Latest Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag remake leak prompts Ubisoft to directly respond with a classic GTA San Andreas meme – "Ah, s***, here we go again"

There are a lot of poorly kept secrets in the gaming world, but it's still rare for an unannounced game to have been so thoroughly leaked that even its own publisher is willing to acknowledge the rumors. Amid mountains of reports about the Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag remake, even Ubisoft seems exhausted of playing coy, and has responded to the latest rumor with a cheeky Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas meme.

This week, an Edward Kenway figure seemingly tied to the new version Black Flag started to make the rounds online. It rapidly spread across the Assassin's Creed fandom on Twitter, prompting a response from the official account of the series: a screenshot of CJ's famous line, "ah shit, here we go again," from the opening of GTA: San Andreas.

We don't know much in the way of concrete details about the Black Flag remake, though a PEGI leak suggests its official title will be Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced. One of the weirder leaks happened last summer, when figure maker PureArts, seemingly unaware that this had not yet been announced, started talking about an upcoming Kenway figure tied to the remake on a livestream.

That may be the very same figure that brought today's response from Ubisoft, and its appearance is a whole story unto itself. It first appeared on Vinted, a second-hand site popular in Europe, and content creator Ubicypher contacted the seller to get apparent proof that it's made by PureArts.

The figure seemingly sold for some €400 (around $480 USD), and the listing is no longer available online – not a terrible price for what looks to be an unreleased, unannounced collectible from an unreleased, unannounced game.

Rumors suggested that Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced was scheduled to launch very soon, but it was reportedly among the swathe of delays that recently accompanied Ubisoft's "major reset." Hopefully it won't be too much longer before we see it for real, but recent history has not been kind to delayed Ubisoft remakes.

Heck, I don't even agree with our ranking of the best Assassin's Creed games, so I'm sure you, dear ready, will find something to complain about.