Five. I have now reviewed five Assassin’s Creed games this year. Who knew the series I avoided for such a longtime would basically become drugs to me. At some point I feel like I’m going to start hating this series, but for now I’m happy with what I’ve experienced. Origins has a soft spot in my heart for being my first in the franchise. Then Assassin’s Creed 2, Black Flag, the rest of the Ezio trilogy, and here we are with Assassin’s Creed: Mirage. The most recent entry in this long running franchise, and it’s a bit weird to jump to this one without having played the others first. Reason why is because earlier this year during my birthday I got a copy of this game from a dear friend of mine. It was a last minute gift as when they went to Target to buy something for me they didn’t have much in stock. I live in a dead town to be honest with you where not much goes on, and business while not failing isn’t certainly booming. They spent a full sixty dollars which is a bit excessive, but I appreciate what they did. It’s nice receiving games as gifts even when it isn’t great, because to it gives me a topic to cover.
Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is a game that advertises itself as a return to form for Assassin’s Creed. Not a lot of people enjoy the direction the RPG trilogy went, and Valhalla was the last nail in the coffin as it was the most bloated and boring the series had been. Mirage originally was going to be an expansion to Valhalla, but instead they repurposed it as a full game. Ditching all the RPG aspects of the previous entries in favor of a smaller in scale, focused, and streamline experience similar to the original games. They released this game the same year Assassin’s Creed turned 15 years old. Who knew a franchise that debuted back during the 360/PS3 era could be this old now. Mirage was not only a return to form for the series, but also a celebration of how far the series had come. A reminder of the foundation Assassin’s Creed was built upon years ago and what it would evolve into now. Mirage for a lot of people was going to be the savior of Assassin’s Creed. Despite the financial success of Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla you can tell Ubisoft weren’t pleased with the current state of the franchise despite milking it for all it’s worth. I think devs at Ubisoft were hoping this would reset the course Assassin’s Creed was sailing down. A bigger focus on creating a more compact game rather than a game whose slogan is: “Look how big we are!”
For others this was seen as a risky move. Why try to recapture the past, because the problem with recreating something that came out before is that you’re inviting a lot of comparisons to those older games. What they did right, what made them so special, and if this new entry that tries to be like them carries over the same magic. Does it? No, because the idea of recapturing the past and the expectations that come with it is some of the most unrealistic stuff you’ll see surrounding a video game. Mirage released over a year ago and reception was just about what I expected. Not a bad game, but not an outstanding one either. It’s a game that knew what it wanted to do, did it, and didn’t push itself any further once the requirements were met. It’s an Assassin’s Creed game to heart, and that is it. Not much else to say, and this sentiment is shared by a lot of fans. People who find critiquing Assassin’s Creed: Mirage difficult. There are a lot of rough edges to Mirage that in a lot of places would make it a bad video game. However, it’s still really fun and many of the elements at play work quite well. Basically giving it an 8/10 feels too high, but giving it a 6/10 or below feels kind of wrong.
Spoiling my review score of this game, but it’s like a decent 7/10 game. Not frustratingly okay. I genuinely had fun playing Mirage. I liked it and a decent Assassin’s Creed game is better than a lot of the slop Ubisoft puts out. However, I don’t know if I'd recommend this game or who to, because the audience it targets is one with mixed reactions. Mirage is fine, and today I want to discuss why this game may or may not click for you.
Story
From what I’m told this is supposed to be the origin story of one of the Vahalla’s side characters. I can see why this was originally intended as an expansion, but seeing his heritage and where he comes from I understand why they decided to just make a new game. Mirage follows an assassin by the name of Basim Ibn Ishaq. It’s the common era and as a young man he spends most of his life stealing from people. Picking coin and taking on jobs that involve him and his friend Nehal breaking into a place. They did what they could to survive on the sandy streets of Baghdad, but Basim dreamt of more. He learned of a secret society called the Hidden Ones, otherwise the Assassins as we know them as. He wishes to join their cause in the hopes it will be better than the life they currently have. Be provided a clean shelter, stable income, and food that doesn’t leave them starving at night. Nehal says it’s all just a dream, and whenever he approaches Roshan, a local to the area he lives in who is an Assassin, she declines.
