In the second developer diary for Assassins’ Creed IV, key designers on the project discuss Black Flag‘s open-world nature and how it presents players with a variety of options to choose from.
“In the environment design, we really tried to push level design and level art to [the] next level to have a lot of task abilities, so give many options to the player,” art director Raphael Lacoste says in the video. “We don’t want to create a linear game. It’s really something open.”
According to script writer Darby McDevitt, Black Flag will contain plenty of situations in which players can choose to take a stealthy approach or come in loud. McDevitt specifically cites plantations as his one of his favorite locations in ACIV for this very reason.
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag launches on PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U October 29. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will be available alongside the console launches on November 15 and November 22 respectively. The PC version is slated for release sometime this winter.