events like E3. 

This case study is on Assassin creed IV Black Flag was released worldwide digitally and for the hard disc copy for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 29 2013 which was the first game to include naval combat and many different mechanics like fishing like the others did not have. The animal-rights group PETA was quick to condemn Ubisoft, saying its inclusion glorifies hurting and killing animals.

Most of the Series popularity is gained through all the different advertisements Ubisoft has paid to market the games from their own social media profile to bus posters and billboards to software applications like youtube and Spotify and by even incorporating real parkour artist to cosplay as the characters and escape from the British colonisers using parkour for a popular video that as almost 100Mil views [Image]. A lot of advertisement was also done through TV as its the most globally popular form of media and there were many posters available around many shops. 

Many of the advertisments focused on the fact that this was different to any assassins creed seen before as it was definitely a pirate game and allowed you to battle on both land and water so the big crews ship was the biggest presence in the ads.  

Blag flag kept the player engaged by allowing them to progress through the story plunder more loot from ships and get upgrades to become the most powerful through upgrading equipment, swords, guns. and also the ship from cannons to simple looks like assassin outfits from previous games and changing the way the boat appears allowing every player to create their own version of their perfect pirate ship which could be a inner adult dream, also online features were added to the game to allow players to fight each other on servers becoming the best pirate amongst the other real people, you could either work together to kill others or kill each other. 

Black Flag received positive reviews and was one of the best-selling games of 2013, with over 15 million copies sold as of 2020. There were minimal complains about the game except maybe its glitches however some found those as a reason to buy the game to see how much they can break and mess with it overall most people agree with IGN's official game review and this is the conclusion most players came to. 

The game is obviously rated as a 18+ because of its violent nature and bloody story telling as the rest of the franchise. 

Game elements and controls sequence-

Starting off this game sequence without being familiar with the franchise you can still infer all the GUI prompts and stats.

-top left is your assassins health bar 

-green dots are objectives and objective distance is shown on screen

-bottom left shows you a minimal with different icons allowing for awareness. 

-around the map there is currency and a little signal logo to show you're connected online

-top right there is a control hint telling you what actions you can perform in your current position and what button to press

-at the top middle there is a timer counting down to show how long you have to 'reach the Jackdaw' 

-bottom middle shows subtitles for environmental dialogue. 

graphically speaking black flag was a top quality game for its time and many people were amazed at how well Ubisoft managed to make a open world game look so good without needing a cutscene to improve graphics and the transitions from gameplay to movie shocked people. 

once you reach the objective your character isn't the assassin anymore but instead its your ship so the GUI and controls change

-top left shoes crews health and boat health

objective is switched to an orange color and different task

-top right shows the controls available for the jackdaw 

-bottom right shows ammo count 

the camera is always in third person allowing for the combat in the game to be more movie like and this also helps with the lock-on real sword to sword battle style allowing you to fight more than one enemy in quick succession. the objectives also changed and so did the hinted controls. 

the sequence climaxes when "thatch" gets cut down by the enemy and the assassin gets pushed off the boat and told to leave the battle area (optionally can stay as there is no time limit)

In general the game was very well made for its time and is probably a fan favourite of many players.