Ubisoft's remake of Assassin's Creed Black Flag, titled Black Flag Resynced, has achieved record sales on Steam, selling 2 million copies on launch day, according to an official Ubisoft post on X. This surpasses the launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows, which reached over 1 million players in its first 24 hours. However, the launch has been marred by a persistent issue: the game's offline mode does not function on PC when Ubisoft Connect servers go down.
Offline Mode Failures
Like other Ubisoft titles, Black Flag Resynced requires a one-time connection to Ubisoft Connect to authenticate the game. Ubisoft states that after this initial connection, the campaign is 'fully playable offline' on all platforms, except for live content tied to the Animus Hub. However, players reported that when Ubisoft Connect servers went down briefly on Saturday night, July 11, the game became unplayable on PC, contradicting the promised offline functionality.
A Reddit thread highlighting the issue garnered over 15,400,000 upvotes, with many commenters sharing past experiences of similar problems with other Ubisoft PC titles. This indicates a widespread and recurring concern among the player base.
Record Player Counts
Despite the technical issues, Black Flag Resynced set a new franchise record on Steam. According to SteamDB, the game reached an all-time concurrent peak of 104,756 players, making it the first Assassin's Creed title on Steam to exceed 100,000 concurrent users. The previous high was Assassin's Creed Shadows with 64,825 concurrent players.
The strong sales and player engagement suggest that Ubisoft may continue producing remakes of older Assassin's Creed titles. A new pirate-themed game is also a possibility given the popularity of Black Flag.
Ubisoft's Response
Ubisoft has not yet addressed the offline mode issue directly, but it has acknowledged other problems, including localization and voiceover bugs on PC, in a post on X. The company has promised to address these bugs in future updates.
The combination of record-breaking sales and persistent technical glitches highlights the ongoing tension between Ubisoft's DRM policies and player expectations for offline play. As the game continues to sell well, the pressure on Ubisoft to resolve these issues will likely increase.
