There is little doubt that Assassin's Creed: Black Flag is one of the best games the series has ever produced. Our swashbuckling adventures as rogueish pirate Edward Kenway are some of the most memorable of any AC protagonist, and it was a brave departure from a tried and true formula for Ubisoft.
The naval traversal and combat remain a real highlight, comfortably sticking with the later games in terms of quality, in spite of the technological limitations of the older hardware it was designed for.
It was also those technological limitations that have dated the visuals somewhat in the dozen years since its release. Fortunately, someone has taken the initiative and brought the game forward in a big way, with the pirate adventure looking far better than it ever has before.
Over on YouTube, Digital Dreams has added ray tracing to the game, alongside pushing all of the graphics settings to the max with 4K resolution to complete the package. What results is a game that is, frankly, beautiful, and a look at the Caribbean setting in more detail than previously seemed possible.
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The gameplay itself shows the player character taking a stroll through one of the game's major hubs, the bright and colourful Havana. With some technical manipulation and modding, everything from the lighting to weather effects looks like its straight out of the latest CD Projekt RED epic.
There haven't been any alterations to the way the gameplay is rigged and animated, so all of the recognisable patterns from combat and traversal that made the original Black Flag so unique, remain.
The game is running on an RTX 5090 graphics card that's being pushed to the limits, so if you want to replicate the effect at home, you'll need a pretty beefy PC to get the game running at an acceptable frame rate.
Topics: Assassins Creed, Ubisoft, Mods