Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced Platinum Trophy Guide — Legendary Ships & the 41 Art Pieces

Intro — 13 Years Later, and the Pirate Loop Still Works

The 2013 classic Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag came back, rebuilt and gorgeous, as Black Flag Resynced.

AC4 was always a great pirate game, right? Upgrade the ship, walk the towns, hunt treasure, upgrade the ship some more. The remake doesn’t touch that loop. Combat got a modern pass though, and the parry feels like it’s from a different game entirely. That part I loved.

The trophy list is a completely different animal from the original. All the multiplayer stuff is gone, which takes a huge chunk of pain out of it. Nothing is time-limited either. You can mop up every single thing after the credits roll.

My platinum took 75 hours.

Being honest, this is realistically a 50-hour platinum. I burned the extra time on the legendary ships and on collecting 41 art pieces, and those two are where this article lives. Outside of those two walls, there’s basically nothing that will stop you.

If you’re playing right now, I hope this saves you some time. And if you’re just shopping for your next platinum, hopefully this helps you decide.

Difficulty & Time

Release date: July 9, 2026
Played on / version: July 24 – August 19, 2026 / PS5
Total playtime: ~75 hours
Time breakdown: 28 hours to story clear, ~40 hours post-game
Playthroughs: 1
Platinum difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Sense of achievement: ★★★☆☆
How close I came to quitting: ★★★☆☆
Need for a guide: Medium
Missable / permanent-loss elements: None
Online requirements: None
Biggest wall: Legendary ships (Devil of the Caribbean) and the art collection (Dilettante)

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced platinum trophy difficulty and playtime

⚠️ Missables: There Are None

Worth stating up front because it changes how you play: nothing in this platinum is missable. No difficulty-locked trophies, no point of no return, no “oops, that vendor is gone forever.” Play the story how you want, clean up afterward.

That’s also why the roadmap at the bottom is about order, not about danger.

Wall #1 — Legendary Ships: “Devil of the Caribbean”

This is the hard one.

Four fights against absurdly overtuned warships. Pure endgame content, and the kicker is you can lose even with a fully upgraded Jackdaw.

My conclusion up front: just fight the legendary ships on Easy.

You have to beat all four to get Devil of the Caribbean, so there’s no skipping them. But this game has zero difficulty-based trophies, so flipping naval difficulty down before you engage costs you nothing. Beat them on Hard or beat them on Easy, you get the identical reward.

One warning. Changing naval difficulty can respawn legendary ships you already killed. I sank two on Normal, dropped to Easy for the rest, and the first two were back on the map. After that, no matter what difficulty I switched to, the defeated ships just stayed available to re-fight. The trophy still unlocked normally, so don’t panic if you see it happen.

One other thing. After switching to Easy and finishing the legendary ships, the Jackdaw charge attack that’s supposed to unlock from beating them never unlocked for me. I can’t confirm the difficulty change caused it. By that point there was nothing left to shoot at, so it doesn’t affect the platinum and I let it go.

Given a do-over, I’d do all four on Easy from the start. The two I won on Normal took endless trial and error, and a third one I attempted over and over and never killed. Five hours, gone. If beating them “properly” matters to you, go for it, but for working adults where time is the real resource, Easy from the start is the pick. Also, staying sane is genuinely hard when you’re losing this much.

Before anyone says “sounds like you were underprepared”: the Jackdaw was maxed and I had every officer. On top of that, I finished the post-story side quests to recruit Tobias “Deadman” Smith. That’s the one that adds an extra salvo to your broadside cannons. Without Extra Salvo, the legendary ships are rough even on Easy, so get him before you engage.

And even with all of that, I lost 20 or 30 times on Normal. Brutal.

El Impoluto (killed on Normal, attempt #13)

Three phases. Here’s the run that finally worked on try 13.

Brace properly for the opening ram. When it starts chasing, put three barrel bombs and mortar fire into it. Phase 2 it circles and unloads on you, so tank it and keep mortaring. When you see the charge wind-up, spam barrel bombs to push it into phase 3. Phase 3 moves like phase 2 but mixes in a surprise ram, which I ate by scattering barrel bombs and then bracing.

Twelve losses to figure that out.

HMS Fearless / Royal Sovereign (killed on Normal)

Honestly there’s no strategy here worth the name. Survive the windows where they line up on you, land mortar and chase-gun shots in between, repeat.

Important bit: if you sink one first, the other catches fire and starts ramming you. Whittle them down evenly and finish them close together.

La Dama Negra (switched to Easy)

This one is deranged. Four hours on Normal, zero wins.

