Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag - Freedom Cry

It's easy to imagine a big-budget game tackling slavery with the subtlety of a hammer, but Freedom Cry is an emotional triumph...with some ethical issues.

Truth be told, I was cautious going into Freedom Cry; having just finished Black Flag, I worried that fatigue would kick in straight away. This hasn’t been the case, however. It may not be the most ground-breaking downloadable expansion, yet Freedom Cry is pitched perfectly, offering just the right amount of content to explore. Even though you are essentially playing the same game it manages to do enough differently and certainly warrants the asking price.

If Assassin’s Creed grates on you and you’re tired of dumping money into games that are functionally identical in many ways, look elsewhere. But Assassin’s Creed 4 will please AC fans, and from a purely mechanical, gameplay standpoint, it’s probably the best game in the franchise to date. From that perspective, it’s a worthy investment. From others, like narrative, it leaves much to be desired.

If you've finished Black Flag and are hurting for more action, Freedom Cry is worthy purchase. It's a short story campaign featuring the heroic and duty-driven Adewale. Freedom Cry adds a new new wrinkles to AC4's gameplay, but the real strength is the focus on slavery and the return of some nuance to the world of Assassin's Creed.

For a story about breaking the chains of your fellow men, this add-on's gameplay mechanics remain resolutely locked up to the Assassin's Creed framework. Its strong, self-contained narrative is Freedom Cry's greatest asset, but the tale struggles under the weight of its over-familiar gameplay. Whatever comes next for Assassin's Creed - this is the first and last Black Flag campaign DLC - it's clear this is where Ubisoft needs to turn its attention next.

But if you've seen Edward's piracy through to its end, then you're likely itching for more. If you want to see what the franchise's been capable of doing since inception - retelling interactive flash points of history with more conviction and power than the dry texts of a history book - then you should play this. Even if the execution isn't as sharp, nor perhaps as genuine, as it could be.

Le Prix de la Liberté est un DLC honnête qui permet d'en apprendre un peu plus sur un personnage charismatique et peu utilisé jusqu'alors. Les 9 missions au programme ne sont quant à elles pas toutes originales, mais certaines sortent clairement du lot, notamment au niveau de l'ambiance, pour un résultat globalement positif. Les 10 euros demandés ne sont donc peut-être pas tout à fait justifiés, mais les fans devraient s'y retrouver.