Assassin's Creed: Mirage looks set to bring Ubisoft's long-running franchise back to where it all began, albeit with a few minor caveats. Since the very first game landed back in 2007, the French studio's most popular and profitable property has grown into a behemoth of unparalleled narrative complexity, so much so that for newcomers it can seem almost impossible to get a handle on a story that includes Templars vs. Assassins, a mysterious race of elder gods, dozens of hidden orders and a timeline that seems to jump around randomly with each new installment.
Mirage might finally be a chance for the franchise, and many of its long-suffering fans, to breathe. There's always cautious trepidation going into every new AC game, such is the variance in quality of recent releases, but the general feeling seems to be one of quiet optimism. Amid all the talk of a brand in danger of losing its way, there may actually be m ore reasons than ever to get excited about being a devoted member of the Assassins' Order.
10 Going Back To Your Roots
So much talk of where Assassin's Creed is headed next has been dominated by the various plans Ubisoft has in the pipeline for its much-vaunted virtual Infinity hub, a format that many now see as the future of accessible live-service gaming. Yet despite Infinity's command of the discourse surrounding the future of Ubisoft's most profitable IP, it's telling that Mirage has continued to stimulate so much conversation in its own right.
A big part of this churning mill of speculation owes to the fact that Mirage has promised to bring the Assassin's Creed series back to its roots, a place that many long-term fans believe that it ultimately belongs. Origins made waves in 2018 when it ripped itself free from a format that Ubisoft clearly felt was becoming increasingly untenable, causing a rift in the fanbase between those who embraced this new RPG-inspired direction and those who vehemently decried it. In bringing things back to the old school, Mirage might just end up being manna from heaven.
9 Good Things Come To Those Who Wait
One of the signs that has given Assassin's Creed fans cause for cautious optimism has been the length of time it has taken for Mirage to finally materialize. It may seem paradoxical that ardent devotees of a given IP should actively wish to wait a second longer than is necessary to get their hands on a copy of the latest installment in the series, but the time it has taken for the latest AC project to even receive an official name should be a fortuitous sign rather than a cause for concern.
Ubisoft has been pumping out Assassin's Creed releases annually ever since the French studio realized that it had a colossal hit on its hands, a relentless prolificity that has often flirted with succumbing to the law of diminishing returns. Increasingly, fans and critics have cited franchise fatigue as a key reason for AC's waning reputation, with too many so-so titles and not enough genuine hits. Mirage has spent its fair share of time in the oven. There's no excuse for it being undercooked.
8 A Welcome Homecoming
Part of the excitement surrounding Mirage has owed to a promise of an old-school Assassin's Creed experience. Much of this back-to-basics approach will be reflected in the game's actual core gameplay, but one shouldn't underestimate just how important a setting can be in shaping how an Assassin's Creed game is received by the public.
Assassin's Creed has taken fans all over the world, from the pyramids of Egypt to the frontier of the American Revolution, and yet many still hanker for the sun-blasted stones and narrow dusty streets of the Middle East, the birthplace of so much human culture and the progenitor of the AC franchise itself. Following the Assassin vs. Templar narrative across the globe has been a blast, but the time feels right to return to the familiar shores of home.
7 Who Is Basim, Anyway?
Another game, another protagonist to add to the pantheon of figures to don the iconic white hood and wield the even more iconic hidden blade. Keeping track of AC's various rogues, pirates, Medjay, eagle-bearers and hidden ones can feel like an increasingly insurmountable task, especially when one factors in the various spin-offs, mobile adventures and cinematic adaptations that have borne the famous Assassins' logo.
Basim, however, is a bit of an anomaly within the established AC canon. Unusually for a debutant protagonist, Basim has made an appearance in the series already as a secondary character, popping up mysteriously in Valhalla with Eivor's brother Sigurd after the latter has been traveling the Holy Land in search of wisdom, knowledge and plunder. As the ending to Valhalla reveals, Basim is in fact the Isu god Loki reincarnated, revived in the present day by Layla Hussein and desperate to track down his own family after failing to avenge the imprisonment of his son Fenrir. Quite how we get from a Norse god of mischief to specifically a thief on the streets of 9th Century Baghdad, however, remains a mystery.
6
New Friends, New Foes
When the first Assassin's Creed dropped in 2007, it was relatively clear who was friend and who was foe, or at least it was right up until Altaïr's master Al-Mualim betrayed the Assassin's Order and tries to take control of the Apple of Eden. Plot twist ending aside, the game followed a relatively simple linear narrative in which Altaïr was tasked with taking out various figures threatening the sanctity of the Holy Land, many of whom were Christian Templars in the traditional, historical sense of the word.
