PLATFORM: PC, PS4/5, XBOX ONE/SERIES (REVIEWED) | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Originally conceived as an expansion for 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla before becoming a standalone title of its own, Mirage tells the story of Basim, a 9th century Baghdad street thief who is inducted into the Brotherhood when he joins the Hidden Ones in their fight for peace and liberty against the Order of the Ancients.
Recent entries in the series have become increasingly longer and more complex, but Mirage very much takes Assassin’s Creed‘s core gameplay back to basics. You’ll still be climbing towers to synchronise viewpoints, hunting for treasure chests and all manner of other collectibles, and jumping in the wrong direction through no fault of your own (it wouldn’t be an AC game without some slightly shaky parkour mechanics), but the map is smaller than those seen in recent years, with the game taking place across four small districts of Baghdad along with a few trips to the wilderness on the outskirts of the city. There’s now a stronger focus on stealth rather than combat, harking back to 2007’s original Assassin’s Creed where fighting enemies was really intended only to be a last resort. You’ll eventually find yourself with a handful of useful upgradeable tools to help you evade and distract your foes as you infiltrate the game’s many prohibited areas, but if your best efforts at staying silent fail – or if you just prefer to get a bit stabby – you’re also equipped with a sword and dagger along with a couple of handy counter-attack moves. The RPG elements of recent years have been toned down a lot too, reduced to a fairly limited skill tree (that you’ll only fully unlock after doing pretty much everything the game has to offer) and weapons and clothing whose upgrade schematics are found in chests all across Baghdad.
Landing somewhere in the mid-tier of AC games, Mirage does feel a little shallow when compared to its recent predecessors Valhalla, Odyssey and Origins, but everything works as intended and the game very much feels like a tightened-up throwback to the early days of the series. Its relatively short length (around 20 hours to 100% completion) and narrow scope makes it an enticing proposition for those who might find the vastness of more recent AC games a little daunting, although its relative brevity and simplified mechanics might not quite scratch the itch for fans of the more recent entries in the series.
