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Love it or love to moan about it, the latest annual chapter in the Assassin's Creed franchise has once again advanced the increasingly labyrinthine narrative, provided answers to a number of outstanding mysteries and dropped new clues as to where the series may be heading.Let's recap. A year ago Assassin's Creed 3 ended with the death of dull series protagonist Desmond, who sacrificed himself to save the world from a giant solar flare and tie up a bunch of loose plot strands in the process. But his actions released the entombed spirit of Juno, a malevolent member of the long-dead First Civilisation race. She mopped up the solar radiation and saved the planet (yay!) but was then free to roam the wires of Earth's technology, hunting for corporeal form like an electronic Voldemort (boo).
With the series' long-running apocalypse plot finally concluded and Desmond's present day antics rounded off, Assassin's Creed 4 is mercifully free to tell a tale of its own. Naturally, it builds on previous events in the Creedverse, but it postpones Juno's apparently imminent arrival to an event still a ways off - she's still too weak, a manifestation of her explains. Her role is relegated to that of a cameo appearance - likewise the ongoing antics of surviving Assassin sidekicks Shaun and Rebecca. Instead, Black Flag manages to weave a surprisingly self-contained yarn with strong ties between the narrative of historical protagonist Edward Kenway and the game's modern day sections set within Abstergo Entertainment.
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