Afternoon Creed

All the recent news about Assassin's Creed installments got me a bit antsy for some open-world throat-slitting, and the Freedom Cry expansion/vignette for Black Flag happened to be on sale for a few bucks. Unfortunately, a few hours later, I'm still left wanting and unsatisfied.

Freedom Cry is a precise subset of Black Flag: less missions, less weapons, less ship upgrades, less sailing destinations, less keynote features. Almost everything is unlocked using the "freed slaves" count, obviating other features like harpooning and hunting/skinning. There are no scattered bits of lore to collect, only some treasure chests filled with money (which is all but meaningless). There are no naval forts to fight. There's only one "town" island, Port-au-Prince, and it's tiny compared to even the smallest town from AC4; other islands are either one-off plantations, or empty destinations with a single treasure chest. Black Flag's optional extras like Assassin missions, rune puzzles, legendary ship battles -- all of those are missing. There are no sea shanties!

The story of Adewale covered in Freedom Cry is ... not really interesting. It begins after his engagement with Edward, so Ade's potentially-fascinating origins are only mentioned in the Animus database, never shown or explored. He engages with two other characters of note, but not long enough for any of them to build anything meaningful. And the ending is pretty flat. Just, dull.

As in AC3's King Washington DLC, there is no real-world/modern-day content in Freedom Cry. I guess that's sort of a wash.

Freedom Cry isn't "bad," being well-served by the solid sailing and assassinating foundations of Black Flag. But it is simply anemic with content. There isn't enough depth or breadth in Freedom Cry for it to engage on the same level as Eddie Kenway's maritime adventures.

Better than: "The Infamy" opening chapter of Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington
Not as good as: "The Redemption" closing chapter of Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington
At least: it has a much shorter name.

Progress: Finished the story, 92% synchronization.