Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag and the Perspective of the Narrative (Spoilers, naturally)

   Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is the one installment of this franchise I was, to be blunt, the most excited about getting my hands on. While I've enjoyed the series overall up to this point, despite some often frustrating and clunky feeling gameplay, this is the first that was set in a historical period that I was already familiar with prior to playing the game.
   But Assassin's Creed has been going on for several years now, spanning across several games, novels, short films and comic books. The game certainly has enough lore and mythology established that it has lots of room to play and expand. But with that much in the franchise already created and a new game in the works, it does immediately raise the question: how does Black Flag change things? What makes it different from every other Assassin's Creed game that came out before it? How can you provide a fresh take to a story set in this universe?
  Well, to be honest, there is a lot, but I'm going to strictly focus on the player perspective explored outside the Animus. The first that struck me as it changing things was the handling of the real world parallel story. With the losing of Desmond Miles as our central character in the real world, we are given a blank slate. With a new character being needed, Ubisoft seemed to opt for us, the players.
   The game gives the player control of a voiceless, unseen protagonist who just became an employee at Abstergo Entertainment. It seems Abstergo is also in the business of making video games and films based on the historical memories found through the Animus. Us, the employee, is blissfully unaware of the true nature of Abstergo, simply viewing it as a job.

A beautiful, first glimpse of Abstergo Entertainment.

    Though, naturally, as is par of the course with Assassin's Creed, the true nature of the company begins to seep through and gradually getting more noticeable as the game goes on. As a note, I found that this position provided a potential to have a unique way to experience the story of Black Flag. As I played, I found myself thinking that the experience would've been far improved by having never played a single Assassin's Creed game before, knowing absolutely nothing about the established story and lore.
   The reason being that this would put you on the exact same level as this character you are already projecting yourself into. Lacking a voice, personality and character design you are naturally free to imagine yourself.
   Aside from the surprisingly well-crafted sea travel and naval battles as well as the engaging characters and story for a franchise that, to me, had a story that was getting stale in regards to Ezio's story, this was a clever tactic on part of Ubisoft. It managed to balance the experience for both veterans of the Assassin's Creed franchise and to brand new players just getting off the boat.
   The reprisal appearance of Rebecca and Shaun (as a courier and a barista, respectively) is a good example of this. A veteran can appreciate the new presentation of these characters, playing as someone who doesn't know who they are but having the exclusive player knowledge of their history in the franchise; but the new player gets to experience that direct experience of meeting them, getting the clues that they might not be who they seem and the surprise of the ultimate reveal of them being linked to the assassins order.
   However, they way they are presented when you first meet them is them bickering about Shaun's coffee making skills. I think this is a good example of that subtle clue from the perspective of a new player to the franchise. There's the casual familiarity with which they talk and make jabs at one another. It could seem normal, even though, from your perspective, they don't work in the same place. It could be that Rebecca, as a courier, has to take things to and from Abstergo often and simply got to know Shaun. But there is something that feels like there's more to their dialogue than simply an Abstergo employee and a courier who got to know each other, coupled with the fact that Shaun, working at the coffee shop, doesn't seem to know how to make good coffee. It's small, but it provides a subtle clue that something is odd about these two people.

I would say my one complaint is not seeing more scenes of Rebecca and Shaun together.

   The same goes for the hacking elements and sticky note hunting presented in the real world missions. While they do shed some insight on what happened after the event of Desmond's death and slipping them clues about the main plot going on in the real world, the experience does seem designed for the people who have never played the games before.
   It provides a clever puzzle, a smattering of clues, about Abstergo's past and the true origins of Sample 17. It gave us something that we haven't seen since the very first game: the chance to experience the world of Assassin's Creed as we did in the first game years ago, with fresh, unknowing eyes. The game resets us, but manages to make it interesting, for both old and new players to the franchise.
   While veteran players certainly don't lose anything from it, I firmly believe that the best way to experience Black Flag is by knowing nothing about what happened before in the previous games.