Ubisoft launched Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced to 2 million sales across all platforms in its first 24 hours. The base game landed well. The day one DLC, though, landed differently.
The game shipped alongside an optional collection of extra packs totaling $85, which is more expensive than the base game itself. Players noticed immediately, and the Steam review section filled up fast with complaints. Here's the thing: the backlash didn't stop people from buying.
What $85 worth of day one DLC actually looks like
The bundle breaks down into several separate packs. The cheapest is a $4.99 Map Pack, which marks collectible locations on the map without requiring players to find them organically. That one carried a 6.34% attach rate on Steam, meaning roughly 1 in 15 players picked it up.
The cosmetic packs, priced at $9.99 each, fared worse. Each one landed around a 2% attach rate, or about 1 in 50 players. These cover premium skins for Edward Kenway and the Jackdaw ship and carry no gameplay advantage.
That 2% figure sounds like a rounding error. But when the base game moved 2 million copies at launch, even a fraction of a percent starts generating real money. The total haul from these packs on Steam alone came out to approximately $1 million.
The player reaction that didn't actually dent the revenue
One Steam reviewer put it plainly: "Come on Ubisoft you just couldn't hold yourself huh?! Releasing a 70 euro game and on the DAY of the release you slap us with 85 euros worth of DLC packs that are just not cosmetic but give you a gameplay advantage this is why piracy exist and I will be refunding!"
That sentiment echoed across the reviews section and pulled the Steam user average down. The specific grievance about gameplay advantages refers to the Map Pack, which does provide a functional benefit by skipping the collectible discovery process. The cosmetic packs are genuinely optional in the traditional sense, but the Map Pack sits in a grayer area.
Ubisoft responded through a community spokesperson: “We've seen your feedback since launch, and we're reading all of it. The standard edition is the full, complete experience. Every mission, every island, the full story and the complete world are all there, with nothing held back. The additional packs are entirely optional extras for players who want them, never a requirement to enjoy or complete the game.”
The math that explains why Ubisoft keeps doing this
A 2% attach rate sounds like a failure. But the numbers tell a different story when you run them against a 2 million unit launch. Even the least popular $9.99 cosmetic packs generated meaningful revenue at that scale, and the Map Pack at 6.34% was doing considerably more work.
The key here is that Ubisoft doesn't need most players to buy these packs. It needs enough players. At a 2 million unit launch, "enough" is a pretty low bar to clear.
This is the same pattern that has followed Assassin's Creed releases for years. The Map Pack specifically is described as a series mainstay, not a new invention for Resynced. The cosmetic packs follow a formula that predates this game by several entries. What changed is the scale of the backlash, partly because the combined DLC price tag exceeded the base game cost, and partly because the in-game pop-up made the upsell feel more aggressive than a passive store listing.
For players who want a clearer picture of what Resynced actually changed from the 2013 original, the full breakdown of every meaningful update in Black Flag Resynced covers the reworked combat, revamped tailing missions, and everything else Ubisoft Singapore touched.
The developer situation adds a layer of context worth noting. Ubisoft Barcelona, which contributed to Resynced's development, is currently dealing with layoffs even as the game's commercial performance is being celebrated internally. That contrast has not gone unnoticed by the community.
If you're jumping in and want to sort out which edition made sense to buy, the AC Black Flag Resynced editions breakdown covers exactly what each version includes and costs before you commit.
