Feeling content with my 92% completion of Assassin’s Creed IV, I was still keen to prolong the experience a little longer and checked out two of the extra missions available.

Aveline

This short DLC came free with the PS4 version of the game, and puts us in the shoes of Aveline, an assassin from New Orleans who starred in Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation on the Vita (ramble for this game forthcoming). Why this DLC exists is a bit of a mystery, Aveline’s story is set many years after Edward Kenway’s.

Still, this 40-minute adventure was surprisingly fun. Aveline feels much faster and lighter than Kenway, and it is quite liberating to have her free-run across slave-camps and through forts. These three missions have some basic combat involving Aveline’s splendid hatchet, but the majority of your time will be spent partaking in elaborate chase sequences and intricate climbing challenges – both Assassin’s Creed mainstays that I hadn’t realised were missing from Black Flag until I played this DLC.

This fast paced DLC has a forgettable story and a flat ending, but is an enjoyable way to discover a character most players would be unfamiliar with. I enjoyed playing as Aveline so much I subsequently checked out AC3: Liberation (unbenknownst to me, this would be a huge mistake!)

I wouldn’t have paid for it, but it was a very fun brief distraction.

Freedom Cry

This $15AU DLC pack give you an extra 6 hours of AC4 and puts you in charge of Adewale, former slave and Kenway’s firstmate turned Assassin.

There is something compulsively satisfying about slaughtering slavers with your machete, and it’s something you’ll do a lot in Freedom Cry. The key to unlocking levels and upgrades is by freeing slaves and building up a rebel army. At first this is a fun undertaking, liberating plantations and rescuing slaves from cells, all the while killing French slavers with vengeful glee. But after a while all the slaves re-spawn, and the entire exercise seems futile. Perhaps that’s the point, but it makes for a dissatisfying and repetitive play cycle after a few hours, and you’ll start ignoring the plight of slaves just to move the story forward.

The story is alright, bland on the surface but the undercurrent of tension between submission and rebellion is treated intelligently. Adewale is a stoic yet dull character, but the supporting cast such as the conspiring madame Bastienne Josephe and the abhorrent villain Marquis de Fayet are far more intriguing and provide the content’s more memorable moments.

You’ll once again set sail for quality ship battles, this time to liberate slave ships, but the land based missions in Freedom Cry do not fare as well. An overabundance of annoying “eavesdrop” missions combined with the cluttered layout of Haiti’s Port-au-Prince which makes avoiding detection and combat almost impossible, Freedom Cry becomes a frustrating experience that never lives up to its slaver slaying potential.

There is fun to be had here and a competent extension of AC4’s world, but it is by no means an essential addition to the larger game.