Assassin’s Creed IV will take place on the pirate-infested seas

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, the latest installment in the Assassin’s Creed franchise, will be pirate-themed, and likely set in the Caribbean Sea. 

Last time around, it was Ratonhnhaké:ton, a tomahawk-slinging warrior with a British father and a Mohawk mother. This time around, it will be a pirate. 

According to images released by Ubisoft today, the next installment in the popular Assassin's Creed franchise will be titled Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag – and by the looks of it, the new game will take place in the early 18th century, in the pirate-infested waters of the Caribbean Sea. That's a long way from the Revolutionary War milieu of Assassin's Creed III, which was released late last year. 

But according to a report published yesterday in the Examiner, there is a link. "The main character's name [in AC IV] is Edward Kenway, father of Haytham Kenway from Assassin's Creed III," the Examiner writes. "Edward is known as a privateer, assassin and occasional pirate. The game's location is set in the Caribbean on multiple islands including Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas." 

Fans of Assassin's Creed will know that Haytham Kenway is Ratonhnhaké:ton's father – meaning that the pirate featured in the cover art is the grandfather of Ratonhnhaké:ton. How's that for a lineage?

Ubisoft has remained mum on the details of its new game, although it has scheduled a live event for Monday, when we'll likely see some screenshots and videos of AC IV. As for release date, you should expect to wait until at least the fall – for the most part, Ubisoft has stuck to a once-a-year release schedule, and AC III debuted in October of 2012. 

Joystiq has published some screenshots of the various versions of AC IV, and Wii U, PS3, Xbox 360, and PC editions all seem to be in the works.

Luke Plunkett at Kotaku, meanwhile, got his mitts on some AC IV promotional material, which appears to show the terrain the game will cover. "[T]he image would suggest the game is set in the Caribbean," Plunkett writes, "though interestingly this map shows only the Western half, incorporating what's today known as Cuba, the southern tip of Florida and Jamaica."

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