When comparing Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel vs Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, the Slant community recommends Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag for most people. In the question“What are the best Action-Adventure games on Steam?” Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is ranked 2nd while Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is ranked 42nd. The most important reason people chose Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is:
The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are. While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again. Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying.
Specs
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Pros
Pro End game takes advantage of all players’ skills and weapons
The end game is the best part of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel as it requires the player to make the most of their skill and experience while utilizing all of their abilities and weapons. It is quite a balancing act, and when you pull it off it’s very exhilarating.
Pro Low gravity effects
The new low gravity effects work quite well, giving players more of a chance to put distance between themselves and their targets. This makes sniping a lot more viable than in previous Borderlands titles.
Pro Four new playable characters each with different acting special abilities
Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel has four new playable characters in the game, each with action skills that feel completely different from one another. The action skill trees add further levels of customization depending on what areas in the tree you choose to level up.
Pro Intuitive stealth gameplay
The stealth mechanics feel natural and fluid in how strategic they are.
While tracking your targets, you blend in with each city's citizens or climb up to the tops of buildings to perch there and avoid getting spotted by the templar or their guards. You can either wait for the perfect opportunity to strike with a hidden blade up your sleeve that silently assassinates your target, or you can go all-out and have a sword duel with them if you'd rather take a more aggressive approach. After they're dead, you make your escape and become incognito again.
Everything goes together nicely in a way that feels satisfying.
Pro Cool naval combat against other pirates out on the open seas
Naval battles with your own ship and crew are expanded here in Black Flag after they were first introduced in Assassin's Creed III. You're a pirate this time, so you get to explore the open world with your ship as much as you want.
The bread and butter of the game involves you as the captain of your ship, navigating out in the open waters to get from place to place, as well as getting hands-on with the full mechanics of steering while firing off cannons at enemy ships. There's a full crew aboard with you, helping to give plenty of liveliness to your surroundings as they shout in anger, sing shanties, and cheer in victory as you go along, along with dynamic weather like raging storms that adds to the realism and intensity. It's a lot of fun and serves as a nice way to break things up from the usual stealth missions on foot.
Pro Innovative multiplayer with online co-op for up to four friends
The multiplayer in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag offers a unique experience. It mixes the series' stealth mechanics with cat and mouse gameplay through a few different multiplayer modes.
Manhunt is the most interesting one, where you play one round with one team of four as the hunters and the other team of four as the hunted. The hunters have to kill as many of the opposing team as possible in the allotted time, whether it's through pure speed that offers fewer points, sneaky doses of lethal poison for tons of bonus points, and plenty more. The hunted, if they spot their hunters, can use certain defensive abilities like smoke bombs and disguises to outsmart their opponents, stun them, and then run away.
Other modes like Wanted offer a pure PvP experience with you against the full lobby of other players, where you try to stay hidden while making kills. For all gameplay modes, there's the neat, but chilling effect of hearing whispers as an opponent gets closer to you; trying to distinguish which way they're coming from while staying hidden. This and the sheer unpredictability of the gameplay makes the multiplayer incredibly addicting and fun.
Cons
Con Poor writing
The writing in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel is nowhere near as good as in Borderlands 2. The jokes often fall flat or seem like total non sequiturs. Some players may also object to the prevalence that the writing gives to social issues; this has been described as pandering to a certain audience by some critics.
Con Side missions all the same
The side missions of the game are all very similar: Travel to an area on the map, use a key, and maybe kill some bad guys while accomplishing this mundane task.
Con Short
Even if you complete all of the side quests, the game only lasts about 25 hours. Purchasing DLCs or playing through additional times with other characters can extend this considerably.
Con Loot feels limited
Unlike past Bordelands games, the loot in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel feels very limited. Legendary items are almost impossible to find in chests or from enemies; it’s more likely you will find them in an item shop. This means you may have to spend hours grinding for cash in order to purchase the weapons that never drop.
Con Multiplayer is pretty much dead
Unfortunately, the multiplayer is all but abandoned by the player base. Even though the multiplayer itself is really cool and fun, you won't find too many people playing it these days. Since the game originally came out in 2013, it's quite old now, and it doesn't help that the devs don't actively update it anymore. The Assassin's Creed multiplayer base in general is also splintered between this game and the other installments with online play. So if you're a new player trying to get into things, don't be surprised if it takes a long time to find a match.
Con Dull story that rehashes the same old conflicts
There's nothing new here, just the usual war between the Assassins and the Templars. This was okay in previous games where the writers at least cared enough to put in more in-depth modern day scenarios that kept the war relevant, giving us a reason to explore these historical settings in the first place. Instead, the past portion with Edward would be completely boring without his entertaining personality, and the modern day stuff is so phoned-in that the devs shouldn't have even bothered in the first place. This game is great for the gameplay, but not at all for the narrative.
Con The setting isn't that great for climbing around on top of buildings and exploring
Getting to play on and around the islands of the Caribbean setting sounds cool, but it's not all that fun from a gameplay perspective. The wooden buildings and huts are quite small and basic, with only some taller churches in the bigger cities like Havana. Scaling them doesn't take much effort, and it doesn't reward you with a huge, beautiful view comparable to previous locations like Florence and Rome during the Italian Renaissance. Despite the unique history and culture in these places, they're weak settings to play through.