The main story of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is primarily set in 1715.
The game follows Edward Kenway, a Welsh privateer who becomes involved with both the Assassins and the Templars during the Golden Age of Piracy. Its Caribbean setting includes Nassau, Havana, and Kingston, along with a large open sea that can be explored aboard Edward's ship, the Jackdaw.
The year 1715 places the central adventure near the beginning of the eighteenth-century pirate era portrayed by the game. Historical figures such as Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Calico Jack Rackham, and Benjamin Hornigold appear in the story, though the supernatural and secret-society elements are fictionalized.
Black Flag is sometimes mistaken for a direct continuation of the colonial American setting in Assassin's Creed III. Edward is actually the grandfather of Ratonhnhaké:ton, also known as Connor, the protagonist of that earlier game's main historical sequence. The two games therefore share family history while using different regions and periods.