Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

This installment in the Assassin’s Creed series came out in 2013. The player character is employed at Abstergo, a tech company with virtual reality software that allows users to witness the experiences of dead people. Instead of using this technology to, for example, solve crimes, the player character is tasked with harvesting cinematic footage from the life of 18th century pirate Edward Kenway to create cynical media properties.

Edward’s actions (conducted by the player) make up the majority of the gameplay and narrative, during which he interacts with numerous historical figures of the 1710s and ’20s. There is some ambiguity about how “real” or literal the player’s experience is supposed to be. The employees of Abstergo can use technology to alter the footage collected by the player character, and they often propose cosmetic changes for a hypothetical final product, such as modifying Edward’s voice or censoring mature content. We experience the game with presumably Edward’s “real” voice and the “real” mature content, yet what we see is explicitly not raw, because our coworkers’ notes reveal that they have already tampered with Edward’s memories by the time we view them, typically in the interest of generating a more marketable product. Namely, they have edited various locations to include landmarks that did not exist during the game’s timeline, and some of the sillier DLC and cheats (like dressing Edward in the outfits of previous Assassin’s Creed characters) are described as gratuitous edits just for fun. So it isn’t really clear how “authentic” the game is within its own universe.

According to the game’s information database (presumably compiled by the player character and/or other Abstergo employees) Jack Rackham (voiced by O-T Fagbenle) was born in Jamaica in 1682. He is described as a charming and handsome party animal who is bad at sailing. His character model however is not particularly better looking than others.

The database says Anne Bonny (voiced by Sarah Greene) was born in 1702 and left Ireland as a young teenager. Her husband is for some reason named Jack Bonny, described as “a gentle but sturdy young man in his early 20s”.

Assassin’s Creed revolves around a secret society called the Assassins, which identifies and murders evil people (generally members of the rival society the Templars). Mary Read (voiced by Olivia Morgan) is an Assassin and says she has been for “a couple of years” by the time Edward asks her about it in 1716. She is mentored by the character Ah Tabai, whom she met in Spanish Town. She has a Northern accent and her birth date is not given, but the Abstergo database says that Anne is “much younger” than her. Edward first meets Mary between September 1715 and March 1716, when she is hanging around Nassau with Blackbeard and Benjamin Hornigold. She claims to be William Kidd’s 19-year-old son James.

She gives Edward information to help him rob a plantation, and accompanies him on a trip to murder a Templar.

In March 1716 she invites Edward to the Assassin hideout in Tulum, where she lives, but for some reason does not tell anybody or get him security clearance. Edward’s visit to Tulum compromises its secrecy, and Mary gives him a blowpipe to help rout an invasion of Templar goons. Ah Tabai and all the other Assassins hate Edward and blame him for all the trouble even though Mary brought him to Tulum and her constant withholding information from him results in danger and violence. Mary shows Edward how to perform contract killings for the Assassins, in spite of their unanimous disapproval of him and Ah Tabai’s explicit rejection.

Anne and her husband move to Nassau in April 1716. He works on a plantation and she works in a tavern called the Old Avery. In January 1717 Calico Jack arrives in Nassau with Charles Vane. The database says that Calico Jack joined Charles’s crew as his quartermaster in either 1717 or 1718.

Mary goes to Kingston where Edward helps her assassinate a Templar and she tells him she is a woman.

In January 1718 Anne is working at the Old Avery, where she meets Calico Jack.

They are both in Nassau when Woodes Rogers arrives in July, and Jack is among the men who meet with Woodes to hear about his plans.

Edward and Charles conspire to set a ship on fire, and Charles suggests they use Calico Jack’s. Jack leaves Nassau with Charles.

In October 1718 Mary visits Edward at his hideout in Great Inagua to scold him.

The mutiny against Charles happens immediately after his and Edward’s crews jointly attack a slave ship. Calico Jack threatens to sell Edward’s quartermaster Adéwalé into slavery, and maroons Edward and Charles together south of Jamaica.

Jack commands Edward’s ship for two months and then goes to Nassau and accepts a pardon. In May 1719 Mary hangs out with Edward in Great Inagua, with Calico Jack in shackles. Edward credits Mary and Adéwalé with taking his ship back from Calico Jack.

In or after September 1719, Edward gets to see the Observatory, where a device (related to the player character’s at Abstergo) can look into another person’s experiences. Edward and Bartholomew Roberts look through Calico Jack’s perspective and see Anne and Mary talking. Mary (in disguise as James Kidd) encourages Anne to pilot a ship despite Anne’s sensible demur that she knows absolutely nothing about sailing or navigation. Jack thinks Mary is flirting with Anne and gets jealous. They go to sea intending to make enough money to retire. The Abstergo database says the three of them left Nassau as pirates in late summer 1720, and that they were arrested on a schooner within four months of leaving Nassau, in October 1720. The third person who joins Anne and Mary in resisting arrest is the father of Mary’s child, and he dies in the action.

However, the cutscene in which Anne and Mary are put on trial in Port Royal and sentenced to execution is set explicitly in April 1720. Mary announces that they are pregnant, and they are jailed.

Four months later Edward and Ah Tabai break them out. Edward encounters Calico Jack’s corpse in a gibbet, although the Abstergo database gives 1721 as the year both Jack and Mary died. Anne says that Mary gave birth to a daughter which was removed. Mary sustained an infection and she dies as Edward carries her from the jail (again, in 1720, not 1721 as Abstergo states). The player can either leave her body behind in Jamaica or bring it to the boat where Ah Tabai waits with Anne, but this choice does not impact the gameplay or narrative.

Ah Tabai brings Anne to Tulum. She has a daughter which dies. In her dialogue with Edward she refers to Calico Jack as “Rackham”, why??? Why would she not call her boyfriend by his first name. Edward tells Ah Tabai that Mary asked him to mend fences with the Assassins.

In May 1721 Anne sails on Edward’s crew as his quartermaster, and accompanies him as he travels around performing the final murders of the storyline (as well as during the postgame).

In October 1722 Edward invites Anne to come with him to England, but she says she doesn’t want to go back to Europe, nor does she want to join the Assassins. Then she bizarrely bursts into song as the credits sequence begins.