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Planned for release on no less than six different platforms within the space of a month, the development of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag has been a mammoth undertaking for Ubisoft in what is clearly one of the biggest cross-generation efforts ever seen, matched only by the upcoming Call of Duty: Ghosts and Ubisoft's own upcoming Watch Dogs. In order to be financially viable, these titles need to be rolled out over both existing current-gen and the new next-gen platforms too. The problem is that - as we have seen to a certain extent with Battlefield 4 - Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 are in danger of being left behind handing in sub-optimal experiences.Assassin's Creed 4 seems to be a different kettle of fish. Designed largely around the restrictions of current-generation console technology, it's almost certain that the upcoming Xbox One, PS4 and PC versions of Assassin's Creed won't offer a true revelatory upgrade over the current-gen console editions in the same way that DICE's Battlefield 4 provides. However, the AvilNext engine has been developed with next-generation capabilities in mind, with the ability to scale up feature sets in line with the extra power the Xbox One, PS4 and top-end PCs deliver. As such, an obvious boost in resolution, more stable frame-rates, along with subtler upgrades in lighting and physics are all on the cards - and something that the early code demoed at this year's E3 clearly displayed.
But right now the game is only available for the 360 and PS3, with the other versions due out late in November to correspond with the launch of the next-gen consoles, so we'll have to wait and see just how much the upgrades improve the game as a whole. With that in mind, let's turn our attention to the current Microsoft and Sony formats: does the game yield considerable upgrades over Assassin's Creed 3? Or are we now just looking at subtler refinements to an engine already very well optimised for the hardware?
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