Assassin's Creed Black Flag vs Odyssey: Which Is Better?

Black Flag takes this because its map is one continuous thing. Sailing between Havana, Kingston and Nassau happens without a loading screen, so the Caribbean reads as a single place rather than a menu of regions, and a sail on the horizon is a reason to change course. The side content sits directly on those routes: naval forts to take, wrecks to dive, a ship to upgrade with what you pull out of them. Odyssey is larger, and the r/assassinscreed thread asking which is prettier gives it the win without much argument, but the same threads keep returning to copy pasted settlements, and our stored player complaints for it name repetitive quests. Bigger is not the same as worth crossing, and that is the line this category is judged on.

Odyssey wins on foot and it is not close. Its fighting descends from the Origins overhaul, and our catalogue records the machinery Black Flag does not have at all: leveling, skill trees and a loot system driving ability based combat. PC Gamer went as far as calling it possibly the best combat in the series. Black Flag runs the pre Origins system, which the GameFAQs regulars describe as standing still and countering until the fight is over. The one thing Black Flag keeps is the water, where the same board is blunt that it has the far superior naval combat, and where Odyssey's ships are a feature rather than the foundation. On land, though, this is Odyssey's category by a wide margin.

Black Flag, and its own players say why. Strong story and character development sits in its stored praise, and Edward Kenway is the reason: a pirate who wants no part of the creed and gets pulled toward it anyway. It is one arc, it has one ending, and it lands. Odyssey answers with structure rather than character. Our catalogue lists dialogue, choice based branching and multiple endings for it, and its stored praise names the historical figures you meet, which is a genuine strength if you want a story you steer rather than one you are told. The trade is focus. Odyssey's recurring complaint, repetitive quests, is a story problem as much as a pacing one, because the side missions stop carrying anything after a while.

Black Flag, on the grounds that its difficulty is something you pick and Odyssey's is something you are assigned. Odyssey's stored complaints name level scaling making encounters frustrating, and its mechanics record lists leveling and skill trees, which is the machinery behind that: an area can be shut to you because a number is too low, and the fix is grinding rather than playing better. Black Flag's mechanics list carries no leveling and no skill trees whatsoever, so nothing in it gates a destination. Its own complaints are about tedium instead, tailing missions and a clunky movement system, which is a different and more forgivable failure than being told to come back later with a bigger number.

Odyssey, by five years and a hardware generation. Massive open world with stunning visuals is the first item in its stored praise, and the r/assassinscreed thread asking which of the two is more beautiful settles on Odyssey with no real dissent. It also has somewhere to go on current hardware: our stored video library for it includes a next generation patch analysis testing a locked 60 frames per second, which is not something Black Flag received. Black Flag is a 2013 game and shows it, and the clunky movement system in its stored complaints is the criticism most tied to its age. The sea holds up better than the land does, but this is one of the few categories where neither the numbers nor the threads are split.

This goes to Black Flag, and not because it is longer, because it is not. Our data logs a Black Flag main run at about 36 hours and a full clear at roughly 57. Odyssey's length is not logged in our catalogue at all, and players place it well above both figures. The question is what those extra hours actually are. Odyssey's own stored complaint is repetitive quests, and the r/assasinscreed verdict is that its scope suffers from bloat and fatigue, which is padding under another name. Black Flag's side content is a shorter list that mostly pays out: forts, wrecks, ship upgrades, all of it sitting on a route you were sailing anyway. Both are included on PS Plus Extra, so this is a question of time rather than price.

Odyssey, and this is where its role playing machinery finally pays off instead of getting in the way. Our catalogue lists dialogue, choice based branching and multiple endings for it, sitting on top of skill trees and a loot system, so a second run can end somewhere the first one did not and can be built around a different set of abilities. That is genuine extra content rather than a repeated checklist. Black Flag's replay hooks are collectibles and hidden secrets, the shanties and chests and wrecks, and once that list is cleared the game has nothing further to show you. Its sailing holds up on a return visit, but a second Black Flag run does not play any differently. Odyssey at least changes shape.