Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag News: Gameplay Collectibles Guide After Release Date [Trailer]

Covering much of the Caribbean, from southern Florida and Cuba, down to Central America and other smaller islands, Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag has a tremendous world to explore. With so many secrets hidden around the map — hidden islands, sunken ships, good old-fashioned buried treasure chests — here's a guide to discovering some of the game's collectibles. 

One of the best collectibles to find is the 19 maps that lead to buried treasure chests, with an additional three maps that can be obtained through Kenway's Fleet. Player's can find the maps through various means, and once obtained these maps will reveal the locations of the treasure chests. The chests, in addition to being full of loot, can also have plans for upgrades for the Jackdaw, so players should pursue these hidden gems to help make their ship more powerful.

Another critical collectible is finding all of the taverns hidden around the game. There are eight total, and finding them all will give players an achievement/trophy in addition to side quests and other additional content. To unlock a tavern, players must locate them and then simply walk up to the barkeep. After a quick cutscene, players must fight off bandits and then the tavern will be open for players to hang out in.

A fun side quest invovles the stelae puzzles. If players find all 16 of these puzzles and solve them, they can find and unlock the Mayan Stelae outfit. This outfit, besides looking cool and unlocking an achievement/trophy, is able to deflect bullets, so it is a worthy item to go after in the game.

While hunting, some animals are rarer and more valuable than others. One of the rarest animals is the Red Howler Monkey, which can only be found at Isla Providencia. Their pelts are valuable to the crafting portion of the game. White Jaguars, which can only be found on Great Inagua and during the Templar Hunt - Opia Apito mission, is another rare, valuable animal if hunted. One way to farm these pelts is to fast travel away from the island, then return again via fast travel. This should respawn the rare animals, and players can do this over and over again.