Assassin's Creed 4 - Historical Context Trailer

Ubisoft has released a new trailer which places Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag in its historical context. The developers have stated they will be trying to portray piracy in a more realistic manner than most, avoiding the stereotypes about "peg-legs, bad teeth, and chatty parrots." The game takes place in the early 18th Century and centers around Edward Kenway, the father of Haytham in Assassin's Creed III.

Here are a few excerpts from a recent Q & A with scriptwriter Darby McDevitt.

On the surge of piracy in the 18th Century:

But of course there were definite events that sparked this particular surge, and in the case of AC4BF, it is the Treaty of Utrecht that pushes our characters into a life of maritime crime. This treaty, which effectively ended all hostile engagements between the major European empires, led to a massive purge of active British soldiers from the royal navy. The British just didn’t have enough land in the West Indies to warrant a massive standing army. So it’s not difficult to understand why so many sailors now idle and out of work, would turn to plundering Spanish ships for a quick score of rum, food, tobacco, sugar and gold. And once they got used to the idea of plundering Spaniards, why stop there?


On the difference between Assasssin's Creed IV's approach to portraying piracy as opposed to previous portrayals:

The biggest difference will be in the scope of our portrayal. When we wanted to make a game set in this era, we didn’t say “We want to make a Pirate game”… we challenged ourselves further with “We want to make a game about the early 18th century, of which pirates were a large part.” And I think we have succeeded. We wouldn’t have been content to simply paint everything in this world with a pirate theme – this would have been dull and easy. Instead, we focused on bringing the entire era to life… and this means paying attention to as many details as possible. What songs were the people singing, what crops were they growing, what sort of people were roaming these oceans, what was life as a sailor like, etc. Assassin’s Creed has always put a huge emphasis on historical immersion and AC4BF is no exception.

You can find the video after the break.