There are four legendary ships in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, one tucked into each corner of the map, and they hit far harder than the man of war ships you’ve been sinking up to this point. This assassin’s creed black flag legendary ships guide walks through where to find all four, what they drop, and exactly how to beat them, based on a full run against every single one of them. Go in undergunned and you’ll likely eat a restart or two, so get your Jackdaw upgraded first if you can.

Before you sail out, it’s worth reading through our Great Inagua hideout upgrade guide if you haven’t maxed out your Harbormaster yet, since that ties directly into gearing up for these fights. Bookmark this one too, because you’ll probably want to come back to it between attempts.

Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Legendary Ships Guide: Ultimate Upgrades You Need First

Here’s the part that’s easy to skip past: you basically need the ultimate tier upgrades on the Jackdaw before you take any of these on. That extra health and cannon damage is what turns these fights from unfair into merely brutal. Those come from Ultimate Plans, and there are twelve of them scattered across the map. Six are found in underwater chests at shipwreck dive spots, which only open up once you’ve cleared Sequence 06, Mission 01: Diving for Medicines. The other six come from buried chests marked on treasure maps you pick up along the way. Once you’ve got a plan in hand, you still need to buy the upgrade from a shipmaster with Reales and materials, and you can’t actually install it until your Harbormaster back at Great Inagua is upgraded to its highest level. It’s a longer chore than it sounds, but it is close to mandatory here, so knock it out before you go looking for any of these four fights.

One nice change in Resynced worth knowing about: Ram Dash used to be locked behind beating all four legendary ships in the original game. Now it unlocks much earlier, just from recruiting Padre, so you’ll actually have it available going into these fights instead of earning it as a reward after the fact.

HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign: Location, Rewards, and How to Beat Them

Head to Eleuthera in the northeast corner of the map and you’ll run into this one, a duo fight against two man of war ships at once, the Royal Sovereign with white sails and the HMS Fearless with black sails. Beat them both and you’ll unlock a full cosmetic set, black sails, a lion figurehead, a white and black hull with gold accents, and what might be the best-looking wheel in the game, wood grain with gold trim. All of it is purely cosmetic, but it’s some of the strongest-looking gear the game offers, and it mixes well with pieces from the other three ships if you want to build your own custom look.

The fight itself is punishing because you’re facing two ships that will box you in and hit you from both broadsides if you let them. Aim for their mortars with fire barrels whenever they rush you, since one well-placed set does a massive chunk of damage. Try not to sit directly between them for too long, but if you’re quick at glancing over each shoulder, being in the middle actually lets you land damage on both at once. Brace every incoming shot, cannon, mortar, all of it, because missing even one can be devastating this early. Lean on heated shot at range and switch to normal shot up close, and take swivel gun hits whenever they’re lined up straight ahead or behind you. The single most important thing in this fight is to whittle both ships down together rather than focusing one first, because once either ship goes down, the survivor gets faster, hits harder, and fires more often. Keep shooting their fire barrels out of the water too, since with two ships dropping them, the sea gets crowded fast.

El Impoluto: Location, Rewards, and How to Beat It

El Impoluto sits in the northwest corner near Dry Tortuga, and unlike the last fight, it’s just one ship, though a legendary man of war is still a different beast entirely from the regular ones. Win here and you’ll get white, red, and black sails, a golden figurehead, a black and gold hull, and a washed-white wheel, a set that a lot of players mix with other ships’ pieces since the sails pair nicely with different hulls.

This fight is a constant game of cat and mouse. El Impoluto will ram you, peel off, circle back, and ram you again, and it’s fast enough that you can’t outrun it without your own ram dash, which won’t be available every single time you need it. Don’t try to chain shot and slow it down or trade rams with it either, since you’ll lose that exchange. Instead, sail away from it, pepper it with mortar fire, and drop fire barrels in its path, popping them manually when it gets close since the blast radius is smaller than you’d expect.

Every chunk of health you take off triggers a flare and a heated shot barrage phase where it just unloads on you from range, so use that window to line up your own mortar and cannon damage while staying in front of it to dodge the worst of the broadsides. It cycles through this pattern roughly three times before it starts spamming heated shots non-stop near the end, and at that point it’s mostly about surviving while you finish it off.

HMS Prince: Location, Rewards, and How to Beat It

You’ll find HMS Prince down in the southeast corner near Navassa, in a genuinely foggy stretch of ocean that makes this arguably the hardest of the four to track visually. Beating it gets you a figurehead with a cloaked look that’s easily one of the best in the set, a blue, black, white, and gold hull, and an unusually ornate wheel. Oddly, the sails preview as ripped in the menu but look completely intact once you’re actually sailing, which seems to be a quirk unique to this set.

