Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced is selling like crazy but the microtransactions are causing real backlash

[Molly76]

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launched to a peak of 99,451 concurrent players on Steam alone in its first 12 hours, easily the biggest Steam launch in Assassin's Creed history, ahead of even last year's Assassin's Creed Shadows. Sales have clearly been strong across the board

Despite that, player sentiment has landed on a Mixed rating on Steam, sitting at only 62 percent positive after roughly 2,778 reviews in that same window. The core complaint is not really about the remake itself but the inclusion of over 80 dollars worth of microtransactions and cosmetic DLC that keep showing up in the game's menus, for players who already paid 60 to 70 dollars for the base game or deluxe edition

Opinions on the actual cosmetics are pretty split. Some defenders argue that pure cosmetics in a single player game genuinely do not matter, while critics counter that certain items offer gameplay perks like shorter cooldowns that meaningfully change how the game plays, not just how it looks. There is also frustration that Ubisoft appears to be using Black Flag's popularity to push players toward Assassin's Creed Shadows specifically

There is also a bug locking cutscene framerate to 30 FPS that Ubisoft has acknowledged and says will be patched. Beyond the monetization controversy, the game has launched in a relatively stable state overall, with some outlets even reporting a smooth experience on Steam Deck's more limited hardware

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Launches To Mixed Reviews: Controversial Microtransactions Spark Outragewww.techpowerup.com

[WildManSteve40]

Nearly 100,000 concurrent players is a massive number for this franchise, the actual gameplay clearly delivered even if the store page didn't

[Clever Wrench]

Cosmetics that also shorten cooldowns are not really pure cosmetics anymore, that's the part that would bother me too if I bought this

[Taker29]

Using a beloved remake to funnel people toward Shadows feels like a pretty transparent business move, can't blame players for being annoyed

[Craig71]

62 percent positive with that many reviews already is rough, but curious if that recovers once the framerate bug gets patched

[Stuart78]

Steam Deck handling it well is a good sign for anyone thinking about picking this up on hardware other than a beefy gaming PC

[TaxSeason95]

Feels like every big single player launch these days has to deal with this exact same monetization backlash story, it's become depressingly predictable