Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and its Predecessor Differ on Themes and Features [VIDEO]

Since the E3 conference, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag has been gaining considerable popularity amidst other action games like Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4 and Destiny. While both Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Flag are similarly placed in the 18th century, they both stand wide apart on various features along with the game-play.

The Assassin's Creed: Black Flag starts in the year 1715 in the golden age for pirates. One can expect to experience number of naval wars and sea trade loots adding to the theme of the game. Since the game is dedicated to pirate's age, the gamer can expect better water graphics and animations to add to the experience.

"We are actually pushing to achieve more than last year because we think the pirate segment is a great segment that can generate a lot more on a worldwide basis than what was achieved last year," Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, told Gamespot.

Challenging the rulers of Europe, the player can choose from more than 50 unique locations where the character can live a pirate's life. The game map is expected to be bigger than than the previous version which would provide quite some room to explore and travel. With the help of some of the legendary pirates including Blackbeard, Calico Jack and Benjamin Hornigold, the player has to create a group of republic without any rules and regulations restricting them.

Like Assassin's Creed 3, the player has the liberty to customise the ship by making it more resistant to sea attacks and aggressive by installing and upgrading the weaponry. Among the new weapons introduced for ships are fire barrels which act as sea mines, harpoons for hunting underwater animals and poison darts along with blowpipes. Another new aspect of Black Flag is the underwater feature where the character can loot underwater ships or even perform fighting actions against sharks or hunt them.

Unlike Assassin's Creed 3, the player can board every ship in the game. The players can manipulate the weather conditions in the game to have an edge over the enemy. The ship crew members can be recruited like in Assassin's Creed 3 and can be customised with new outfits.

The game deals with Caribbean coasts and villages where the pirates have their den. Forest and land action is also expected to make the game engaging. Hunting of animals, bloodshed action scenes and city themes are similar to those of Assassin's Creed 3 with some minor differences like detailing and camera angles. A few scenes are based on real life situations, including Blackbeard in the time when he was hunted by the British in real life.

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag has been created using the Anvil game engine which was also used in developing Assassin's Creed 3. The game includes cave scenes along with plantation graphics, monument ruins and coconut islands which add to the pirate and coastal themes. More realistic textures with fog and blur animations have been included.

Unlike its predecessor, Black Flag has dense forests and ample places where the character can go into stealth mode and keep an eye on its prey.

The gunplay has also been revamped and the character can now carry up to four Flintlock pistols and use all of them in creating combo attacks. Like Assassin's Creed 3, extra precision shooting mode is also available. One of the new features is "free shooting" where the player is not restricted to auto-aim shooting like in the previous versions.

Recently, Ubisoft announced a season of DLC which features the character of Adewale, who plays as the first mate of the chief character, Edward Kenway. The DLC will include new story-based missions, multiplayer facility and new costumes. All the DLCs are included in various editions including Black Chest, Buccaneer, Skull and Special editions which are available on pre-orders and will be releasing on 1 November. Ubisoft has also confirmed the upcoming Assassin's Creed movie debuting on 22 May, 2015.

The game is scheduled to release for current consoles and next gen consoles on 29 October for North America, 31 October for Australia and 1 November for Europe. The game will be available for Wii U, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One. The standard game edition can be pre-ordered for £29.69 for PC, £40.00 for PS3/Xbox 360 and £54.99 for Xbox One and PS4 consoles from Amazon.

Following is Assassin's Creed: Black Flag E3 Cinematic Trailer: