Black Flag Resynced makes melee brutal again, and it instantly reminds players of Unity

Picture this: you are in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, surrounded by enemies, and you are getting your ass kicked. Two swordsmen flank you. A heavy axe-wielding brute moves straight at you. You cannot swing your sword in the cramped chaos, but you can still throw one last smoke bomb. You use it, move through the obscured space, dispatch the distracted baddies, and suddenly the fight clicks.

That is the specific reason GamesRadar+ says Black Flag Resynced's tough combat reminds them of an “unexpected other” Assassin's Creed game: Assassin's Creed Unity. The comparison lands because Resynced’s melee is described as precise and “modernized,” yet still built around finicky, hitbox-based hack and slash energy. In other words, it is challenging in a way that feels old-school, not hand-held.

To unpack what makes this more than just “hard combat,” look at the actual structure of Edward Kenway’s fights. The hands-on experience frames Edward’s combat style as a loop built around parrying, dodging, and landing timely hits between attacks. After a perfect guard or dodge, there is an opportunity to counter. That is the key design choice that changes how you feel in a brawl: you are not just swinging more. You are reading enemy tells, then punishing. The piece also points to blue warning flashes signaling imminent attacks, which you have to track while multiple enemies crowd you.

This is where the Unity comparison becomes intuitive. The article says solo combat feels great because there is skill and finesse, and the controls reward nimble timing with parries, dodges, and between-hit strikes. But when you are facing a mob, Edward “certainly suffers for his art.” The reason is painfully practical: swarms turn the combat into a crowded, cramped decision problem, not a clean duel. In the exact kind of set piece that makes Black Flag memorable, boarding ships after naval combat, that crowding becomes the whole game. The result, as described, is a “cutlass moshpits” scenario where the fighting style’s limitations show.

At that point, the remake leans into pirate problems in a way the article calls out as the “privateering gets shoved to the wayside for a touch of sneaky assassin charm.” The smoke bomb is your reset button in a fight that might otherwise trap you in melee range. The rope dart is another interrupt tool, thrown from the right button on the D-pad to stop “red-flashing power attacks.” Instead of purely eating attacks, you can disrupt and then rain down damage with your blades. The piece is clear that this is where the “assassin charm” re-enters, even if Edward’s baseline identity is pirate roughness.

The broader, Assassin's Creed-wide takeaway is that Edward Kenway’s personal style feels distinct from the assassin moves because he is not operating the same way other protagonists do. The article contrasts Edward’s pirate panache with Arno Dorian in Assassin's Creed Unity, calling out Arno’s different but equally stylish fighting style in Paris-set Unity. It describes Arno’s moves as graceful and almost feline, fitting stealth. It then compares other protagonists too: Evie Frye from Assassin's Creed Syndicate wields her cane sword elegantly, while Jacob’s brawnier approach is balanced by knowing when to rein in the brawn and take to the shadows. The piece even reaches forward, nodding to Bar Yasuke from Assassin's Creed Shadows, noting that he was not an assassin and did not have access to hidden blades, which matters for how their combat reads.

So what is the “unexpected” part of the comparison? It is not that Unity is well-known for combat quirks. It is that Black Flag Resynced, a pirate remake, ends up evoking Unity’s finicky melee feel as an “unofficial king” of that particular problem in the series. GamesRadar+ frames that as a kind of unseating: Unity had that reputation, and now Resynced’s remake combat is taking the crown. The stakes are not just personal preference. When a remake chooses to modernize but preserve hitbox-based hack and slash flair, it is signaling what players should judge as “faithful” or “true.” For a franchise that can be rebuilt visually but still lives or dies by moment-to-moment controls, that is a serious bet.

If you are an executive or operator watching player sentiment around remakes, this story carries a practical lesson: combat feel is becoming part of the brand, not a feature. The article’s scene-by-scene description shows how quickly trust can flip. You go from getting stuck and outmatched to using smoke bombs, rope dart interrupts, and perfect guard counters to turn the fight. That is not a minor detail. That is the loop that decides whether players come back to practice, or put the controller down in frustration. In a world where audiences can compare titles instantly and loudly, the “finicky combat” conversation is no longer confined to one studio or one era of releases. It is migrating, and it is migrating through remakes like this one.