Rousing seafaring anthems are as vital to Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced as they are in the original, but sea shanties do not exist in isolation. Waves crash rhythmically against the hull as birds join the chorus of voices on-deck. Wind snaps the large black sails to and fro, a meditative drum beat as The Jackdaw journeys across Dry Tortuga. It's everything I remember from Black Flag, only better.
"I think that's one of the good things about a remake: that there was a blueprint that we could follow." Sitting down with Ubisoft's Erik-Jon Evangelista, audio director for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, it's clear this is a blueprint he knows intimately. He's been with Ubisoft since 2012, having served as an audio designer for the original Black Flag and 10 others among the best Assassin's Creed games, but Resynced is a very different beast.
"It's an iconic game, so we had to be faithful and familiar, but not necessarily the same. So I tasked my team with three different things – three different pillars: to recreate, elevate, then innovate."
One more, with keeling
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced review: "Far from smooth sailing, even though I love the original"
The first of those three pillars – recreation – is where it all starts. Presented in the brand new Anvil engine, much of the original sound assets had to be remade for Resynced.
"It really wasn't a cut and paste job, something that we could just port over," Evangelista says. "It was showing its limitations based on the current hardware of that time, so we wanted to make sure that we leveraged and took advantage of [Anvil]" – for example, in creating realistic spatial soundscapes using physics-driven Doppler effects – "while at the same time being faithful to the original. So, one example was with music.
"I'm not going to change Brian Tyler's music – it's iconic, it's familiar," Evangelista says, meaning elevation was off the table here. Rather, Evangelista sought to work around the limitation of some tracks being "short and possibly repetitive, depending on the difficulty level you play at." I'm reminded of the combat stings of Assassin's Creed Unity, how frequently (and sometimes comically) the combat music would stop and start after the most minor scuffle.
"I wanted to make sure that we modernized it and innovated in a way that was still familiar, and that was to implement a system that had the music react to gameplay animations or stabs, in this case." This responsiveness is clear in game; at the end of my first boss battle, I hear the music growing louder, more urgent, desperate to reach its crescendo as I hurl smoke grenades at Templar Du Casse's feet. When my Hidden Blade hits home, the backing track mirrors that instant relief.
It makes for incredibly cinematic encounters, more immersive than anything I remember hearing and feeling in the original Black Flag. "It was a time before John Wick," Evangelista reflects. "Now, you can't not think of action being tagged to music, so I wanted to be able to try to do something like that because of how dynamic it is. This makes very familiar music have a very different experience per player."
Many unique actions are tagged to specific character actions and movements, including stealthy Hidden Blade takedowns. "If you played without ever doing takedowns, you'll just hear the music as it was, but if you do a lot of takedowns, you may never really hear the music in the same way."
The sound of pirates
We're usually like quiet ninjas in the background.
Erik-Jon Evangelista
Returning to Black Flag, Evangelista brought more experience to its all-important sea shanties. "My team here was in charge of making the shanties on the long ship for Valhalla," Evangelista says as an example. "I'm definitely leaning on the experiences that I've had previously, and I think part of what we do is being able to make a sonic signature for the game, regardless of whether it's a remake or it's a new game."
Everything from the Spanish songs of the Havanaean NPCs to the more Euro-centric language and subject matter of the sea shanties – and Evangelista's favorite track "at the end of Stede Bonnet's questline" – point to a specific historical context in the 1700s West Indies. But it's the subtle layers of environmental texture that root players in a specific time and place.
"Sound that is tied to gameplay, whether it's by player input or from something that happens in the world that the player can hear, tends to have the highest value," Evangelista says, with the goal being to "create the illusion of you being in a very specific geographical position." Think again of the wind whistling past the Jackdaw as the crew breaks into song, one sound complementing the other to achieve a far more powerful scene-setting effect than either in isolation.
Method and the madness
But with all the recreation, elevation, and innovation on the table in Resynced, some things stay the same. Like, the sound of Edward drowning.
"Edward's drowning voice is me!" Evangelista exclaims, to mine and our Ubisoft PR's surprise. "We were in charge of the underwater [environments] back then, so all the swimming sounds and everything was done by myself and another audio designer.
"When it came to drowning sounds, I clearly didn't drown, right, but it's more of the fact that we had to make sure that it sounded like I was struggling." For this, Evangelista stuck his head in a barrel of water and choked. "I could only do like three max [gulps] before I had to come up for air and go down again. We used hydrophones to be able to record those, but they needed to be at like a depth of at least like two meters-ish, so that at least you don't hear the bubbles pass by and pop [on the surface]" – which would shatter the illusion of Edward drowning in more than a few inches of water.
"Back then I recorded it as an audio designer, and as audio director now, I'm keeping it!"
It's subtle sound design choices like these that make a game feel grounded in reality, and if drowning for your art was commitment personified back in 2013, it's almost expected of game developers in 2026.
"I think there's a lot more appreciation for not just music, but how sound also makes people feel in games these days," Evangelista notes. It does feel like every month another touring video game concert is announced, from Death Stranding: Strands of Harmony to Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's Painted Symphony. How does it feel to see game audio design finally having its moment just as Resynced drops anchor?
"What a time to be in," Evangelista laughs. "I'm used to people not noticing audio. Like, 'no news is good news,' and if they mention it, it means that you've been found out, or you've been noticed. We're usually like quiet ninjas in the background. We teach the player a language that helps them to comprehend gameplay feedback – setting, size, scale. I'm glad we have an audience that appreciates that nowadays."
What's next for the publisher? Here's all the upcoming Ubisoft games we know of right now.
