Assassin's Creed 4 Limited Edition Includes Edward Kenway Statue

Ubisoft announced this afternoon that they'll be offering an Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag Limited Edition in North America. The centerpiece of this premium edition is an 18" statue of Captain Edward Kenway.

Collector's Edition statues generally have no effect on me whatsoever but this one's admittedly fetching. Kenway's swinging from a flagpole in his full Assassin's regalia. He's raising a cutlass in the air. It's a poster-worthy scene.

The Black Flag Limited Edition also comes with a 28" x 48" pirate flag with the Assassin's crest. Ubisoft also threw in an 80-page art book and the full game soundtrack, standard fixins for any premium package. The copy of AC4 included in the bundle will be packaged inside a SteelBook game case with full color art of Kenway. The price of this collection is $129.99.

Kenway, the grandfather of Assassin's Creed 3 protagonist Connor, is the main character of AC4. The game follows his years as a pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy. He and the crew of the Jackdaw will sail throughout the Caribbean, looting and plundering as they please. They'll also wage war on the Templars, the secretive order that seeks global domination.

Because piracy is central to the game's plot, naval battles will be emphasized in gameplay. Ubisoft introduced ship battles in AC3 but seek to flesh out the feature in this game. Players will be able to upgrade the Jackdaw with new weapons and other amenities over the course of the campaign. They can use a spyglass to check out distant ships and find out whether they're worth attacking. New types of enemy ships will make the battles at sea more varied.

Maybe the most impressive part of the game is how it promises to integrate the ship into the wider game. Your ship won't feel like a separate mode of the game as it might have in AC3. If you're sailing alongside an interesting island and want to check it out, you can hop overboard and swim over. You can also use the Jackdaw as a platform for deep sea diving.

The amphibious nature of the game can be seen in a new trailer called, "A Pirate's Life on High Seas." At around the 1:52 mark, the trailer shows Kenway and his crew assaulting a coastal fort. After softening up the fort with cannonfire, Kenway heads ashore to fight the local garrison.

AC4 will launch this fall on the PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U and PC. The Limited Edition will be available on all of those platforms except for the Wii U. Just another sign of Ubisoft's newfound caution about Nintendo's new console, I suppose.