Basim’s life just seems terrible and at night he has these dreams of being hunted by a demonic creature. One that’s always watching from where he can’t see. One day Basim is offered a job to sneak into the Caliph’s palace. Steal an artifact they’ve recently obtained and then get the f*ck out. He manages to do so, but upon picking up the artifact it reacts crazily in his hands. It glows bright neon yellow, displays a bunch of symbols, and then drops onto the ground breaking. The Caliph rushes into the room angered by what Basim had done. He tries to kill Basin until Nehal comes and stabs the man to death. They both flee and guards infest the area. When Basim returns home he finds the people of his small district murdered and hung high. The city is looking for him, and Nehal decides to abandon him after all that has happened. Basim is then saved by the earlier assassin Roshan who helps him flee the city and eventually become an Assassin. He trains under their care and learns to become both a protector of society and a lethal killer. He wonders what happened that day after many years of training, and one day the assassin's hideout is attacked by soldiers of the Templar Order. The assassins learn things have gotten worse in Baghdad and that five individuals of the order are the reason behind all of it. Basim and a small handful of assassins are sent to solve this problem. Learn what the order is plotting, bring peace back to Baghdad, and maybe learn what happened years ago. How Basim plays into this.
Gameplay
Here we go. The return to form the developers have dreamt and so many fans were excited for. As someone who experienced a good chunk of the older games this year, how does Mirage hold up in comparison. I think it’s pretty good. We’ll talk more about the general feel of gameplay and other core aspects like the story later, but in terms of gameplay I say Mirage was good. It takes a bit of time to get used to, but you do realize the elements at play are good. There’s a screen in the menu called ‘investigation’, and when opening it up you find rumors and missions you can track down. Pursuing these rumors and doing missions will help you locate the five critical members of the order and assassinate them. Doing so pushes the story further, but some of these aren’t very straightforward. You’ll have to figure out where certain things are at times, and this is why missions are more like investigations rather than the typical structure these games follow. Well it does still follow that structure, but occasionally you have to think. Lots of running, sneaking around, killing enemies, and getting to where you need to be.
When it comes to sneaking into areas infested with enemies you have a lot of options. You could fight your way in, but the combat of Mirage is made to be clumsy by design. You have a stamina bar that dictates how many actions you can do before refilling similar to a Souls game. Parrying window is tight, attacks can’t be canceled out of, and so yeah it is kind of like Souls combat. It is combat that makes you think whether or not you can handle the enemies set before you, and you do not want to run in and kill every enemy angrily. Even if you are good at combat it does have consequences later on. Returning is the Notoriety system where the more enemies you kill the more they will be on high alert. The higher Notoriety goes the more precautions enemies will pull like archers who will shoot your eagle if you try to use it to see where enemies are, or send an elite killer to patrol areas or hunt you in the streets. Stealth is really important in this game, and surprisingly stealth is really flexible in Mirage. I’m pretty sure Unity was the entry to fully implement proper stealth, but this is personally my first time seeing it implemented. You can do something that even AC2 doesn’t let you do, crouch. You can crouch in an AC game, and you can enter buildings that actually have interiors.
This is where a lot of the challenge for Mirage comes from. Sneaking into a gigantic place you do not know the layout of, trying to figure out where everything is, get to where you need to be, and don’t cause so much of a ruckus. It’s fun sneaking about, using your tools properly to catch enemies off guard or distract them, and going in for the kills. You can even take opportunities by bribing NPCs, but you need certain tokens to do so. Tokens are either gained by stealing or by doing favors. Outside of the main objective there’s not much else to the world besides the usual stuff you find in a Ubisoft sandbox game. Towers to climb so you can survey the area and gain a fast travel point. Collectibles, side quests, more collectibles, and so on. Well there is a skill tree that allows you to unlock new skills, but just about every Ubisoft game has that now. Well one last thing to bring up. A new mechanic called Assassin’s Focus. It fills up whenever you kill an enemy, and using it allows you to take out groups of foes easily if you are undetected and within range. It’s like calling your creed members in Brotherhood, except you are the one doing it and you move about while doing so. Use this ability wisely as it can get you through problems that are hard to pull off through normal means. Let’s hope you can chase the order out of Baghdad, bring justice to the people, and figure out your place in this vast and mysterious world.
Thoughts
Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is a game I find hard to break down. The core principles of what makes one of these games is there. I think people going in for the simplistic fun Assassin’s Creed offers usually will be pleased. I’m not lying when I say I genuinely had fun playing Mirage. At the same time though I hate that I liked Mirage, because there are a lot of aspects outside of the core gameplay that either feel really lazy or not looked over. Case in point the story. Basic premise is good paper, but when you actually see it play out you realize it’s not particularly engaging. I was not entertained by the narrative at all, and the narratives are one of the core reasons I play one of these games. I like the characters, the journeys they go on, and seeing them grow as a person. It’s why Ezio, Edward, and Bayek are so beloved by fans. Seeing them grow as people, cope with the troubles in their life, and move on. An essay video pointed this out awhile back. I forgot who made it, but it mentioned no one actually questions why this franchise is named Assassin’s Creed instead of Assassins’ Creed. It’s about the main character and how they define order and justice to themselves. Their personal system of beliefs.
