Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Accessibility Spotlight
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced · published
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is set to launch on July 9 on Steam. A renewed and enhanced experience, the game invites players back into the adventure of Edward Kenway as he sails the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy. Among the enhancements from the original Assassin’s Creed Black Flag are improved and new accessibility features to make the game playable for as many people as possible.
We spoke with Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced’s Director of User Experience Jonathan Bedard and Game Designer Maksym Smolynets about their approach to accessibility in the game, accessibility innovations in the past decade, and what new features they’re most proud of.
What was your approach to accessibility in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced?
Jonathan Bedard: For us, the approach was really about bringing a beloved classic, one enjoyed by millions, up to today’s Ubisoft standards, which have been shaped and refined over many years by our teams and our games.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag remains one of the most appreciated entries in the franchise, so it was important to be respectful of the original game's intentions.
Maksym Smolynets: It was also very important for us to stay closely connected to our community, to understand how players welcomed the accessibility improvements introduced in our more recent titles, and where they felt the experience could be pushed further.
We kept an eye on what was being done on other Ubisoft projects, as well as in the industry, learning from it and sharing approaches. That cross‑team inspiration helped us improve the game and how players can interact with it.
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag is over a decade old. How has accessibility in games evolved since its release?
JB: The accessibility space has been shaped by many inspiring people and teams who have done tremendous work since Black Flag’s original release. They built the foundation on which we stand today. Many features that were once considered exceptional or optional have since become best practices.
As developers, we’ve continuously pushed each other—both within Ubisoft and across the wider industry—in a spirit of friendly competition that ultimately benefits everyone, and most importantly, the players. While it was not possible to carry everything from recent titles to the game, it comes with a lot of expected improvements you could expect from a Ubisoft title in 2026.
What new accessibility features are in Resynced?
MS: Players will find many refinements and additions to core features.
Much like with the rest of the remaster, our focus was first on expanding and improving existing functionality rather than introducing entirely new systems.
Among the additions, we included a persistent, customizable camera dot at the center of the screen to help alleviate motion sickness. It’s a relatively minor feature, but it was widely requested and meaningful for many players.
Does the nature of Resynced being a remake create any challenges in adding accessibility features? How does it differ from creating accessibility features in a new IP?
JB: While the original game was not created with today’s accessibility standards in mind, the way we make games now allows us to build on it more effectively. Our modern pipelines and processes made it possible to improve the experience by integrating many of our recent developments. This is one huge way in which our constant investments in Accessibility over the last few years paid off.
Systems like control remapping, color‑blind options, subtitles, and similar features were easier to bring up to standard because they were developed with long‑term scalability and reuse in mind.
MS: For Resynced, our goal was to further improve the quality and customization of our features, settings and options.
We had a very solid framework based on iterations and improvements made across recent releases. Ubisoft Kyiv in particular has strong experience designing and delivering accessibility features for Assassin’s Creed and many other Ubisoft titles.
What new accessibility features are you particularly proud of?
MS: I would answer with not a single feature, but instead the breadth of the improvements. Firstly, in addition to bringing across a wide range of features from recent Assassin’s Creed titles, we were able to improve on them. subtitles are larger and clearer, colorblind options now modify important color‑coded visual effects like attacks and intuition highlights, and control customization is more intuitive, with more input options available.
The Audio Glossary has been expanded, HUD customization is deeper, and narration now supports more elements, and its speed can be increased further. We were able to bring ship fast travel from Odyssey, an upgraded Observe from Shadows, the highly motor-accessible map system from Shadows but adapted for tracking quests and quickly jumping around the map.We also have a range of accessibility considerations that are unique to this game. From actions at sea like docking and looting requiring less precision and visual perception through to more flexible stalk/chase missions and the ability to tone down the intensity of underwater sections, either partially through in-game items or more substantially through settings to turn off both oxygen limits and shark attacks.These are just a few examples. Together, the changes make the experience more comfortable and readable for a much wider range of players.
JB: I'll cheat a little too and say all of it! I’m proud that we can bring back one of my favorite games for both new players and longtime fans, while aligning it more closely with today's accessibility standards.
This allows more players to discover—or rediscover—this timeless classic, including some who might have felt the original was not accessible enough for them to fully enjoy. It’s a reflection, and a testament of the efforts made across the industry in general, and some for our teams in particular.
It’s a first for us, compared to the original Black Flag this is the most substantial accessibility upgrade that a Ubisoft game has ever had.
ACCESSIBILITY FEATURES LIST
GAMEPLAY
Multiple difficulty settings, adjustable separately for naval, ground, activity and stealth gameplay.
More flexible missions, with less chance of desync on stalking and chasing missions.
Underwater gameplay intensity can be reduced, to a lesser degree by items that reduce oxygen drain and increase health, or to a greater degree by turning off the oxygen limit and shark attacks completely.
Healing during combat is now possible, via remedies (three initially, with the ability to find/buy more).
QTEs (‘quick time events’ that require mashing or precise timing) can be skipped.
