History TearJerker / AssassinsCreedIVBlackFlag

* After Mary Read dies, Edward takes DrowningMySorrows to the extent that even the loading screen representation is groggily stumbling about with a bottle in hand.

* Early in the game, when Edward meets the Assassins at Tulum and after saving the captives from the Templar mercenaries who invade the island, James Kidd leads him back the temple and the center courtyard where the surviving assassins have piled the bodies of their brethren and are mourning. Considering that these deaths were consequences of Edward's own unthinking actions which the player participated in, it qualifies as a PlayerPunch and a YouBastard moment. It also makes Ah Tabai's forgiveness of Edward that much more remarkable and Edward's clinging after money that much harder to stomach.

-->'''Ah Tabai:''' ''(sounding one step away from throttling Edward)'' [[WhatTheHellHero Should I find comfort in that!?]]

-->'''Edward:''' Damn it, you should have been the one to outlast me. \\

* Related to this is the fact that after Black Bart's mutiny, Edward's time in prison, Adéwalé quits as your quartermaster. This loss is reinforced by the fact that in the endgame, Anne Bonny is still your quartermaster. The fact that it was Edward's, and the player's, own selfishness and bad behavior that played a role in Adewale joining the Assassins hits you and you miss having your friend on the next raid. Even Edward joining the Assassins doesn't change that and while they are amicable you sense that they aren't close anymore, you feel you drove a good friend away, feel just like Edward.

* The flashback where Edward leaves for sea is the first scene where we get a glimpse of a more vulnerable side of him as he quietly laments how this is the time where he truly needs his wife's faith and blessing. It's also sad because you can sense that his wife still loves him and it hurts her to do this, but she doesn't want to be his enabler anymore. The fact that she dies and Edward NeverGotToSayGoodbye is deeply sad in itself, more because Edward had finally changed and wanted to do right by her, only now it's far Too Late. Edward's expression when he gets the letter with the WhamLine that his wife is dead and is survived by a daughter he knew nothing about, is filled with regret, realizing that he failed her.
** Even worse? By the end, given how she goes out, presumably Caroline, Edward's wife, realised that ''she'' failed him too. And she failed worse than he did - she, ultimately, gave up on him. Edward never did until he had something better, which he wanted to give to her, but because she failed totally, completely and utterly, she never lived to make it.

** Making it more bittersweet is that Edward even sees [[AxCrazy Vane,]] [[TheLoad Rackham,]] and [[FaceHeelTurn Ben]]. It's a testament to his character development that he's able to forgive them in death.

* The epilogue reeks of this for anyone who played VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII and especially those who read ''Forsaken''. Despite the game ending happily with Edward and his children, in later years, [[DoomedByCanon Edward will die at the hands of Templars, his daughter will be sold off to slavery, and his son will become a Templar.]] This is {{Lampshaded}} in the game, one of Desmond's conversations has him quoting Orson Welles:

* While in the Abstergo section you can find various recordings of prior Animus subjects allowing you to learn of all the pains that were had while developing it, one is an iterview between A younger Warren Vidic and Aveline's descendent Subject One. While Subject One is trying to share the existential experience of living the memories of his ancestor Aveline, of being not only another gender but another race as well, all Vidic is interested in is the information, not the philosophical implications of walking through life in another's shoes, that Subject One is working through. Despite all the wonder's made possible by the Animus, it and those who were put in it, were only ever tools to Abstergo.

--> "''If you want a happy ending, it depends of course, on where you stop your story.''"

* Edward's final words with [[WeUsedToBeFriends Benjamin Hornigold]]. Out of all of Edward's "confession" scenes it's his most emotional, and for good reason, as Ben wasn't just any random Templar but a friend he respected, and whose betrayalclearly clearly cut Edward deeply.

* Edward's final words with [[FormerFriend Benjamin Hornigold]]. Out of all of Edward's "confession" scenes it's his most emotional, and for good reason, as Ben wasn't just a random Templar but an old friend, whose betrayal clearly cut Edward deeply.

* On a meta-level, Abstergo Entertainment for all its vapid surface and ComicallyMissingThePoint PlayedForLaughs jokes highlight the sad part of people taking liberties with history. Eventually the {{Flanderization}} will endure in place of the real thing. People in the game world will remember Blackbeard not in the ShownTheirWork manner we see in the game, as a mostly down-to-earth LargeHam who suffered from ChronicVillainy, but in the parody of ObviouslyEvil we see in Abstergo's phony trailers and his depiction in ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanOnStrangerTides''. Eventually, people will remember Kenway or even Aveline or any future ancestor whose game product is released in a {{Bowdlerization}} that twists their real character into something false. Essentially, all their stories are TheGreatestStoryNeverTold. It's one thing to say that history is WrittenByTheWinners and another to actually be on the ground enabling the lie.
* Also on a meta level, the fact that the Templar are using Assassin descendants to make a game full of false representation out of the lives of actual assassins is especially heart-rending. Humiliating their enemies after their downfall in this manner is not unlike what Joffrey did in Game Of Thrones.