Get close and it fires instantly, plus a storm of mortars. Its weak spot is the rear, but sit back there and it drops barrel bombs on you without mercy. Entering phases 2 and 3 it sprints away at ridiculous speed and lobs a dedicated mortar barrage at you. On Normal that shreds you and it’s over fast.

I gave up and went to Easy and simply survived. That was the whole solution. Four hours, for that. Even on Easy I finished with one health bar left.

HMS Prince (switched to Easy)

This one you lose track of mid-fight. Heavy fog kills visibility to the point where it feels like the ship vanished, and you burn the clock hunting for it. My first attempt I sank without ever understanding the mechanic.

Second attempt I knew how to find it and cleared it, but even on Easy my health was on fumes. The thought of doing that on Normal is grim. Once you understand the mechanic, Easy is a straight bulldoze.

Wall #2 — The Art Collection: “Dilettante”

Great Inagua manor art collection screen for the Dilettante trophy

Dilettante unlocks when you fill every art collection and equipment slot in the Great Inagua manor. This eats more time than the legendary ships do.

The paintings sort themselves out if you clear all the warehouses. Portraits accumulate as you push the story and can be swept up later. Swords, pistols and ship models aren’t a problem either.

Which means the only collectible worth bracing for is the art pieces.

They come from several routes: general store purchases, treasure chests, Nassau local events, and rewards from Kenway’s Fleet piracy missions. The fleet is where the volume comes from, so start running the fleet the moment it unlocks.

I didn’t touch the fleet until after the credits, which is exactly why it turned into a grind.

Fleet missions run on in-game time, so they finish in the background while you do other things. Start early and rewards pile up while you’re playing. Leave it late and you’re just sitting there waiting for timers.

The whole job is this:

As soon as the fleet map unlocks, get ships into it
Board high-health Brigs and swap out your starters. The ships you begin with limit which regions you can send to
Run piracy missions. Over and over.

Do that alongside the story and you’ll have a decent pile of art pieces by the time you finish. Compared to me, starting from zero after the credits, that’s a massive difference.

The Save-Scum Method

Reward contents are decided the moment you accept them. So:

When a mission completes, manual save before claiming the reward
Claim the reward
No art piece? Reload. Repeat 2 and 3 until one drops

One cycle is 1–2 minutes. I got to 38 pieces in about 3 hours this way. Start the fleet early and those 3 hours disappear into the background of your story run instead.

Then I Got Completely Stuck on the Last One

Roughly 70 rerolls and nothing.

The one I was missing was the Turkish Copper Field Flask.

Here’s why. This piece does not drop from fleet piracy missions at all. It comes from a Nassau local event, and the event wasn’t showing on my map, so I never noticed it.

Nassau local event location for the Turkish Copper Field Flask — The event triggers here.

Obtaining the Turkish Copper Field Flask from the Nassau local event

I spent all that time rerolling fleet rewards for an item that was never in that pool. If you’re stuck at 40/41, this is probably your answer.

Where All 41 Art Pieces Go — Full Slot List

Since I had to figure this out anyway, I mapped it: for every one of the 41 pieces, which space in the manor it actually goes into. I checked each one by placing it myself.

The split is:

Shelf decorations: 26
Tables: 7
Large tables: 2
Floor spaces: 6

The one to pay attention to is the large tables. There are only two, the Triptych and the Violoncello. Until you have those two, you’ll have a hole left over even if everything else is filled. Knowing which spaces are still short mid-collection saves you a lot of pointless rerolling.

All 41 art pieces sorted by display slot — click to expand

Shelf decorations (26)

Bat-Nosed Figurine
Eagle Figurine
Earth Monster Relief
Taino Bust
Bust of a Water Deity
Jar with Ritual Scene
Maize Deity
Pectoral Disk
Pedestal Bowl
Seated Zemi Figure
Tripod Vessel with Date Glyph
Vulture Vessel
Bracelet
Chalice
Turkish Copper Field Flask
Drum
Goa Stone Container
Head of an Oba
Jar with Four Faces
Mirror Back
Parade Helmet a l’Antique
Scherer’s 1700 Globe
British Silver Teapot
Silver Two-Handed Bowl
Whydah Galley-Style Bell
Wooden Term Statue of St. Livertin

Tables (7)

Deity Figurine
Standard Bearer
Baroque Guitar
Beaver Pelt
Oboe
Trumpet
Wooden Term Statue of St. Adrian

Large tables (2)

Triptych
Violoncello

Floor spaces (6)

Cabinet
Clock
Commode
Joined Armchair with Cushion
Kast Cupboard
Yoke-Form Vessel

🎯 Tricky Trophies — The Ones You’ll Walk Right Past

These are the trophies you miss by just playing normally.