The series' convoluted timeline has become so warped and strange that establishing who are the honorable heroes and who are the nefarious villains has been increasingly wreathed in shadows. What we can glean from Mirage's reveal trailer is that its more stripped-back, focused narrative will make it far clearer who the game's major players are, and, more importantly, who is deserving of Basim's deadly blade.
5
Death Never Looked So Good
It should go without saying, especially these days, that a AAA game should look outstanding, even photorealistic. Ubisoft doesn't always get it right when it comes to authentic face models and perfectly synced dialogue animations, but what the studio does seem to understand is exactly how to build a world that is conducive to setting a tone for the story the game in question is attempting to tell.
We may have only caught glimpses of Mirage from promotional materials and teaser trailers, but what has been on display has the sheen and polish worthy of a well-maintained hidden blade. The streets of Baghdad look like an enthralling playground, full of tight corners and densely-stacked buildings just crying out to be explored and exploited. As we push towards the age of photorealism at a remarkable speed, Mirage could truly live up to its name as a game that almost looks too good to be true.
4 Shining A Light On The Hidden Ones
No-one really knows when the in-game Order of Assassins actually started anymore. As usual, the groundwork laid by the more historically "accurate" first game has been repurposed, rewritten and occasionally disregarded entirely to serve a spider's web of a narrative so complex it's likely that there are probably quite a few employees within the walls of Ubisoft that don't fully understand it.
What we do know about next year's release is that it will somewhat bridge the gap between the events of Valhalla and the original game, an odd narrative jump that separates the latest entry from its 15-year-old ancestor. Much of the story will focus on Basim / Loki's journey from an Isu god to a street urchin to a member of the order of the Hidden Ones, but here's hoping that more light will be shed on how the precursors to the Order of Assassins eventually evolved into the sect of which Altaïr and co. Were staunch devotees.
3 A Welcome Break From RPG Fatigue
It's no secret that the AAA market is absolutely overrun with open-world RPGs. Ubisoft is responsible for a fair few all by itself in the shape of Far Cry, Watch Dogs and The Division, while Red Dead Redemption 2, Ghost of Tsushima and the Horizon series ensure that the trend isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Free-to-play online multiplayer platforms aside, this generation of gaming has been defined by the open-world RPG.
That's all very well and good, but it's hard not to feel a crushing sense of fatigue when booting up the latest AAA behemoth courtesy of Rockstar, Bethesda or the crown prince Ubisoft. From the endless traversal of what are admittedly sublimely rendered landscapes to the constant need to be crafting, upgrading, collecting or discarding, open-world RPGs take their toll on the mind, not to mention the thumbs. With a promise of a stripped-back experience centered around a single location, Mirage may give our digits the long-awaited respite they deserve.
2 Proper, Old-School Combat
One of the most controversial decisions Assassin's Creed: Origins made was to ditch the timing-based counter-combat that had defined the entire series for more than ten years prior to its release. Out went the satisfying but ultimately stagnant system on which AC had built its identity to be replaced by a chunkier, more RPG-inspired cacophony full of flashy visuals and OTT attacks via a hack-and-slash style that felt alien to the canon of work that had preceded it.
If Origins was responsible for pushing the series' combat in a new direction, Odyssey took things to a whole new level. 2018's massive Greek epic made fighting a blast for some and an unmitigated chore for others, rewarding relentless attacks and health bar chipping to the detriment of the clean if simplistic finesse that had characterized earlier games. The old-style Assassin's Creed combat was far from perfect, but with a few minor tweaks, it could be made to shine when Mirage drops sometime next year.
1 Smaller Is Sometimes Better
It seems that as the years have gone on, every subsequent Assassin's Creed has grown bigger and bigger, peaking with Odyssey and its colossal map that took so long to navigate that players would have been better off donning a pair of sneakers and attempting to traverse the Greek peninsula in real life.
There's nothing wrong with a game that gives players a humongous map, especially if the map in question is crammed to the brim with things to do, people to meet and enemies to dispatch. Recent games have shown a tendency to prioritize filler over killer, so it's reassuring to know that Mirage will dial things back with the hope of giving its narrative a little more focus and clarity. After all, there's little replay value in a game that takes an eternity to complete.
Assassin's Creed Mirage is currently in development for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.