Everything you ought to know about Naval Combat in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.
Naval Combat in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced is something you’re going to be engaging with quite often whether you like it or not. That said, sea battles are quite fun, as long as you’re not trying to sink ships during the night or during rather perilous storms; that’s where Naval Combat quickly becomes frustrating.
Either way, we’ve detailed everything you need to know about Naval Combat in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced below, to help you have the upper-hand over your sea-faring enemies.
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AC Black Flag Resynced Naval Combat explained
First things first, when it comes to Naval Combat in Black Flag Resynced, you should probably know how best to control your ship’s sails and its cannons while in battle.
Steering the ship, managing sails, and controlling cannons
When sailing, you will need to use a combination of half-sail and full-sail to adjust your speed while travelling. Half-sail is ideal for arriving at a dock or leaving one, while full-sail is necessary if you wish to travel faster while going across the seas or circling hostile ships in battle.
When you eventually find yourself in combat, you won’t be able to leave the ship’s steering wheel (or fast-travel away from combat). Instead, you’ll need to face the fight head on or sail away from the hostile ships. If you’re taking on the fight, you’ll need to pay careful attention to your surroundings, as you’ll need to steer the ship while also commanding your crew to fire cannons at enemy ships.
This means using your L-stick to steer the ship while using your R-stick to pan your camera around the boat, and once you’ve set sight on a target, you’ll then need to use R2 to fire at them.
That said, which part of the ship you’re aiming from will determine what weapons your crew is using.
- Firing forward — Your forward-firing attack sees you able to launch a long range projectile Chain Shot at hostile ships or forts from a great distance. This is the ideal way to kick off a fight and show you mean business, but it doesn’t do much damage initially.
- Firing backwards — Your backward-firing attack sees you launch two Fire Barrels behind the ship. If a ship is approaching you, these Barrels will sometimes land on the enemy ship and immediately explode. Otherwise, these are used to prevent enemies from tailing you, and if they do, use R1 on those Fire Barrels to explode them beneath the enemy.
- Firing from the sides — Firing from either side of the ship sees you using your Broadside Cannons to send out multiple explosives at an enemy ship, and is probably going to be your favoured way of attacking initially, especially once you unlock fiery ammunition for them that deals additional damage. These are the ship weapons you’ll ultimately want to prioritise upgrading, but all parts of your ship are important.
- Swivel Guns — When you fire off cannons at an enemy, red weak points are sometimes exposed. By using your Swivel Gun with R1, you can aim at these and trigger an explosion. This quickly allows you to sink ships or reduce their HP enough for boarding. Don’t ignore weak points!
A final method of attack is by simply ramming other ships head-on. As you approach a ship, use L1 + R1 to dash at them, dealing damage. Just be careful of the condition of your own ship though!
Also, when you unlock a weapon’s secondary firing mode on your ship (such as the fiery broadside cannons unlocked towards the beginning of the main story), you can press Triangle on PlayStation or Y on Xbox to switch between firing modes if need be.
On that note, let’s talk about defenses.
Defending your ship, and weather conditions
When it comes to defending yourself from incoming attacks, you can press Square on PlayStation or X on Xbox to have your crew brace themselves and take cover from enemy fire if needed. It’s well worth keeping an eye on incoming projectiles and cannons, and having your crew brace for them, as this reduces the amount of damage your ship takes. As a result, you can stay in the battle for longer.
Your main enemy at sea, arguably more so than hostile ships, is the weather. When a storm arrives, the environment becomes incredibly dark which makes it hard to spot enemy ships or even terrain you could crash into. On top of that, tornadoes will risk destroying your ship completely if you’re not careful, and you can’t use the travel sails while it’s stormy.
During storms, you should always face rogue waves head-on to minimise the damage that they do, and avoid the path of tornadoes entirely. I also don’t recommend engaging in combat during storms, as you’ll be fighting both enemy ships and the weather event simultaneously, but in the Caribbean, this is sometimes unavoidable.
Boarding and sinking enemy ships
When it comes to Naval Combat in Black Flag Resynced, you have a choice as to whether you sink or board an enemy ship you’re attacking.
First things first, it’s worth using the Spyglass to check out and mark a ship before launching your attack. This allows you to see all the resources on board that ship, and this is what you’ll get should you choose to attack and board it. If you sink that ship, you’ll only receive a portion of these resources instead, which immediately makes boarding a ship more worthwhile, even if eliminating the ship’s crew requires a little extra work.
On top of that, successfully boarding a ship allows you to claim that ship for yourself, and you’ll be given three options as to what to do with it. These are:
- Repair the Jackdaw — This allows you to use materials from the enemy ship to repair your own ship, so you need not pay a Harbourmaster to do so.
- Lower Wanted Level — This lowers your Wanted Level, so you can continue sea-faring safely.
- Send ship to Kenway’s Fleet — This adds the ship to Kenway’s Fleet, allowing you to use it to gain passive income.
It’s up to you what you do after claiming a ship as your own, but ultimately, boarding a ship is always going to reap more rewards than simply sinking it. Sometimes though, smaller ships aren’t necessarily worth the effort, so you might as well sink them – especially if they’re part of a fleet – so you can focus on boarding the bigger, more profitable ships.
Sing Sea Shanties between battles
When sailing across the seas in search of adventure or preparing for a battle, don’t forget that you can have your crew sing Sea Shanties too. Sure, this won’t help with Naval Combat by any means, but it’ll certainly help raise the morale of you and your team in the meantime!
Press ‘up’ on the D-Pad to have your crew start singing, then press ‘right’ on the D-Pad to rotate through the available shanties they can sing. When you’ve had enough of them and want them to stop their camaraderie, hold ‘right’ on the D-Pad. You can find more Sea Shanties as collectibles across the map if you wish to expand your crew’s repertoire.
Good luck with Naval Combat in Black Flag! For more, take a look at our tips and tricks to help with your adventure, as well as how to repair your ship, and all Templar Hunts.
