Mechanics

Not one of the seven side systems in Black Flag is available when the game begins, and each is held behind something different: a sequence number, a fort you have to take, a building you have to buy, a tool you have to unlock, even an internet connection. Reading them in the order those gates open is more useful than reading them by reward, because it tells you what you are actually able to do this evening.

What Unlocks Each System in Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag

The two that open early

Hunting is available almost immediately and harpooning joins it after the third sequence. Both exist to feed crafting, since every pelt, hide and bone either becomes an upgrade for Edward or gets sold to a merchant. The animals are regionally fixed rather than random, which turns the list into a route: iguanas on Abaco and Andreas, hutia at Long Bay and Cayman Sound, jaguars around Tulum and Cape Bonavista, and a white jaguar only at Great Inagua. Herbivores bolt on sight, so stay in cover; crocodiles and black jaguars come at you, so use something with range. Locations for every land animal and every harpoonable sea creature are on the hunting and harpooning page.

Kenway's Fleet opens in Sequence 4 and is the only system here that will not run offline. You stock it by boarding ships and choosing to send them to the fleet instead of taking their cargo, then dispatch them on trading routes graded from safe to treacherous. Odds of success come down to your ships' HP, firepower and speed, so the fix for a bad-looking mission is more hulls or a repair rather than a reload. It quietly matters beyond the money: three buried treasure maps exist only as fleet mission rewards. Ship stats and the full mission list are on the Kenway's Fleet page.

The contracts, and the tool they assume you have

Thirty Assassin Contracts are scattered across the Caribbean, each paying about 1,000R with a further 500R for never entering open conflict. Every target stands inside a Restricted Area, which rules out simply walking up and using the hidden blade, and that is why the Blowpipe is effectively the gate on this system rather than Havana. A Berserk Dart from a rooftop turns almost every one of these into a job you finish without being seen at all, and where darts will not do, the game offers dancers and drunken pirates to buy as distractions instead. Finish half of the thirty and the Stealth outfit is yours; finish all of them and so is the Pistol Sword.

Naval Contracts work the opposite way round: there are fifteen and each is locked behind a specific naval fort, so the fort campaign is the prerequisite for the whole system. Requirements range from boarding a named ship to looting sixty wood, and the rewards climb from 1,200R to 2,400R. The last one, The Final Contract, only appears once the other fourteen are done. Doing all fifteen gives you Sea Legs and the Golden Flintlock Pistol. Both lists are on the Assassin Contracts page and the Naval Contracts page.

The hideout is both a gate and a purchase

Great Inagua is what opens the Templar Hunts, and there are four of them, each made of four missions that pay a rising scale from 300R up to 1,500R for a total of 3,050R per hunt. They are also the most varied content in the folder: a hunting contest against Opia Apito, an eavesdrop, a ship chase you can end with a swivel gun, a defence of an Assassin Bureau using placed powder kegs. Each completed hunt hands over one of the five keys that open the cage at Great Inagua, the fifth arriving through the main story, and what is inside cuts all damage Edward takes by 25 percent.

The hideout itself then becomes something to spend on, and the eight upgrades come to about 90,700 Reales all told. Two of them are not decoration. The Brothel at 15,000R makes dancers free, and the Campfire at 7,000R lets you take drunk pirates with you, which is to say the two distraction tools the Assassin Contracts keep asking for. The General Store and Harbormaster at 700R and 500R are cheap conveniences worth buying immediately, while the Manor Guesthouse at 40,000R is pure completionist spending that unlocks the FTFY trophy. Details on both are on the Templar Hunts page and the hideout upgrades page.

Paying for all of it

Which leaves money, the one system with no gate in front of it and the one that decides how fast the others open. Synchronising viewpoints reveals the treasure chests in an area, and those pay 100 to 300R apiece for almost no effort. Plundering is the fastest legitimate earner, because the sea never runs out of ships, though it pays to check a target's level through the spyglass first. Contracts pay, hides and bones sell, and the four legendary ships pay between 20,000 and 30,000R each if you are strong enough to take them on. The full list of earners is on the fast money page.

Everything above eventually turns into ship upgrades, which is what our items guide covers, and the forts and dive sites that gate half of them are in the locations guide. Start from the Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag guide for the order to do it all in.