Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag video demonstrates the proper way to plunder

We've already seen an extensive amount of swashbuckling and pillaging from the latest Assassin's Creed , but this is the first time the game's director has sat down to talk shop about the game's side missions.

There were a lot of things to like about Assassin's Creed III, but there were simply too many things. It was riddled with side missions that failed to offer a compelling reason to complete them, and they ended up feeling like mind-numbing fluff because of it. Black Flag's director, Ashraf Ismail, wisely spends his time explaining why we should go off the beaten path in this latest video, saying the time you spend completing side missions will pay off in meaningful upgrades to your ship and gear. While that's how you upgraded your gear in Assassin's Creed III, this video features significantly less menu-sifting and backtracking. We'll have to play the game for ourselves to see if Ismail's words ring true.

Blag Flag has been announced for the PC but, like its predecessors, will be hitting the market a few weeksafter its console counterparts (which release in the US on Oct. 29). However, Ubisoft also said it wanted to improve its relationshipwith the PC community earlier this year. The publisher could do that in a multitude of ways, but developing a decent PC port for Black Flag would be a good start.