Assassin’s Creed Mirage Review: Deja Vu!

Published On: October 4, 2023

Released in 2007, the original Assassin’s Creed had a fantastic concept – an ancient group of Assassins sworn to protect the weak and take on the evil Templars to save the day. It also had a very good twist in the form of the ancient civilisation along with the modern-day twist. 16 years and 12 mainline games later, the franchise has changed quite a bit delving into naval combat, RPG elements and playing a lot more like The Witcher 3 rather than a stealth action adventure. With Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the franchise aims to deliver a tighter experience, returning to the roots that made the initial games in the franchise fan favourites. Does it deliver or does it get lost in the sands of time?

Table of Contents

Story

You don the role of Basim Ibn Ishaq, a street thief who finds himself in the midst of an incident that leads him on the path of an Assassin. Those who have played Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will remember Basim and his influence on Eivor (Valhala’s protagonist) and the eventual plot twist at the end of that game. For Mirage, however, we find Basim in his early days learning the ways of the creed.

Without spoiling anything I can say that the story of Mirage is quite straightforward. You move from one assassination to the next and try to keep up with the political issues plaguing Bagdad, the new location for Mirage. I personally think the story of Ezio Auditore da Firenze in Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood and Revelations is the best. The character development, progression and depth haven’t been replicated in any Assassin’s Creed game since. My next favourite is Edward Kenway from Assassin’s Creed Black Flag. He is selfish, has his own motivations, is unpredictable and is overall an exciting character. While Basim’s fate at the end of Valhala is known, I felt the journey would be more interesting, and more personal to him (in line with Ezio), but that’s not the case. Overall, the story is okay with some decent plot twists at the end.

Gameplay

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a return to the franchise roots in two ways – stealth and traversal. The rest of the gameplay is in line with the changes we have seen since Assassin’s Creed Origins. Mirage has the standard gameplay loop we have come to expect – visit your hideout, get an outline of your next target, conduct some investigations, identify the target and venture on an assassination mission. The final assassination mission for each key target is more in line with what we have seen from the Hitman franchise over the past few years. You need to have an infiltration plan, plan a distraction to lure the target into the open and strike from the shadows. This is an interesting twist from the past games and while your options are limited with each assasination, it’s nice to see Mirage trying something that Hitman perfected.

When it comes to combat, Basim feels a little heavier than Ezio. So taking on multiple foes at once might not be a wise choice. You can block and counter some attaches but it is best to use your gadgets and stick more to the shadows wherever possible. You have a set of tools at your disposal such as throwing knives, noisemaker tools to distract guards, darts, smoke bombs and more. Each can be upgraded and can help you either evade detection or escape a tricky situation.

You also have a version of Splinter Cell: Blacklist’s mark and execute feature. At any time (apart from combat), you can slow down time and select up to five enemies to execute in a slick assassination move. You can execute this from mid-air, immediately upon detection and even when perched on a rooftop. It’s a great way to take out multiple foes at once. The only catch is, that you need to execute stealth kills to refill this meter.

Like previous Assassin’s Creed games, you have a trusted mount (a horse or a camel) to go from point ‘a’ to ‘b’ and an eagle to scout from the skies. There is also the standard skill tree to upgrade your abilities and gear, new outfits and weapons to find and side quests called contracts to earn in-game tokens that can be used with merchants, mercenaries and more.

The one thing which has gone back to the roots of the franchise is the parkour! Since Baghdad is a denser city, the parkour is very reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed II, III, a bit of Unity. It’s fun to traverse the city on foot simply because elements are conveniently placed for you to pull off some slick parkour.

While elements such as parkour, research-based assassinations and some of the combat take a lot of inspiration from the franchise roots, the overall experience is still closer to more recent entries in the franchise.

Graphics and sound

Since Assassin’s Creed Mirage is releasing on the PS4 and Xbox One, I didn’t expect the game to look breathtaking. Playing the game on the PS5, I had the option of a quality mode and performance mode. I ended up playing the game in the performance mode for most of my playthrough and the overall experience was butter-smooth with only the occasional hiccup here and there. Texture pop-in was still an issue and considering the power of the PS5 SSD, this is a tad disappointing. Apart from that the visual language in terms of details, animations, environments and more is at par with Valhalla and that’s not a bad thing considering Valhalla was a good-looking game. However, the visuals are nowhere near the details found on Horizon Forbidden West or God of War Ragnarok, two open-world games that also launched on the previous-gen PlayStation consoles along with the PS5.

Baghdad is a sprawling city with a dense population and the city feels lived in with distinct areas and historic architecture. Those who want to feel like they are playing the original Assassin’s Creed game can change the colour tone of the game to that of the original, but I felt the native colour pallet better suited the game.

When it comes to sound, the bang and swishes of combat, the high-octave music following an assassination and the signature sound of the eagle screeching when you perform the leap of faith are all true to the franchise.

Fans of the Amazon Prime show, the Expanse will recognise the voice of Shohreh Aghdashloo who dons the role of Assassin Roshan – Basim’s mentor and a key character in the game. The rest of the voice cast is very good as well delivering convincing lines, even though there are times when the story at hand lacks a bit of depth.

Verdict

Assassins Creed Mirage tries to recreate the original Assassin’s Creed game by marrying nostalgia with gameplay elements that suit a modern audience. Does it succeed? Well, that depends on how fondly you remember the original game and how much you enjoyed playing the evolved RPG version of Assassin’s Creed. For most, it will be just another Assassin’s Creed game, and that’s fine. For me, someone who has played every mainline Assassins Creed game (and also Assassin’s Creed Chronicles), I found the tighter experience to be fun and a game I enjoyed seeing the credits for. And that’s saying something when you consider that I still need to finish AC Odyssey and Valhalla.