Though military shooters tend to have to endure the scrutiny of realism-hungry gamers all over the world, fictional adventure games usually get away scott free. But how historically accurate are these games? Take the Assassin's Creed series, for instance. Though their whole "Assassins vs Templars" and "Templars-are-evil" themes are highly fictional, the games are still for the most part set in real historical places like Rome, Constantinople, North America and now finally with the recent release of AC4 Black Flag; the Caribbean.

So, how historically accurate is Black Flag? A brand new Youtube channel called History Respawned has a 45 minute video where Dr. Bryan Glass who has studied the real-world history of piracy through the ages, offers some interesting insight into some of the characters, places and events of the era.

Though it seems several things are historically based, such as the origin of piracy and many of the characters you'll meet throughout the game, it's not surprising that Black Flag also takes plenty of liberties with the source material. The pirate republic's constitution is nowhere to be found within the game, and indeed the politics of the pirates isn't represented in any significant way. The naval combat is also much faster and more arcady than the real thing ever came close to. But then again, that's hardly any surprise. This isn't a game depicting pirate society in the 18th century, it's an assassin game featuring the fictional story of Edward Kenway. The rest of the environment is simply a backdrop.

Before you watch, you might want to consider the fact that there are some minor spoilers, including a very small (and frankly obvious) one concerning one of the major friendly characters in the game. If you want a completely spoiler-free experience when you boot up Black Flag, you might want to hold off on watching the video until you're at least a few hours into the game.