Assassin’s Creed Mirage started life as an expansion For Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Ubisoft chose, instead, to take this Basim centric expansion and develop it into a fully-fledged Assassin’s Creed game. Unlike the last three main entries in the series, which featured over 100 hours of gameplay per game, Ubisoft chose to strip Assassins Creed Mirage back considerably and embrace the “what’s old is what’s new” philosophy by taking this entry in the franchise back to basics and back to its roots. Both mechanically and in setting.
Set in Baghdad, Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes us back to the Middle East some 300 years before Altair brought the fight against the Templars into our lives. Mirage places us in the shoes of Basim, to whom we were introduced in AC: Valhalla, and chronicles his rise from a street thief to a Hidden One and his first experience against the Order of The Ancients.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is both a homage and a love letter to the first Assassin’s Creed game. And wish-fulfilment for the fans who’ve been waiting for the series to return to its gameplay roots and bring us back to the Middle East. With that has come a streamlining of the games systems while re-introducing us to classic mechanics that have been refined since their inception.
Gone is a 100 hour plus campaign, gear stats to pay attention to and overly large maps. Making a return are classic gadgets like the wonderful blow dart, Hidden One bureaus to get your missions from, climbing that requires you to pay attention to handholds and an improved stealth system that is the highlight of the game.
Indeed Assassin’s Creed Mirage has been designed to make stealth your primary way to play, along with environments that favour quick getaways and rooftop skulking. Baghdad is a veritable playground for movement and hiding, something that recent entries in the series have lacked for me. While you still have the same bag of tricks, such as hiding in bushes and whistling to get your enemies attention, the system for movement and sneaking around feels more natural and intuitive than ever. With locations primarily designed to encourage stealth, it’s the best and most fulfilling way to play.
Successfully infiltrating a courthouse or police station and reaching you objective without raising the alarm, successfully eliminating and hiding away bodies, is a joy to do now rather than adopting the running and stabbing approach. Stealth is also made more appealing by the changes to the combat system. Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s new system is based around parrying and dodging.
You have a standard and heavy attack, both on the same button, a parry which, if timed correctly, can let you insta-kill an enemy and a dodge. Combat is much slower this time around, prioritising smart and tactical play because you can’t just go in swinging. Usually that’s a sure fire way for disaster and should only be used as a last resort, minus the handful of missions that put you in that position to begin with.
With the more responsive system, escape from combat is usually a little bit of parkouring away.
Also making a return is the notoriety system. Comprised of three levels, when you commit an illegal act, whether viewed by soldiers or civilians, you get onto the enemy’s radar and the street are peppered with flyers of you. Bringing notoriety down is done by bribing criers and tearing down posters. Initially I didn’t care much for the system as I found it broke the flow of gameplay. But once I started to treat it as another challenge in completing a mission, it began to make more sense in its implementation.
Parkour as well feels more refined and less buggy. I had fewer instances in Assassin’s Creed Mirage of been stuck on objects and moves not working when needing to do them quickly in a chase sequence. It can still be a little finicky in the games indoor areas where the camera takes too close a liking to Basim, but overall, it’s more enjoyable here.
The story is also a highlight. While it does contain many of the tropes inherent to the series, such as tragedy spurring you towards taking up a hidden blade, its stripped back nature and concise, cohesive storytelling made it a joy to work through. Basim’s investigation into unmasking Order members feels far more detective like than before. The mechanics are the same in that you have to find clues and complete missions or help others to find your target, but here it feels more like an investigation.
Sure you don’t have to gather all the clues to unmask the bad guy, but it was so enjoyable doing so that I went out of my way to find them all even when I knew I could skip a fair amount of it by simply going somewhere that I’d already figured out myself. It’s a mechanic that I’d like to see carried forward and expanded to feel more detective like.
Outside of a few side missions and the collectathons, the games concise storytelling is designed to push you towards the end, making for more palatable and enjoyable storytelling that never left me feeling like I was floundering in a sea of things to do.
While Baghdad may be large, it’s an easier to navigate environment and the amount of open world collectibles has been stripped down. It’s easier to collect all the gear and weapon pieces, their upgrades, historic location icons and other bits and bobs. For those who don’t want to explore, there are maps you can purchase to pinpoint all the locations. Personally I enjoyed exploring Baghdad more than I have the last two Assassin Creed worlds.
Finding hidden things, Easter Eggs and side quests that don’t show up until you’re in their vicinity was a pure joy. Kudos as well to the team for Easter Egging the Necronomicon under its original name as well. Perhaps we can get a horror focused, Lovecraftian AC game soon? I know I’d be down for that.
There are still some issues with the Assassin’s Creed games overall and Assassin’s Creed Mirage is no exception. Restricted areas still feel silly in how sensitive to your presence enemies are while random NPC’s can just walk on through willy-nilly, and guards still get alerted to you far too quickly simply because you’re close to them or walking or running past. It’s certainly less sensitive than the first titles in the series, but after 15 years, these systems should have been rebalanced.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a love letter to the first Assassin’s Creed game. It’s also a wish come true for fans who’ve been waiting to return to the Middle East. With its shorter campaign, refined stealth mechanics and a beautiful city to explore, Assassin’s Creed Mirage isn’t just a fantastic game, it’s the best Assassin’s Creed game since Origins and, possibly, one of the best in the series.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage Trailer
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