Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry DLC Xbox 360 Review

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag's Season Pass didn't offer much outside of multiplayer maps and characters, but the big one and only single player DLC for the game was Freedom Cry. Freedom Cry takes place after the events of Black Flag, and centers around Edward Kenways first mate Adewale. As the name would suggest your time in Freedom Cry will be spent trying to free slaves and bring to just the Templars responsible for their imprisonment.

Gameplay in Freedom Cry is completely unchanged from Black Flag, you will have all the same moves that Edward has, the same counters, and ability to scale whatever you find. Adewale carries a Machete in place of a sword and a Blunderbuss for a gun. For as talked up as Freedom Cry was, it is rather disappointing. Adewale's story of revenge is played out and overly boring. He has a brute force that the other assassin's don't, which is nice when you chase down and bury a machete in your enemy. But it's the same exact gameplay as Black Flag, with nothing changed. Most missions feel like they are just the plantation missions from Black Flag. Which makes the DLC feel tired after the first few missions you do.

Adewale's story is interesting however, he has a genuine concern for the people he is helping, and has issues trusting even those attempting to help him. He is a solid character, and I would have liked to have seen his story a little more fleshed out, but with the lack of variation in the missions Adewale's story feels half told and underwhelming. The DLC was also advertised at clocking in at 4+ hours, but I feel like I completed it in it's entirety in far less time than that. The one new feature in Freedom Cry is Slavers, they are everywhere, and due to the fact that you are of African descent they want to take you in as a slave. it adds just a smidgen of difficulty to what your the missions, but it's so easy to dispatch them that they really pose no threat to you and it just becomes annoying after awhile.

I really wish that for the only piece of story-related DLC they could have taken a little time and really fleshed out Adewale's story, especially since it has since become a stand alone game on PSN, they could have varied it from Black Flag a little. Expect more of what wasn't that much fun in Black Flag (i.e. eavesdropping, tailing, and clearing plantations.) in Freedom Cry, all of this forces me to give it a 6.5 out of 10.