User blog comment:Master Sima Yi/Assassinews 03-03-'13 — Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag trailer and screenshots/@comment-3046679-20130318164706/@comment-15014822-20130318214831

I doubt they'd use an experienced field agent like Otso Berg as a researcher. I think they said we're playing as ourselves in the modern storyline. They wanted to remove the middle man of us playing someone else who was reliving the memories of someone else. Now it's us reliving the memories of someone else.