HMS Prince’s whole identity is artillery. It fires mortar strikes roughly every ten to twenty seconds, and you’ll know one’s coming from the orange circles spreading across the water plus a distinct incoming-mortar sound cue, so keep an eye and an ear out for both. Between barrages, it tries to hide from you in the fog, so you’ll need to chase it down to keep landing hits, and a well-timed ram dash on its side does solid damage if you can line it up cleanly, just don’t attempt it right after it fires or you’ll eat a shot you can’t brace against mid-dash. Heated shot is your best tool for consistent damage here, and swivel guns help pick off weak points between artillery volleys.

This is the longest of the four fights in terms of raw duration, so pace yourself and treat it as an endurance and reaction check more than a damage race. Once its health gets low, it stops retreating into the fog and just sits there pelting you with heated shot and artillery simultaneously, so that final stretch is about bracing constantly while finishing it off as fast as you safely can.

La Dama Negra: Location, Rewards, and How to Beat It

La Dama Negra is in the southwest corner near Serranilla, in another storm-hazed patch of ocean, though visibility here isn’t quite as bad as around HMS Prince. The reward set here is more of a mixed bag, plain white sails and a wheel and figurehead that don’t stand out much, but the hull, black, red, and gold, is genuinely one of the best-looking pieces in the entire legendary ship pool.

Unlike the other three, La Dama Negra doesn’t use a real mortar. It sprays a constant arcing stream of cannon fire instead, closer to a spread than a targeted shot. The biggest thing to avoid is letting it sit broadside to you, since that’s where it deals the most damage, so stay tucked behind it as much as you can to dodge both the high arcing shots and the broadsides at once. It’s also noticeably weaker on its front and back than on its sides, and it spends a lot of the fight sitting nearly still while it bombards you, which makes it easier to land your own mortar and heated shot consistently.

That stationary tendency is exactly why most players, myself included, rate this as the easiest of the four legendary ships. Watch for the fire barrels it drops as it moves, and once its health gets low, it parks in place and unloads everything at once, heated shot broadsides included, so lean on bracing hard through that last stretch and finish it off with whatever damage you’ve got left.

Legendary Ship Rewards, Respawns, and the Devil of the Caribbean

Every legendary ship reward in Resynced is cosmetic this time around, sails, figurehead, hull, and wheel, rather than a permanent stat upgrade like Ram Dash was in the original 2013 release. That’s actually good news if you want to keep fighting them, because legendary ships now respawn after a period of time, so you can go back and farm a set again if RNG didn’t give you the piece you wanted.

Beat all four and you’ll also unlock the Devil of the Caribbean achievement or trophy, so it’s worth circling back to finish the set even after your first clear. Once you’ve got pieces from all four ships, don’t feel locked into wearing one full set, mixing sails from one ship with the hull from another is a completely normal way to build a Jackdaw that actually looks like yours.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many legendary ships are in Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced?

There are four: HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign in Eleuthera, El Impoluto near Dry Tortuga, HMS Prince near Navassa, and La Dama Negra near Serranilla, one in each corner of the map.

What upgrades do I need before fighting legendary ships?

You want the ultimate tier Jackdaw upgrades from all twelve Ultimate Plans installed, which requires maxing out your Harbormaster at Great Inagua first. Going in without them makes these fights significantly harder than they need to be.

Which legendary ship is the easiest in Black Flag Resynced?

La Dama Negra tends to be the easiest of the four, since it stays mostly stationary and is noticeably weaker when you hit its front or back instead of its sides.

Which legendary ship is the hardest?

HMS Fearless and Royal Sovereign is widely considered the toughest, since you’re fighting two legendary ships at once and the survivor gets a damage and speed boost the moment its partner goes down.

Do legendary ships respawn in Black Flag Resynced?

Yes. Unlike the original game, legendary ships are repeatable and will respawn after a period of time, so you can fight them again for another shot at their cosmetic rewards.

That wraps up this assassin’s creed black flag legendary ships guide, covering every location, reward, and strategy for all four fights. If you want more on what’s changed in this remake, check out our breakdown of Black Flag Resynced’s hidden changes and finishers, or read our full ending explained review once you’re ready for spoilers. Check out our other guides on ingametor.com for more Black Flag Resynced content.