The Assassin’s Creed franchise has reached great heights, but none are greater than one of its DLCs. Two months after the release of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag, Ubisoft unveiled a narrative connected to the main game's story called Freedom Cry. The DLC had players follow Adéwalé - Edward Kenway's quartermaster on the Jackdaw - thirteen years after the events of Black Flag as he fights to free slaves in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Despite Freedom Cry's mere five-hour play time, the DLC offers a depth of experience and story that no other Assassin's Creed title can. In a time when Ubisoft bloats its games with extraneous content, a sleek and character-focused narrative such as Freedom Cry's feels refreshing if not more rewarding than Assassin's Creed Valhalla's hundred-hour main game. By excising itself of unnecessary character upgrades, exploration, and lore, Freedom Cry has been able to become one of the best additions to the Assassin's Creed franchise. Now that it can be purchased as a standalone game, it can be considered its best game, too.
Freedom Cry's Unique Characters & Story Make It The Best Assassin's Creed Games
Perhaps the best part about Assassin's Creed: Freedom Cry is that it barely feels like an Assassin's Creed game at all. Adéwalé's background as a slave-turned-pirate-turned-Assassin lends him a depth few protagonists in the series can be compared to. He has essentially lived three different lives by the time Freedom Cry takes place, and the DLC manages to package all of them into Adéwalé in five short hours.
Adéwalé's motivations are also unlike other protagonists' in the Assassin's Creed series. Similar to his former ship captain Edward Kenway, Adéwalé has interests clearly outside the jurisdiction of Assassin's Creed. Unlike Edward, however, Adéwalé's actions are less self-serving and more righteous as he seeks to free the people of Port-au-Prince, liberating Black slaves from the misfortunes he endured in his past. In comparison, the always-present Knights Templar are nearly irrelevant to his mission.
The decision to make Adéwalé's motivation character-driven rather than lore-driven comes with the added benefit of focus. Ubisoft has a clear direction with the story it wants to tell in Freedom Cry and the message it wants to send. Adéwalé doesn't explore like Edward Kenway does in Assassin's Creed Black Flag; he doesn't build up a large arsenal of weapons like Arno Dorian in Assassin's Creed Unity; and he doesn't loaf around in moral ambiguity like Altaïr in Assassin's Creed 1. Adéwalé cause is to free slaves, and he is single-minded and absolute in achieving it. Freedom Cry doesn't even bother itself with making its villain - the slave owner Pierre de Fayet - three-dimensional, so the game can thus focus on its story of vengeance and redemption.
If Freedom Cry suffers from anything, it's that it could have been a little longer. Adéwalé's arc isn't given the chance to flourish due to the short play time but even so, he doesn't really need an arc given his mission. Freedom Cry provides a harrowing yet redeeming story about slavery and its abolition in the time it takes newer Assassin's Creed titles to get through their introductions. It thus stands as one of Assassin's Creed's best - if not its greatest - stories to date.
