With “Assassin’s Creed Mirage,” the iconic series moves to the next round — and returns to its roots. You can see if this works in the test.
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With Assassin’s Creed Origins, one of Ubisoft’s flagship franchises has undergone a change in focus. Away from the city adventures of Paris, London and Florence, towards an open-world RPG. However, this change has now been criticized more frequently after “Odyssey” – especially in the Viking spin-off “Valhalla”, where the paths between quests seemed endless, the world was empty and side quests were meaningless. Now, on the series’ 15th anniversary, “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” is a game that takes three steps back and returns to the series’ roots. But could it be fun today? If you just want to read our first impression from the preview session – you can find the “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” preview here:
‘Assassins Creed: Mirage’ preview: Back to the roots – but does that make it any good?
In “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” you play the street thief Bassem, who lives on the outskirts of Baghdad in the ninth century. Through some trials and tribulations, he becomes a “hidden person”, an assassin, and has to face powerful opponents. It doesn’t feel innovative, and neither does the story. The best “Assassin’s Creed” games are lived through the characters more than they are told. Unfortunately, Bassem from the new game lacks a little of the charm of young Ezio Auditore or the intelligence of Jacob and Evie Frye, but his background provides enough material for some interesting developments.
The game’s supporting characters also seem somewhat one-dimensional, but they help carry you through the main campaign over the course of roughly 25 hours of playtime. With more modern technology, Mirage might have been able to do more, because the facial expressions and gestures in particular show that Mirage’s frame is a bit outdated. While traveling in Baghdad, you don’t notice it at all. The narrow streets come alive in the PS5 version, and the various buildings, whether historically relevant or not, are perfectly showcased through gorgeous lighting. So it’s always fun to walk around the bustling city and let yourself move between different tasks. There are also some things to discover in the surrounding area, with “Mirage” reminiscent of previous open-world titles like “Valhalla.” But you are soon drawn into the colorful bustle of Baghdad.
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Here the gameplay in “Mirage” is divided into two classic parts that made the series great: obstacle courses and assassination missions. The former plays smoothly most of the time, and selecting a named path usually ensures a good in-game flow when you’re jumping across rooftops. Lots of conveniently placed boxes, barrels and clotheslines will help you with this. But just like in “Assassin’s Creed 2”, your character gets stuck somewhere further than they want to or doesn’t jump to where they actually want to go – but fortunately there were few moments of frustration for us. They came more for the hidden part. You can also look for an open encounter like in “Valhalla”. But the enemies outnumber you so much that you have to take a lot of punishment even on the lowest difficulty level.
So, for example, in the first big mission of the game, you are looking for ways to get into prison without being noticed. Mercenaries may help you with this, or you may find a weak spot in the wall and then slowly make your way. You have great freedom in solving the tasks assigned to you. As much as it is fun to sit in a dugout and think about next steps, it is also frustrating when you miss a keeper. Because even though the AI pioneers are not the brightest candle on the cake, they clearly have the memory of an elephant and follow you over enormous distances. So, you will have to spend a lot of time while escaping from the guards and then return to the same point as before. The fact that no one is ever allowed to see you during your assassinations usually makes things even more difficult. Once a passerby hears the hidden blade, you will immediately become wanted as an assassin.
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Unfortunately, many bugs and small errors have crept into the beta version of “Assassin’s Creed Mirage.” There’s nothing game-breaking, but it’s still annoying when the compass suddenly stops showing the location of the next mission and you have to effortlessly navigate using the map menu. Fortunately, all of these little annoyances don’t detract much from the fun of the game. As you sneak through Baghdad with Bassem, you quickly get that familiar feeling that you’ve been missing from the series for a long time. “Mirage” does not reinvent “Assassin’s Creed” by any means, but the strong focus of role-playing elements and game world is what the series needs in a new game.
‘Assassin’s Creed Mirage’ will be released on October 5, 2023 for PC and existing consoles
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