Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Special Edition

The golden age of piracy meets the golden age of Wii U third-party support, brief as it was. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag Special Edition for Wii U ships with the "Sacrificed Secrets" solo mission, sending you to the exotic island of Sacrifices to recover Captain Drake's lost treasures, including golden flintlocks and a cutlass that actually feel earned. You also get the Captain Kenway's Legacy multiplayer and single-player item pack.

It's a clean, focused bonus package that doesn't overcomplicate things. Black Flag remains one of the best entries in the Assassin's Creed franchise, a game that turned pirate fantasy into something genuinely open and unpredictable. Playing it on the Wii U GamePad, with a full map on the second screen while you sail the Caribbean on the big display, was one of those small luxuries the console offered that no other platform could match.

The Special Edition is the entry-level collector's tier for this title, but on Wii U, even the entry level carries weight. Ubisoft's support for the console was already winding down, and finding any variant of Black Flag with bonus content on this hardware puts you in a shrinking club.