* There's also what became of Desmond after the credits of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' rolled. Instead of a proper burial or even a tearful send-off, Desmond's corpse is found by Abstergo researchers and autopsied on the spot. The man who in a sense saved the world was effectively reduced to a mere footnote by the Templars as Sample 17. It's as if Desmond was able to check out of life, but in the end could ''never leave.'']]

!![[Administrivia/SpoilersOff Unmarked spoilers below.]]

---> "Since it falls on my lot/That I should rise and you should not..."

* One of the hunts for a Templar has you teaming up with Assassin Rhona Dinsmore, who eventually helps you lure out Hilary Flint so you can kill him and take his key. However, Rhona is noticeably reluctant to do so -- specifically, she plans to play distraction so that it's ''Edward'' who does the killing -- and it turns out that, while on opposite sides, she and Flint were [[FoeYay somewhat in love]] - and he dies in her arms.

* Early in the game, when Edward meets the Assassins at Tulum and after saving the captives from the Templar mercenaries who invade the island, James Kidd leads him back the temple and the centre courtard where the surviving assassins have piled the bodies of their brethren and are mourning. Considering that these deaths were consequences of Edward's own unthinking actions which the player participated in, it qualifies as a PlayerPunch and a YouBastard moment. It also makes Ah Tabai's forgiveness of Edward that much more remarkable and Edward's clinging after money that much harder to stomach.
* Desmond's in-game audiotapes, recordings he did in the spare time he had in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' is deeply sad, bringing forth the point that he was just a young regular guy whose life [[spoiler: was sacrificed by things set into place centuries in the past. Also his reflection on his father, his friends and on the memories of his ancestors, especially Connor whose story he finds painful]] shows how he's matured. As well as his reflection that the past wasn't shaped by idiots, but intelligent men and women whose best efforts ultimately had little effect.

* There's also what became of Desmond after the credits of ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII'' rolled. [[spoiler:Instead of a proper burial or even a tearful send-off, Desmond's corpse is found by Abstergo researchers and autopsied on. The man who in a sense saved the world was effectively reduced to a mere footnote by the Templars as Sample 17. It's as if Desmond was able to check out of life, but in the end could ''never leave.'']]

* The death of [[spoiler:Blackbeard]], Edward being so close by yet unable to help.
--> In a world without gold, we might have been heroes!

--->'''Edward:''' He drinks damnation.
* Poor, poor Stede Bonnet. The kind trade merchant who helped you off the island eventually turned to piracy, but was perhaps one of the nicest ones out there, even garnering the name "The Gentleman Pirate" due to his former life as a merchant and often splitting plunder among his crew. He was eventually hanged, as in real life, but the game describes him as collapsing and sobbing for his life at the gallows.
* While he may have been a complete JerkAss, there's something pitifully sad about seeing a mentally-broken [[spoiler: Charles Vane]] wasting away in prison.
* After [[spoiler:Mary Read]] dies, Edward [[spoiler:takes DrowningMySorrows to the extent that even the loading screen representation is groggily stumbling about with a bottle in hand.]]
** Edward's last words to [[spoiler:Mary]] are especially heartwrenching.
-->[[spoiler:'''Edward:''' Damn it, you should have been the one to outlast me. \\

'''Mary:''' I'll be with you, Kenway. I will.]]

* Related to this is the fact that after [[spoiler: Black Bart's mutiny, Edward's time in prison, Adéwalé quits as your quartermaster. This loss is reinforced by the fact that in the endgame, Anne Bonny is still your quartermaster. The fact that it was Edward's, and the player's, own selfishness and bad behaviour that played a role in Adewale joining the Assassins hits you and you miss having your friend on the next raid. Even Edward joining the Assassins doesn't change that and while they are amicable you sense that they aren't close anymore, you feel you drove a good friend away, feel just like Edward.]]

* The flashback where Edward leaves for sea is the first scene where we get a glimpse of a more vulnerable side of him as he quietly laments how this is the time where he truly needs his wife's faith and blessing. It's also sad because you can sense that his wife still loves him and it hurts her to do this, but she doesn't want to be his enabler anymore. The fact that [[spoiler: she dies and Edward NeverGotToSayGoodbye]] is deeply sad in itself, more because Edward had finally changed and wanted to do right by her, only now it's far Too Late. Edward's expression when he gets the latter with the WhamEpisode [[spoiler: that his wife is dead and is survived by a daughter he knew nothing about, is filled with regret, realizing that he failed her.]]

* At the end, [[spoiler: when Edward sees his dead friends happily drinking and smiling at him.]] Especially since Anne sings ''The Parting Glass'' in the end scene. Especially the lines,

** Making it more bittersweet is that Edward even sees [[spoiler: [[AxCrazy Vane,]] [[TheLoad Rackham,]] and [[FaceHeelTurn Ben]].]] It's a testament to his character development that he's able to forgive them in death.

