Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced contains a historic glitch from the original game, which is plunging ships underwater in biblical fashion.
Black Flag Resynced has had one of the strongest launches yet for the Assassin’s Creed franchise, breaking series’ records on Steam and selling over two million copies.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing though, with complaints around day one microtransactions and ongoing issues with the offline mode on PC, thanks to Ubisoft Connect.
However, amid these woes, some players have discovered a comical bug which proves some errors can have an upside – especially if you’ve ever dreamed of going all Davy Jones from Pirates Of The Caribbean.
As highlighted by YouTuber G3-Assassin, Black Flag Resynced features a glitch where you can split the sea like Moses and plunge into the ocean aboard the Jackdaw ship. None of the crew are perturbed by the underwater descent, and the character physics aren’t affected either, so you’re left bobbing underneath the waves like a supernatural pirate.
This isn’t the only variation of the underwater glitch. On Reddit, one user had a cut scene play out where the characters were partially submerged in the sea, complete with altered hair physics and bubbles emanating from their mouths.
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A similar underwater glitch was present in the original Black Flag from 2013. One clip from the original shows Edward Kenway’s ship emerging from an open, blocky gulf in the sea as bodies fly up into the sky. Several other clips of the same bug have been shared on X too.
It’s unclear if this bug was intentionally left in the remake by Ubisoft, but it’s certainly a cool throwback. Assassin’s Creed has a famed reputation with bizarre bugs, most notably with the terrifying no face glitch in 2014’s Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Black Flag Resynced, unlike the original, features underwater exploration for the first time. While these sections have been received well, the team behind the underwater portions at Ubisoft Barcelona are facing layoffs.
In response to the praise on X, Manel Cota, gameplay animator at Ubisoft Barcelona, wrote: ‘Thanks! Ubisoft Barcelona did all the underwater levels. And that same team is being fired right now because Ubisoft thinks that’s what we deserve :).’
Staff at Ubisoft Barcelona are striking against the layoffs, which are expected to affect 51 employees. Ubisoft has said ‘no final decision’ has been made yet regarding the positions.
What’s the next Assassin’s Creed game?
Ubisoft hasn’t officially announced what the next mainline Assassin’s Creed game is, but it’s widely assumed to be Assassin’s Creed Hexe. This title was announced in September 2022 with a short teaser, but we’ve seen nothing substantial from it since.
There have been shifts behind the scenes on the project, with Jean Guesdon taking over as creative director from Clint Hocking earlier this year. Another director then left the project in April.
A recent leak claims the title’s magical elements have been removed, after it was rumoured to feature a playable cat.
Hexe is set in 16th century Germany during the peak of the European witch trials, and it’s expected to come out sometime next year.
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