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Assassin’s Creed Mirage sees the long-running franchise returning to its roots, offering a smaller but more focused 15+h experience that favours stealth and parkour gameplay instead of open combat and RPG elements again. However, the game is also severely held back by its story, which is among the worst in the series
Initially planned as another DLC expansion for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, a game that was already way too bloated, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a surprising return to the basics of the long running-franchise. As the series has moved into an action-RPG direction starting with 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins, which resulted in massive 70+h experiences that favoured open combat a lot more than stealth approaches, seeing publisher Ubisoft return to the previous gameplay formula was unexpected but not unwelcome – while the reinvention of the franchise drew in a lot of new players, some fans still preferred the “classic” Assassin’s Creed experience.
Enter Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which was created with the intention of celebrating the franchise’s 15th anniversary: Set in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age, the game follows the early life of street-thief Basim, who made his first appearance in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Despite essentially acting as a prequel however, Assassin’s Creed Mirage goes huge lengths to avoid forming any meaningful connections to the plot of its predecessor, which does come with the benefit of allowing new players to experience Assassin’s Creed Mirage without the risk of any spoilers as well. However, the self-contained nature of the plot also severely limits the narrative potential of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which results in a pretty generic plot that doesn’t really commit itself to Basim as a character and has no impact on the current-day storyline.
To be blunt here, the story and its presentation are easily the biggest aspects that stop Assassin’s Creed Mirage from becoming anything more than an enjoyable return to the roots of the franchise. What you get is a boring excuse for eliminating certain targets in Baghdad after slowly uncovering their identity, which is told through the most basic cutscenes and dialogues. Basim is reduced to a generic protagonist without much personality throughout most of the game, the supporting cast is one-dimensional due to their limited screentime, and the villains are only given the lowest possible amount of “evil backstory” to make the player feel justified about killing them. All of this culminates in a rushed and unsatisfying ending, which easily suffers the most from the forcibly limited connections to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, as Assassin’s Creed Mirage unsuccessfully tries to set up future events while simultaneously not wanting to talk about what’s to come. As a result, the game’s story essentially feels like filler material, entirely lacking in both memorable characters and moments. While Assassin’s Creed Valhalla might’ve featured a story that was bloated to no end, it at least managed to carve out an identity and place in the franchise for itself.
What makes this story fiasco so much worse is that the gameplay of Assassin’s Creed Mirage is actually pretty fun and a decently short palate-cleanser after the enormous Assassin’s Creed Origins, Odyssey & Valhalla, focussing on parkour and stealth kills once again. All of the RPG elements have either been removed entirely or severely reduced – most importantly, there’s no XP-based level system anymore as you automatically raise your “Hidden One rank” while completing main missions. Additionally, while equipment still offers various bonusses and can be upgraded, it doesn’t have as much of an impact, as assassinations are one-hit kills regardless of equipment - the better stats only have a slight effect during open combat, really. And while a skill tree system returns, it’s vastly smaller than the one from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and only offers actively noticeable benefits (e.g. time slowing down when you’re using throwing knives while in the air).
That alone doesn’t make Assassin’s Creed Mirage play a lot more similar to the initial games in the franchise though, which is why further design choices have been implemented: Open combat is a lot more dangerous know due to Basim’s limited health and a focus on parrying, which makes stealth approaches a lot more viable. Many features from older games also see a return, such as the “Notoriety System” from Assassin’s Creed II, which increasingly punishes the player for performing illegal actions when witnesses are nearby and requires them to perform certain actions (e.g. ripping off wanted posters) to become invisible again. Parkour has also been expanded upon, with the small but dense city of Baghdad providing plenty of opportunities to make your escape when chased by guards. However, as Assassin’s Creed Mirage runs on the same engine as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, even the enhanced parkour system still suffers from similar problems, like parkour down working a lot worse than going up.
Finally, key target assassinations include the option to choose from different approaches, as Ubisoft already experimented with during Assassin’s Creed Unity & Syndicate. For example, a stronghold might offer multiple ways to get in, from bribing workers to get the right key to jumping in from the right window – while being limited to smaller things like these, these options do shake up the gameplay occasionally, as they prevent the player from simply performing the same methods every time. In my opinion however, this is only a small step in the right direction, as the key target assassinations are still severely lacking in terms of presentation and can all be “solved” through open combat to a certain degree.
Still, as someone who’ve played through all mainline Assassin’s Creed titles, I found Mirage to be a decent return to the old franchise formula in terms of gameplay. It’s short enough to not overstay it’s welcome, stealth and parkour are finally more important again and the city of Baghdad is fun to run across - even if the mostly empty wilderness surrounding it could’ve been cut in my opinion. There’s also a refreshingly low amount of side content, which can easily be ignored without consequences if you just want to play through the main story.
In short, Assassin’s Creed Mirage may not the best title in the franchise by a long shot but if you’ve missed how the old titles played, this is a decent reminder when bought on sale. While there’s still a lot of room for improvement, it’s a great palate-cleanser for those tired of the expansive action-RPGs in the franchise and a fitting way to celebrate the legacy of a franchise that has been through various ups and downs as well.