* The epilogue reeks of this for anyone who played VideoGame/AssassinsCreedIII and especially those who read ''Forsaken''. [[spoiler:Despite the game ending happily with Edward and his children, in later years, Edward will die at the hands of Templars, his daughter will be sold off to slavery, and his son will become a Templar.]] This is {{Lampshaded}} in the game, one of Desmond's conversations has him quoting Orson Welles:

-->[[spoiler:'''Edward:''' Damn it, you should have been the one to outlast me.]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Mary:''' I've done my part. Will you?]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Edward:''' If you came with me, I could. Mary?]]
-->[[spoiler:'''Mary:''' I'll be with you, Kenway. I will.]]
*** The song which accompanies the scene,[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO2AbxQnsdI "I'll Be With You"]] amplifies the overall sense of loss in the scene.

* One of the hunts for a Templar has you teaming up with Assassin Rhona Dinsmore, who eventually helps you lure out Hilary Flint so you can kill him and take his key. However, Rhona is noticeably reluctant to do so -- specifically, she plans to play distraction so that it's ''Edward'' who does the killing -- and it turns out that, while on opposite sides, she and Flint were [[FoeYay somewhat in love]] - and he dies in her arms.
* The flashback where Edward leaves for sea is the first scene where we get a glimpse of a more vulnerable side of him as he quietly laments how this is the time where he truly needs his wife's faith and blessing. It's also sad because you can sense that his wife still loves him and it hurts her to do this, but she doesn't want to be his enabler anymore. The fact that [[spoiler: she dies and Edward NeverGotToSayGoodbye]] is deeply sad in itself, more because Edward had finally changed and wanted to do right by her, only now it's far Too Late. Edward's expression when he gets the latter with the WhamEpisode [[spoiler: that his wife is dead and is survived by a daughter he knew nothing about, is filled with regret, realizing that he failed her.]]
** Even worse? By the end, given how she goes out, presumably Caroline, Edward's wife, realised that ''she'' failed him too. And she failed worse than he did - she, ultimately, gave up on him. Edward never did until he had something better, which he wanted to give to her, but because she failed totally, completely and utterly, she never lived to make it.

--> "''If you want a happy ending, it depends of course, on where you stop your story.''"
* While he may have been a complete JerkAss, there's something pitifully sad about seeing a mentally-broken [[spoiler: Charles Vane]] wasting away in prison.

** "In a world without gold, we might have been heroes!"

* At the end, [[spoiler: when Edward sees his dead friends happily drinking and smiling at him.]] Especially since [[SuspiciouslyAproposMusic Anne sings ''The Parting Glass'']] in the end scene. Especially the lines,

** Hell, [[http://youtu.be/Fpc5oVdsT0A the music]] makes it even worse. The sounds of the battle raging are completely muted, with this track being the only audible thing. It really hits that Kenway lost more than just an ally.

** The fact that feminism claims another life - Catherine refuses to come with her husband because she is "better" than him and won't be his enabler. In return, she gets smallpox and died a cruel and painful death for refusing to do as her husband commanded...

* Finding the remains of the Jackdaw in ''Freedom Cry''. While he has left behind his days of piracy, it's clear Adéwalé is sad to see his old "country" in shambles at the bottom of the sea, only able to salvage the figurehead.
* Even worse in ''Freedom Cry'' than that is the mission where you attempt to liberate another slave ship. You eliminate two of its escorts, only for the remaining one to open fire on the slave ship itself. Then, Adewale goes on board and tries desperately to liberate he surviving slaves, personally breaking their chains and trying to get them out, all while surrounded by the dead and dying. Then, to make matters worse, the ship begins sinking and Adewale must escape, even as the screaming bodies of the ''slaves he just freed'' plummet pass him. He then gets to swim past their drowned bodies to reach the surface, only to end up trying to climb out of the ship, past even more slaves still chained to the deck, many of them struggling and writhing as they're pulled to their inevitable doom. Really, the whole sequence is as horrifying as it is heartbreaking.

* The flashback where Edward leaves for sea is the first scene where we get a glimpse of a more vulnerable side of him as he quietly laments how this is the time where he truly needs his wife's faith and blessing. It's also sad because you can sense that his wife still loves him and it hurts her to do this, but she doesn't want to be his enabler anymore. The fact that [[spoiler: she dies and Edward NeverGotToSayGoodbye]] is deeply sad in itself, more because Edward had finally changed and wanted to do right by her, only now its far TooLate. Edward's expression when he gets the latter with the WhamEpisode [[spoiler: that his wife is dead and is survived by a daughter he knew nothing about, is filled with regret, realizing that he failed her.]]

** One of the tapes has Desmond recounts a story of how he was expected to sneak up on his father (a cold, distant and distinctly not very friendly person); he waited hours before finally creeping into his room only for his father to notice him but pretend that he didn't and happily congratulate him. Desmond was furious with this lie but has later come to realize that he was rewarding his patience and, just maybe, his mentor just wanted to be is father for that brief moment.