Darlings, Ubisoft's swinging for the fences with this Black Flag Resynced remake, and the numbers already have the buccaneers counting doubloons before the July 9 launch even drops. Analyst Rhys Elliott of Alinea Analytics pegs Steam pre-orders at a spicy 5.39 times those of last year's Assassin's Creed Shadows at the same pre-release milestone, with Resynced already clearing an estimated 300K copies on Steam for nearly $14 million in gross revenue — enough to eclipse the entire lifetime Steam run of Ubisoft's own Skull & Bones flop from 2024.

Shadows itself moved about 5.7 million copies total (1.3 million on Steam, per the analyst), but it sputtered after a delayed feudal Japan debut and got its live-service plug pulled after just a year. Resynced is a ground-up Anvil Engine rebuild focusing purely on Edward Kenway's Caribbean pirate yarn, ditching the old multiplayer and modern-day bits while adding fresh narrative threads. Analyst Elliott calls the nostalgia play a "timely strategy" for a publisher bleeding from layoffs, studio closures, and that infamous Skull & Bones naval-tech spin-off that ate hundreds of millions.

X is already buzzing with pirate hype and "Ubisoft needs this" memes, while Reddit threads in r/pcgaming and r/assassinscreed are roasting the bar being set by Skull & Bones sales. Pre-order bonuses like Blackbeard's Crimson Pack are moving Deluxe Editions hard, especially on PlayStation storefronts where it's topping charts in multiple regions. Ubisoft's own earnings chatter flagged strong early pre-order momentum in places like China too.

If this remake sails, it's the low-risk remake blueprint Ubisoft should have leaned into years ago instead of chasing trends.