The main mean of transportation is a boat, the Jackdaw, used to travel between the scattered isles of the Caribbean, but when on land, the player travels using his own feet.
The player plays an Abstergo Entertainment agent which helps his superiors in reading the past by reaching memories of the long-gone pirate, Edward James Kenway, through one of his descendant's genetic samples. As it takes place in other titles from the series, the game takes place both in the present and in the past, in parallel. Agents are following Edward’s life as he uncovers conspiracies reaching high-ranking people of both British and Spanish empires, but meanwhile, the player-controlled Abstergo agent finds out, that his superiors may not be telling him the entire truth. It is possible to use the fast travel system to quickly jump between previously visited locations.