Despite its slightly misleading title, Assassin's Creed IV is actually the SIXTH game in the long running franchise, and it's a triumphant re-imagining of a series that seemed to had lost its way merely one year ago. Set at the dawn of the 18th Century in the Caribbean, Assassin's Creed IV allows you to explore a vast world through the eyes of Edward Kenway, a pirate who is seeking to build a better life through plundering ships and other illegitimate means. For series veterans, his importance in Assassin's Creed lore is already known, but what Edward Kenway's story brings to the Assassin's Creed series is unparalleled freedom and exploration not seen in the series and other open world games.
At the heart of this concept is naval combat, which makes its return from last year's Assassin's Creed III. The difference this time is that naval combat and travel is at the core of Assassin's Creed IV's gameplay, rather than just a collection of side quests. It's an absolute joy to attack enemy ships using a variety of tactics and weapons, and then seamlessly boarding them. The battles remain tense and action packed throughout the entire duration of the game, and there are few things more satisfying than taking down a ship much larger than your own. There are more than a few upgrades you can purchase for your ship, each one having noticeable effects on your ships armor or weapon strength. The game progresses quite nicely, and you get a great idea of which enemy ships you should be able to take on and which ones you should avoid until you buy more upgrades.
Of course, it's not completely about naval combat. Assassin's Creed IV still retains its predecessors' free-flowing, parkour-style platforming. While not much in this regard has changed, it's the game's vast number of collectibles that make this iteration of it that much better. Not to say that previous entries in the series didn't have good collectibles, but Assassin's Creed IV does a wonderful job of making every collectible meaningful and worth taking the extra time to hunt down. Run down shanty pages, and listen to your crew break out into a new song while on the open sea. Recover treasure maps off of dead bodies and track down their location to find rare upgrades for your ship. Find messages in bottles to give you insight into a wonderfully detailed pirate world. The list goes on and on. Once the game gives you free control to move as you please, you'll want to track down every chest, key, Mayan stone and any other collectible you find. This is probably the most impressive part of Assassin's Creed IV--you are constantly being rewarded. There's rarely a moment of tedium because of the sheer variety of beautiful locales to explore and the constant flow of rewards for exploring them fully.
Exploration is also such a joy simply because Assassin's Creed IV is absolutely stunning. Beautiful lighting effects and soft shadows make this the most realistic and detailed world seen in any game to date. Flora and fauna react to violent weather, and the water behaves as you would expect as you sail from point to point. The game does have its fair share of odd animations, weird glitches and the like, but it only mildly distracts you from the beauty of it's world.
Edward Kenway's story isn't the only story told in Assassin's Creed IV. If you're familiar with the series' overall story arch, you know that there are segments that take place in present day. Assassin's Creed IV does a pretty good job of keeping these segments as infrequent and as unobtrusive as possible, allowing you to spend more time exploring the vast pirate world it does so well. The story doesn't get in the way for the most part, though there are times you'll wish you were just playing a game about pirates instead of being reminded every so often that something bigger is afoot. Edward's story is both touching and heartfelt. The goings on of the present day only distract you from that. It does have its share of gameplay missteps as well. The game still consistently relies on boring tailing missions which make you follow a target for minutes at a time while adding nothing to the overall story in terms of dialogue. These missions wouldn't be such an issue if being stealthy wasn't such a chore either. Enemy AI is extremely inconsistent and enemies can sometimes spot you from far distances away, yet somehow ignore you as you kill an ally right in front of them. The ground combat remains unchanged for better and for worse. Most enemies can be killed with the press of a single button, which doesn't make for a very challenging experience throughout the entire game.
All that being said, Assassin's Creed IV is one of my favorite entries in the series. It has a vast open world waiting to be explored with treasure--and danger--at every corner. It constantly rewards you for going off the beaten path and collecting it's numerous collectibles. It's all tied together by stellar naval combat and the phenomenal platforming you've come to expect, with the beautiful, next-gen visuals you've been hoping for. While there's still some traditional Assassin's Creed missteps, Assassin's Creed IV should not be missed for fans of the series and for fans of open world games in general.
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