Richard Knight, director of Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, has explained why protagonist Edward Kenway lost several signature combat moves from the original game in Ubisoft's remake, including the hidden blade's varied kill animations and its extensive throwing weapon options. Knight said the studio focused development effort on rebuilding core combat mechanics rather than reinvesting in the wide array of weapon-based finishing moves, since these were judged a lower priority given the resources needed to recreate them with modern character rigs and animations.

Speaking to YouTuber JorRaptor, Knight said Edward already had "ten ways to kill somebody" and that reworking features like throwing weapons from scratch was costly relative to their value, so the team prioritised nailing the fundamentals instead, such as new enemy health and defence bars that replace the original's counter chain-kill system. He added that Ubisoft is not ruling out reinstating the missing features and is monitoring community feedback, though no commitments have been made. The remake has proved commercially successful, selling two million copies on its first day and generating $1 million in day-one DLC sales on Steam alone.