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Assassin's Creed 4 guide - complete single-player walkthrough

Guide by Staff Contributor
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Assassin's Creed 4 ships the Animus onto the Caribbean's high piratical seas. Never be stuck with our complete campaign walkthrough.

Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is the most anticipated game in the series for several years, boasting an entirely new environment style, a new engine and next-gen versions. Black Flag is set in and around the Caribbean during the time of the pirates. Set over three main cities - Havana, Kingston and Nassau - the game flings protagonist Edward Kenway against English, Spanish and pirate forces.

Ubisoft has bet heavily on boats after the surprising popularity of the naval sections in Assassin's Creed 3, meaning AC4 is roughly 40% naval exploration and combat. Multiplayer and co-op play a huge part in AC4, but this part of our guide is concerned exclusively with the plot.

The opening sections see Edward navigating jungle islands before entering Cuban capital Havana, learning the basics of the latest version of Assassin's Creed's complex character motion system, escaping from jail and stealing a ship. From there the stakes get upped with every mission, as Kenway becomes embroiled in a plot involving pirates, colonists, and, of course, the Animus. The single-player portion of Assassin's Creed 4 is an gigantic open-world affair, so don't be surprised if it takes you more than 30 hours to complete. Just so you don't get lost, you'll find complete walkthroughs of every section in the guides below, including all optional objectives.

Assassin's Creed 4 has been on every watch-list this year as it marks the switching of Ubisoft's most lucrative franchise from PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 to PS4 and Xbox One, but there's far more to this latest AC than cross-technology achievement. Kenway's adventures are a signal of intent from Ubisoft to push forward with AC after a lacklustre game in Assassin's Creed 3, meaning you get more scope, more play-time, more story and better tech. Assassin's Creed 4 is a key moment in the series's evolution.

Once you've finished up with the single-player section of Assassin's Creed 4, you'll be looking to move onto multiplayer. Online play this year has been heavily bolstered, adding a Discovery mode to the Wolfpack co-op. This allows players to train together, assassinating in unison to achieve the best scores possible before launching themselves into Unleashed, which is the full co-op experience. The idea in Wolfpack is to move through as many levels as possible, completing a variety of mission such as protecting chests, killing guards or defeating "infected" enemies by grabbing upgrades. The missions get harder as you move on, eventually making for an extremely taxing experience. It's playable by up to four people, so this is definitely one to try with friends.

The other major upgrade in this year's multiplayer is Gamelab, which follows a growing trend of triple-A games completely opening up their content to players. Gamelab allows you to create your own multiplayer modes via a suite of some 200 parameters, meaning you can alter pretty much anything you like. If you want a mode in which only headshots score, no problem. Want everyone limited to a single weapon? That's possible, too. Other current big action games, such as Killzone Shadow Fall, are taking this style of approach to multiplayer, meaning there's never been a better time to get involved in a bit of head-to-head.

You can, of course, share your own creations from the Gamelab and download the modes of others in a similar fashion to LittleBigPlanet levels. Ubisoft is planning to showcase the best and most popular modes, so there's even a chance you could end up with your name in lights if you put in enough effort.

All told, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag is a content monster, a huge single-player experience with dozens of hours of pirate story sitting alongside a multiplayer epic. Use our single-player guide to stay on course.

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