About those first five Assassin's Creed games: released within only six years, they were about the members of a secret guild of assassins who thwart the conservative powers that be throughout history by climbing up tall landmarks and parkouring through crowded cities. The controlling power (church, state) and location (Middle Ages Israel, Renaissance Italy) changed, but the basics held true: lots of climbing, familiar cities, and a damn-the-man attitude.

From what we've seen, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag will zig where its predecessors zagged. At first blush, there's no carefully crafted subtext or political intrigue. The game will feature Templars, we're told, but in what capacity is unknown.

The hero, Kenway, is a member of the Assassins, but his allegiance seems to lie mostly with himself. The enemy now is the collective of rival pirates — one of history's great anti-establishment groups that operated on the periphery of civilization. And the setting is the Caribbean, a collection of small island towns separated by hundreds of miles of azure ocean water and emerald jungle.

Where the earlier games exaggerated real history, the marketing materials for Black Flag attempt to legitimize legend. "Their true stories, rough and unvarnished," says the voiceover in one of the trailers. A publicist followed that up later, saying Ubisoft is giving pirates "the HBO treatment." That's marketing speak for serious and mature drama ensconced in violence and sex — the latter of which is hinted at in the trailer when Edward gets out of bed with a naked white woman and then a naked black woman appears from behind her.

(This is a particularly unusual moment. The reveal feels as though it's meant to be shocking — Two women! Two races! — but it just reads tawdry. This sort of on-the-nose sexuality has been pushed to the back of the franchise, so now it's disorienting seeing a God of War-style nude scene appear in promotional materials.)