We've all seen the videos of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag being played on the PlayStation Vita by making use of the PS4's Remote Play functionality. Now, Ubisoft has finally detailed just how you'll be able to play the open world action-adventure on your handheld device, outlining the changes to the control scheme.
On the DualShock 4 controller, R2 and L2 control free-running and aiming and firing your gun. The Vita controls went through a few iterations before the developers finally decided to map R2 and L2 to the shoulder buttons. As you can see below, the back panel has now been divided into two parts, with one half being R1 and the other being L1..
The touchscreen on the front of the Vita functions similarly to touch pad on the DualShock 4. Touching near the center of the screen will pull up the map, and from there you can pinch and pull to zoom in and out and tap destinations to mark them. The bottom corners of the front touch pad have assumed the role of L3, which activates Eagle Vision, and R3, which centers the camera behind Edward. You may notice in the image that there is a dead space on the front screen. This is to ensure that you don’t accidentally pull up the world map every time your thumb bumps the screen when you’re moving the analog sticks.
So while adjusting to the new control scheme might take some getting used to, it'll be well worth it to gain the ability to play the game practically anywhere in your home. Remote Play between the Vita and PS4 allows you to free up your television and play almost any PlayStation 4 game on the handheld device over a wifi connection. Transitioning between the two platforms is done with a simple press of the button, as long as your PS4 remains turned on.