Aim Assistance has four settings - off, light, moderate, full.
Blood/gore can be turned off.
Assassinations are always successful, as in the original.
NAVIGATION & GUIDANCE
"Pathfinder" toggleable GPS for both land and sea gameplay, which draws a path in the world to guide the player to the most recently set quest marker or player marker.
Autopilot function to command the Jackdaw to automatically sail to follow the GPS path.
Ship fast travel option added for the Jackdaw, functioning in a similar way to Assassins Creed: Odyssey.
Map screen can be operated without a cursor by cycling through points of interest in a similar way to Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, but also with an in-map quest tracker that works in the same way.
Observe feature to make it easier to spot treasure and quest objectives at a distance, also tied into location tracker to help find all things in a given area.
Tutorials can be found in the Codex section at any time.
Menu tutorial alerts when there are new menu functions, available at all times once unlocked.
Settings available on first boot, allowing critical options to be adjusted before gameplay.
Accessibility presets - a menu that is part of the first boot flow and options menu, containing groups of similar accessibility settings that can be turned on/off together with a single press. Toggle the presets or customize individual options within.
CONTROLS
Control remapping - customize inputs, menu split by gameplay contexts, with the deepest level of customisation yet for an Assassins Creed game.
Left handed button swaps.
Swap holds for toggles for multitude of gameplay actions, both naval and on ground.
X and Y axis inversion - granular inversion options for each stick, configurable separately for ship and on-foot, aiming, camera, world map navigation
Deadzones and thresholds are configurable for triggers and both analog sticks.
Configurable haptics (vibrations), strength is adjustable separately for gameplay, cinematics, interface and adaptive triggers (DualSense only)
Multiple input devices supported, with auto switching - Mouse and keyboard, controllers, and combinations.
Lock-on camera - a setting to automatically lock the camera on a nearby enemy.
Auto movement option, double-tap to automatically walk forward.
Area loot option, to loot all nearby bodies with a single button press.
Camera follow setting for the camera to auto-adjust and follow behind the player.
Advanced parkour and manual jump - customize how the game controls, whether you prefer classic AC or a more modern control scheme.
Action flexibility - unlike the original you can now crouch anywhere, swim anywhere, and put on/remove your hood as you please.
Shanty player directly in the HUD, for easy selection of sea shanties for the crew to sing.
Proximity action prompts for actions at sea like boarding, docking and looting now hug the screen edges whenever you are in interaction range, so they need less precise timing/aiming to select.
Fleet management is now accessible directly in the captain’s cabin rather than requiring the house of a separate mobile app.
AUDIO
No audio reliance, all important information communicated by sound is also communicated visually.
Subtitles with extensive color modifications, toggleable speaker names and speaker emotions, directional indicators, configurable background transparency and colour, and a ‘Largest’ size increment of 46px, larger than any previous Assassins Creed game.
Gameplay captions - text equivalents for important sounds that are not already communicated visually, with directional indicators.
Audio cues with glossary - signs and feedback allowing some navigation and path finding with non-visual cues, including support for naval gameplay events like docking availability, collisions and aiming at enemy ships, and positional audio cues to communicate the location of nearby loot.
Separate volume sliders with preview sound, covering voice, music, foley FX (character-driven sound effects), gameplay FX, menu sounds, ambient effects, and sea shanties.
Focus mix, which hides the less important sounds to let you focus on the ones that are critical.
Configurable dynamic range for control over the volume difference between loudest and quietest sounds.
VISUALS
Colourblind accessible by default where possible, for example iconography, markers and item rarity communicated by shape and background as well as colour difference.
Colorblindness presets that provide color changes to other areas of the interface that are still color-coded, and also for essential color-coded VFX such as special attacks or ‘intuition’ glows.
VFX customization - control over gameplay VFX such as highlights of docking spaces, areas of interest, and glow for telegraphed attacks.
Togglable motion blur, screen shake, and camera effects to reduce blurring, distortion and uncontrolled camera movement, particularly during naval combat and minigames, and some other visually intense effects like sparks from parries and special attacks too.
Camera sway during naval gameplay in the original has been removed by default.
Toggable camera dot - a permanent dot in the center of the screen, on top of other reticles and HUD elements. Size and color can be customized.
Configurable FOV angle (PC only, for performance reasons)
Eagle vision provides temporary higher contrast between important elements, and between them and the background.
MENUS & HUD
Clear menu text by default, in clear sans serif font on plain well contrasted backgrounds.
Screen narration within both menus and game, for all information that is delivered through text. Including some gameplay information such as coordinates, locations, and ship info panels. Choice of two voices, and adjustable speed.
HUD customization - ability to turn all HUD elements on or off either all at once, or individually, either with shortcut or using presets - increase opacity, resize text, resize Icons or add background to increase readability. Backgrounds also cover some in-world elements, such as interaction prompts.
Text and icon sizes can be increased and decreased.
Control reminders shown in the HUD for some essential controls, including a toggleable reminder module for naval controls.