It's easy to forget that one of the biggest gaming franchises started out with an innovative title that actually worked to distance itself from its parent series, Prince of Persia. The obvious reason for that is because so many iterative Assassin's Creed games have come out since then, but the subtle reason might be because the game in the series most celebrated for its innovation is an absolute disaster. I played Black Flag because it had been called "the GOOD Assassin's Creed game" for years, only to find it's entirely half-baked. The missions on land are uniformly terrible with their clunky stalking sequences, the ship combat is only visually interesting, the mobile game style ship management is mind-numbing, and I found the story to be hilarious in how much it missed the mark. Imagine you're at a design meeting and asked to make a story about pirates. Chances are, you'll write the words "fighting over treasure" in the middle of a sheet of blank printer paper, hand it in, then go for drinks. For some reason, Black Flag opted for a slow story about politics in the piratical community, with the Assassin's Creed signature of standing next to historical figures as they do the thing they're famous for, as they give a wink to the camera and say you're a cool dude. Honestly I could go on for ages about all the things I don't like about this game but this has already gotten too long so whatever just don't play this.