After many felt disappointed by Assassin’s Creed III, many gamers are beginning to warm up to the next title in the franchise. It doesn’t hurt that the gameplay shown thus far is leagues above and beyond anything we ever saw in the previous game. Gameplay isn’t everything, of course, and some gamers may be curious in regards to the story this time around.

To help with that, Ubisoft hosted a Comic-Con panel earlier this month with the three people that are bringing Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag to life – Darby McDevitt, Matt Ryan and Todd McFarlane. In the below video, McDevitt talks about bringing Edward Kenway to life while Ryan and McFarlane discuss the upcoming comics and toys based on the franchise.

Ubisoft’s Comic-Con panel is a good reminder that Assassin’s Creed and other AAA franchise like it are increasingly relying on products and merchandise outside of the game to remain viable. Thankfully, we’re still at the point where these extra products only serve to expand the lore without taking anything from the game. Of course, that may all change as publishers create more products that are required to gain the full experience, like Disney’s Infinity or Activision’s Skylanders. We can only hope that AAA game development doesn’t go down that route.

Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag will set sail on October 29 for Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U. The Xbox One and PS4 versions will launch alongside those respective consoles, and the PC version will launch sometime in November.