Black Flag Resynced 1.0.8 is out, and it adds New Game+ that you can run five times, a Nightmare difficulty that can kill Edward with a single bullet, and the takedown animations from the 2013 original. Ubisoft calls it the game’s final major content update. After this, the team plans smaller quality-of-life patches over the coming months.
It went live on October 27 at 7am PT on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. The download is small everywhere except Xbox.
| Xbox Series X|S | PS5 | PC (Ubisoft Connect) | Steam |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15.5 GB | 4.5 GB | 4.3 GB | 2.1 GB |
What New Game+ keeps and what it resets
The short version is you keep your stuff and lose your map. Edward’s tools, weapons, upgrades, and trinkets carry over, along with every Jackdaw upgrade, officer ability, and pet. Your money, materials, trade goods, outfits, hideout progress, art collection, Kenway fleet ships, treasure maps, and anything you bought from the store come along too.
What resets is the story, your active quests and quest items, the map fog, location progress, and the forts, which you’ll have to take again. Your officers also stay behind until you recruit them back. The Jackdaw and hideout upgrades are still yours, but you have to reach each one through the story again before you can use it.
Each run turns the seas up a notch. Elite Soldiers show up more often, max-rank ships start patrolling, and every new cycle adds another difficulty modifier, all the way to New Game+++++. There’s also a new NG+ currency called Escudos. You earn it from challenges and from looting chests you already cleared, and you can trade Reales for it at the General Store. Escudos buy NG+ exclusive outfits and items, while everything that already cost Reales stays the same price.
Nightmare is a different game
Nightmare is a separate difficulty, not an NG+ requirement, so you can turn it on at any point in the story. You can also set combat, stealth, naval, and activity difficulty independently, which is handy if you want brutal sword fights without the ocean trying to kill you too.
The combat side is where it bites. Enemies deal 1.8 times their normal damage, the parry window is shorter, the white glint that warned you of an attack is gone, and ranged enemies shoot more often. The biggest change is that the one-shot kill safety is turned off. Full health won’t save you from a bullet or an explosion, so the gunmen on the walls stop being background noise.
Stealth gets stricter as well. Guards spot you much faster, search longer, and can hear you if you’re moving faster than a walk. Perches have to be at least 6 meters above an enemy to keep you hidden, up from 4.
At sea, every ship hits harder. Underwater, sharks deal more damage, urchins and jellyfish deal double, and your oxygen drains faster. Even harpooning wildlife hurts more.
Takedowns, chests, and new cosmetics
The original game’s takedowns are back, including hidden blade, unarmed, single sword, and gunblade variations, plus new microkills and double takedowns. They play at random, so you can’t pick one.
Ubisoft also hid six new community chests around the map. New outfits, sails, trinkets, crew options, and pet skins are spread across exploration, activities, hidden challenges, and NG+ progress, so a second run is the main way to collect them.
Where to get it
Black Flag Resynced isn’t on GOG. On PC it’s $59.99 on Steam, and it’s also sold on the Ubisoft Store and Epic. Consoles get it on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
If you finished the story months ago and shelved it, this is the update that makes a second voyage worth it. Start NG+ for the gear, and flip on Nightmare combat if the first run felt too easy.