Last to Leave is for sitting on a burning ship. The catch is that some burning ships have a chair and some don’t. It took me four before I found one. You can check for a chair instantly with photo mode.

Unsinkable wants you to take a rogue wave side-on during a storm. There’s a lot of luck in it. I took waves cleanly from the side and had it not register, so the angle may matter more than it looks. Mine popped while sailing around on Hard.

Silence, Fool! trips people up. Hitting the guard while he’s ringing the bell isn’t enough, you have to actually kill him. Blow the Man Down has the same problem: shooting isn’t the answer. You shoot the ropes to drop the hanging bodies in Long Bay.

Davy Jones’s Locker you get at the Black Trench.

Hungover is just drinking yourself under at the Havana tavern.

Edward Catway is 50 potted plants. Walk around Havana smashing them. You don’t even need to count.

Friend to All is touching 7 animal types, and only the monkey is annoying. Cats, dogs and sea turtles you’ll run into naturally. The monkey only appears via a local event, which is where people stall.

What I’d recommend: work through the Animus reward line and take the monkey from its first reward. That’s faster than hunting side quests for it. If you’re stuck, try that. The monkey is over where you pick up fleet missions, incidentally.

Double Tap is parrying ocelot attacks back to back. Almost every guide says “two ocelots,” but I got it parrying the same one twice in a row. You don’t need a pair. There’s a pair on Abaco Island if you want to be safe about it.

Overdesign IV is a smoke bomb into berserk, then a kick. If that description doesn’t parse, the video shows the flow.

Cartographer looks tedious and isn’t. Capture all the forts, then press down on the map and fill in the markers one at a time.

The Memory of My Enemy is 11 portraits displayed in the manor. This one did need real exploring.

Grandmaster is the three tavern games. They’re surprisingly serious strategy games and I hit a wall above intermediate. My wife, who likes board games, cleared it for me. If board games aren’t your thing, outsourcing this one is completely valid.

Efficient Platinum Roadmap

What I Actually Did

Push the main story (28 hours)
Post-credits, hunt treasure while clearing unexplored areas
Run the new side quests, recruit the officers, get Deadman
Upgrade the Jackdaw
Capture all forts and fill in the map
Finally start the fleet here (too late)
Legendary ships (5–6 hours, 4 of them wasted)
Art piece save-scumming (3 hours, plus 2 wasted)

What I’d Do Instead

Push the main story. Ship upgrades are the priority. Town exploration and treasure hunting all feed back into making the ship stronger anyway
The moment the fleet unlocks, start it. Board Brigs and keep piracy missions cycling. This runs parallel to the story from here on
As rewards come in during the story, save-scum art pieces out of them
Post-credits, clear treasure and unexplored areas while recruiting every officer. Get Deadman here
Capture all forts, fill in the map
Legendary ships, all four, on Easy from the start
Collect the remaining art pieces. If something won’t appear, check your fleet coverage for gaps, and check whether that piece even drops from the fleet
Mop up the trophies you skipped

The art piece save-scum is a 1–2 minute loop of saving and reloading. That’s just what it is.

Verdict

Platinum difficulty: ★★★☆☆
Sense of achievement: ★★★☆☆
How close I came to quitting: ★★★☆☆

What I Liked

The parry looks great, feels great, and is genuinely strong. You’re an assassin, but getting spotted isn’t a crisis, because parry into takedown wins almost every fight.

More than anything, this game is beautiful. Sailing the open ocean actually felt like an adventure. The deep sea sections too, gorgeous, setting aside the question of how Edward is free-diving that far.

Sailing the open Caribbean in Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced

What Fell Short

Edward barely grows. Health and ammo capacity go up, and that’s about it. No levels, no skill tree. Coming from modern games it feels thin. Playing it reminded me that old AC games really were like this.

Your moveset is nearly complete from the start too. Smoke bombs and the rope get added later, but the swordplay and the assassin movement are available early, and since parry-into-takedown handles most fights, I finished the game barely changing weapons. Collecting weapons never felt like a reward.

Holding R3 to mark enemies is also too convenient. Colors invert and you can see every enemy position, which drains most of the tension out of stealth.

The only thing actually functioning as an RPG system is the Jackdaw. Town exploration, treasure hunting, all of it exists to make the ship stronger.

Closing

Thanks for reading this far.

I melted 4 hours on a legendary ship and burned a pile of pointless time on art pieces. If this article saves someone else those 4 hours, that’s a win.

This site covers one platinum at a time, from games I’ve actually finished, written around where I got stuck and what I’d do differently. Haven’t decided what’s next yet. Come back and check.

📚 You might also like these guides

Japanese version of this guide: note. Originally written in Japanese by the same author, then rewritten in English for this site.