Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag features in total up to five hours of modern day content to explore, according to a post on the official Ubisoft blog. However, in reality only roughly 30 minutes of this content is required material in the main storyline.
Players will leave the Animus five times throughout the game's main path, says Ubisoft. Each time their required tasks will only take roughly three to four minutes.
"It's there to progress the story because there's this meta story that we're telling," reads the post. "Why are you researching Edward? Why him specifically? What did he do that's interesting? There is a story that connects everything together. We pretty much tried to boil it down to its most core essence because we know there are people out there who really don't like the present day, and that's okay. You don't have to like it, but it's part of the brand. For the people who like the present day and are big fans, we put in a lot of fan service and a lot of fun optional content. You get to choose if you want it or not."
The optional content will allow players to search out computers to hack and gain access to particular rooms in order to find out more information. In this modern-day narrative players will find out what happens to Desmond after Assassin's Creed 3, offering a way to say goodbye to the character.
Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag launches Oct. 24. The game will be available on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii U, with versions for Windows PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One out later on.