Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced Steam Pre-Orders Have Already Beaten Skull & Bones' Lifetime Sales, Analyst Claims

Launch income projections for Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake look similar a immense betterment connected Assassin's Creed Shadows, the franchise's astir caller release.

Steam pre-orders for Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced are 5.39 times higher than those for Shadows, according to manufacture expert Rhys Elliot of Alinea Analytics. Remarkably, this means Resynced has already beaten the beingness income of Skull & Bones, Ubisoft's costly, long-in-development pirate spinoff from Black Flag that yet emerged successful 2024.

Writing connected Substack, Elliot stated that Resynced looked acceptable to beryllium a "much-needed deed for Ubisoft" pursuing a mixed effect to Shadows and a turbulent clip astatine the steadfast marked by regular layoffs and workplace closures.

Launched successful 2025 aft a notable hold and months of pre-release controversy, Assassin's Creed Shadows yet failed to capitalize connected pent up request for its long-awaited feudal Japan setting. Ubisoft precocious released a last update for the game, sidesplitting ongoing enactment aft conscionable 12 months and lone 1 post-launch enlargement — a fraction of the attraction fixed to different caller blockbusters specified arsenic Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Valhalla.

Ubisoft has refrained from releasing up-to-date income figures for Shadows, alternatively stating lone that the crippled had passed 5 cardinal players successful mid-2025 — a fig that volition besides see those who had played the crippled via entree wrong a subscription service.

Elliot stated that Shadows has really present sold 5.7 cardinal copies, of which 23.8% were connected PC (around 1.3 million). The bulk of Shadows' sales, 53.6%, were connected PS5, portion the remaining 23.6% were connected Xbox. By comparison, Assassin's Creed Odyssey is known to person sold astatine slightest 10 cardinal copies, portion Valhalla has sold much than that (though again, Ubisoft refrained from divulging circumstantial figures — simply that it has generated an tremendous $1 cardinal successful revenue.)

Resynced is simply a ground-up remake that focuses connected Black Flag's main Caribbean-set communicative that stars Edward Kenway and a formed of fashionable pirate characters specified arsenic Blackbeard, Charles Vane, and Ann Bonney. The archetypal game's multiplayer and modern time sections are not included, though a sizable magnitude of caller contented has been woven into its halfway communicative instead.

"Black Flag Resynced is simply a timely strategy for a struggling Ubisoft," Elliot concluded. "After a turbulent fewer years of costly development, delays, and high-profile misses (ironically including Skull & Bones, which spun retired of Black Flag’s ain naval tech), Ubisoft is dealing with fractured pipelines. Building an unproven caller IP from scratch is simply a six-to-eight-year gamble costing hundreds of millions.

"High-fidelity remakes of beloved bequest titles are the low-risk alternate – and 1 Ubi hasn’t truly leveraged overmuch yet. Such remakes reuse a universally praised plan blueprint, lowering originative hazard portion guaranteeing a built-in audience."

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced launches this Thursday, July 9 and you tin cheque IGN's merchandise times usher to find retired precisely erstwhile the crippled unlocks successful your region.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social