In the original Black Flag, you could fight using Edward’s hidden blade. In the current remake, many fans are missing this option—but according to lead developer Richard Knight, there’s still hope that it will return.
Anyone who’s played the older Assassin’s Creed games will remember that back then, you could defend yourself against enemies not only with a sword but also with the hidden blade. In fact, in every game in the series—up to and including the often-underrated *Rogue*—you could equip the Assassin’s hidden blade as your primary weapon and use it to block attacks in combat, as was also the case in the 2013 *Black Flag*.
The current remake overhauls Black Flag’s combat system and gives it the role-playing game flair of Assassin’s Creed Shadows: Enemies now have a block meter that you must first deplete with Edward’s sabers before you can attack their health bar. Special attacks like kicks and sweeps are still available. However, in Black Flag Resynced, we can no longer fight with the hidden blade—and that’s exactly what’s currently frustrating many fans.
That might still change in the future, though, as Game Director Richard Knight recently revealed in an interview that the hidden blade simply wasn’t on the developers’ priority list prior to launch.
What did the chief developer reveal specifically?
In theinterview with the well-known Assassin’s Creed YouTuber JorRaptor, Richard Knight recently addressed the question of why the hidden blade plays a comparatively smaller role in the remake. Ultimately, internal resource prioritization was the deciding factor. The team had to decidewhat they wanted to finish first:
During development, we took a look at Edward—he was already quite powerful and had a whole arsenal of tools at his disposal—then we prioritized the core combat gameplay [sword fighting] because we absolutely had to get that right.
Things like throwing weapons are cool, sure, but the fact is: Edward already has ten ways to kill someone. Given the effort required to develop additional features and build them from the ground up with today’s characters, 3D models, and animations, the effort involved is much greater. For us, that was simply a lower priority.
So for the team at Ubisoft Singapore, sword combat simply took priority over additional secondary weapons. But that doesn’t mean these features couldn’t still find their way into Black Flag Resynced in the future. Because this doesn’t sound like a definitive ruling—on the contrary.
Knight explained that the developers are currently paying very close attention to what players want for the future of Black Flag Resynced: “We can’t make any promises, but we’re listening to the community. We’re interested in what people want most.”
If you want the hidden blades to be the primary weapons, you should let Ubisoft know that in the relevant forums. A little more weapon variety would benefit the game, not only for Edward but also in terms of his enemies. You can read more news about Assassin’s Creed in the link box above.