I think the reason why the story of Mirage isn’t engaging or memorable is that the characters on display aren’t good, or have been done before but better. The side characters aren’t interesting and feel like they are there to be task givers. They feel like vessels in a game world rather than a living person. Even the dialogue feels very video gamey at times with them just listing what to do rather than state it like a course of action, and if you don’t do it there’ll be consequences. Basim, the protagonist, is not a very good one. The personal struggle he goes through isn’t relatable. It’s weird, but not in a good way. Remember Bayek? Remember how the reason why you stuck around for his journey was to help get revenge for his dead son? Only to then see him grieve because by helping his son’s soul move on he’ll never get to see him again. Witnessing his grief and the acceptance of the tragedy he accidentally let happen? That’s relatable! That’s something a person could possibly go through and have to come to terms with. Not here. Basim just feels like someone who is there. Someone that is there to fulfill the role as a video game protagonist and not much else. I’m pretty sure his story could be deep depending on who you are, but it was not to me.
Enough about the narrative. How about the core gameplay. It’s good, again, it’s the main reason why I stuck around for Mirage and it’s why I enjoyed it quite a bit. The world is beautiful, fun to run around in, and it never felt so big that trekking across it was annoying. It’s also not bloated to the brim with side activities, and in terms of making your character stronger it comes in the form of finding materials which aren’t hard to loot and skill points you get from completing missions rather than grinding for them. That is a design choice I actually really like. It motivates you to just go through the main story rather than waste time on anything else. Stealth is also really fun in this game. It’s not the most flexible stealth in a game. I’d give that to Metal Gear Solid 5, the Dishonored series, and heck even The Last of Us 2 had better stealth, but it is still fun. Figuring out what to do, planning your route, playing carefully, taking out guards, and getting towards your goal. Combat is an option, but it’s not good. One of my core complaints is that trying to fight in Mirage feels terrible even when there’s only one person. It controls pretty terribly, the hitboxes don’t always work especially for larger enemies with long hard hitting attacks, and if you know how to parry well then some encounters can be a wait and bait cake walk.
However, I feel like the terrible combat was intended. A few weeks ago I tried yet again to get into Thief: The Dark Project. I just couldn’t do it mainly because trying to fight enemies is bad. It feels awful to fight, but it makes sense as to why you can’t fight well. You were taught to sneak and steal. You weren’t properly taught how to fight, and if you could just kill every single enemy in your way easily the fantasy of being a sneaky thief would be lost. It’s great when you master the limitations of the game, figure out what works, learn to stay in the shadows, and get by even when an enemy is close is satisfying. Same goes for Mirage. It feels great when you can clear out an area or get by without being seen. Escalating the difficulty overtime with the elite archers, elite enemies you can’t just simply stealth kill, and the notoriety system that punishes you for fighting violently. It’s great. I like how health is something you have to manage, and the way you heal is through flasks that are hard to come by or are expensive early on. Meaning you have to handle your resources carefully and use them only in case of emergencies. The gameplay is good, but this is a modern AC game so what’s wrong?
Well the parkour feels pretty f*cked. The game plays smoothly, but something feels wrong when trying to parkour around. This game advertised the return of traditional parkour the series is well known for, but it still feels sluggish like modern Assassin’s Creed titles. Everything feels quite artificial in comparison with transitions between animations not being smooth most of the time. There were moments my character just clipped through a surface just to grab what they needed to reach, and it was at that point I realized not much attention was put towards animation. It’s not just parkour that suffers from this. Both combat and cutscenes suffer from this problem as well. The cutscenes in Mirage are somehow outclassed by a game that came out in 2009, and that’s because animating something is better than using artificial movement to match dialogue. It was more expressive and it’s a shame how lazy it’s gotten. Also despite being a modern game there’s still bugs in Mirage. Not terrible bugs, but noticeable. Grabbing a ledge that doesn’t exist, seeing bodies spaz out, people disappear out of existence before your very eyes, etc. This game is rough even after the massive patches they sent out. All of these problems accumulate together into what is basically a good but rough game. That’s why reviewing Mirage is so difficult. The heart is there but not at the same time. I want to assume the reason why Mirage is so rough is because there are a ton of future Assassin’s Creed projects in the works right now like Shadows.
Mirage spent 3 years in the works and the love is there. If it were given more time I feel like it could’ve been a great game instead of the okay one we have set before us now. I don’t recommend Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, but I’m not afraid to admit that I kind of liked it. I am going to give Assassin’s Creed: Mirage a 7.5/10 for being alright.
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