The original Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag was released in 2013, but Resynced is not just a visually upgraded re-release. Ubisoft has revamped environments, added parkour capabilities, and overhauled key parts of the mission and combat systems. The present-day sections of the original have been eliminated, while the open world, underwater areas, and ship battles have been expanded. The game continues to focus on Edward Kenway’s rise from pirate to Assassin. Resynced leans more towards the classic action-adventure structure of earlier series entries while reducing the RPG elements found in more recent Assassin’s Creed titles.
Anvil Engine with Modern Geometry
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced runs on the same version of the Anvil Engine that was used for the previous year’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. This upgrade benefits from ray tracing, an intricate wind simulation, and virtualized geometry. The engine breaks the game world into small virtual geometry blocks, adjusting their level of detail based on distance and visibility. Areas that are not visible don’t need to be fully calculated, allowing for highly detailed cities, rocks, and vegetation without traditional level-of-detail popping being overly noticeable.
The wind simulation significantly enhances the presentation: vegetation, clothing, and hair respond realistically to the environment. The remake also features updated skin shaders, materials, and textures.
Ray tracing in this pirate adventure is optional and can be completely disabled. The standard setting allows for ray-traced global illumination, with the advanced level adding RT reflections without fully ray tracing every element. Characters may use screen-space reflections, while moving vegetation can be depicted by static placeholders, meaning the potential is not fully realized.
The performance costs remain manageable. The global illumination provides a noticeable benefit, making the standard level the most intriguing setting in many cases. The graphics menu is also impressive, offering numerous presets and detail options. DLSS, FSR, XeSS, and respective frame generation methods from GPU manufacturers are supported.
Graphics Cards: Radeons Strong, Resolution Comparatively Affordable
Our technical test of Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced utilized a GPU benchmark scene that generates above-average load. Achieving smooth frame rates here indicates sufficient reserves for many other game areas. Notably, higher resolutions demand comparatively little extra performance. The complex geometry management incurs high base costs while additional pixels are calculated relatively efficiently, resulting in smaller gaps between Full HD and higher resolutions compared to many other games.
Nevertheless, Black Flag Resynced is not demand-free: At maximum raster graphics and native resolution, only an RTX 5090 managed triple-digit frame rates. However, such a high frame rate is not necessary for an enjoyable gaming experience. The strong performance of Radeon models is particularly noteworthy, especially considering their price:
AMD’s Radeon RX 9060 XT with 16 GiB outperforms Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 5060 Ti in rasterization and is at least on par with ray tracing. At the higher price point, a Radeon RX 9070 XT consistently surpasses the Nvidia alternative, the GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, and nearly matches a GeForce RTX 5080 even with ray tracing.
The difference in performance between manually maximized settings and the “Ultra High” preset is minimal, making the highest regular preset often a more sensible compromise.
The influence of graphics memory should not be underestimated: In Full HD, the game averages around 8.4 GiB with maximum details and extended ray tracing in a complex scene. Without ray tracing and using the “Ultra High” preset, it’s about 7.6 GiB. Graphics cards with 8 GiB will generally struggle with Black Flag Resynced, especially under ray tracing and high-detail conditions. Frame generation requires additional memory, which can exacerbate the situation.
For ray tracing up to WQHD, we recommend at least 12 GiB. Those playing at higher resolutions or using multi-frame generation should opt for 16 GiB. Although upsampling reduces computational load, it does not automatically resolve potential memory bottlenecks.
CPUs: Good Scaling and Strong Older Ryzen
For CPU tests, we used a heavily processor-intensive marketplace in Havana. The resolution is significantly reduced to push the graphics card limit as far as possible. Even an RTX 5090 can still limit the fastest processors in certain areas.
Older Zen processors perform surprisingly well. A Ryzen 5 2600X outperforms not only the Core i7-4790K but also the Core i7-7700K in our test scene, which is not typically observed in gaming benchmarks. Triple-digit frame rates are possible starting from the Ryzen 7 5800X3D and the Core Ultra 5 225F, indicating that the CPU is more secondary: Most players will experience Ubisoft’s adventure in GPU-limit situations.
PCGH-Summer Action PC RX9070 Edition
This limited-edition gaming PC, priced at €1,830, features a Ryzen 7 7800X3D, which achieved an average of 127 FPS in our benchmark test. This energy-efficient CPU is paired with 32 GiB DDR5-6000 RAM with CL 30 on the Asus Prime B850-Plus Wifi motherboard. The installed Radeon RX 9070 promises performance on par with the significantly more expensive GeForce RTX 5070 Ti in rasterization.
PCGH Performance PC RX9070XT Edition V2
With the impressive performance of Radeon graphics cards, the PCGH Performance PC RX9070XT Edition V2 is also an excellent choice at €1,935. We did not measure the built-in Core Ultra 5 250KF, but models 245K and 265K achieve average scores of 119 and 127 FPS respectively, suggesting the 18-core won’t underperform.
The real highlight of this PC is the Radeon RX 9070 XT, which performs excellently in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced. With maximum rasterizing details, it delivers 85–86 FPS in Full HD, closely trailing the nearly twice-as-expensive GeForce RTX 5080. In WQHD, it earns 72 FPS compared to 69 FPS for the GeForce RTX 5080, and in 4K UHD, it hits 49 FPS against 46 FPS. Even with ray tracing, it is a close race, with the Nvidia card pulling ahead only at 4K UHD with 56 FPS to 50 FPS in favor of Nvidia. From a price-performance perspective, the Radeon is clearly the winner.
Conclusion: Technically Demanding Yet Scalable
Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced successfully transitions the pirate adventure into a modern version of the Anvil Engine. Virtualized geometry, dynamic lighting, intricate wind simulation, and optional ray tracing craft a distinctly more detailed and lively Caribbean experience than the 13-year-old original. The balance between visual quality and performance is appealing: ray tracing is sensibly scalable, with higher resolutions incurring relatively moderate additional costs, and the graphics menu provides numerous customization options.
The primary limitation remains video memory. For high details without ray tracing, 8 GiB is still usable, but for RT operations, a minimum of 12 GiB is necessary. 16 GiB is the better choice for high resolutions and frame generation. CPU requirements are relatively low, allowing for triple-digit frame rates with modern mid-range processors. However, in practice, players will nearly always be GPU-limited.
