Assassin’s Creed Mirage will feel similar to first games in the franchise

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Assassin’s Creed Mirage will shrug off the open world RPG trappings of recent instalments to focus on a more “intimate” experience, geared towards fans of those original games.

While the series has witnessed a resurgence in recent years, it has undeniably shifted further and further away from its roots.

“Mirage’s creation has been the convergence of several inputs,” explained creative director, Stéphane Boudon, in an interview with GamesRadar.

Of course, the first one comes from our community: Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla they are all great games with the promise to live an epic journey in a strong fantasy. Their scopes have been calibrated to fulfil those ambitions as they all embrace the RPG mechanics. But amongst our fans, we started hearing the desire for a character driven story, focused on the core pillars of the first ACs in a more intimate scale. It resonates with us as well as developers and this was the starting point of the project.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage has been described as an homage to earlier games in the series, particularly the 2007 original. It’s being touted as a “coming-of-age” story that puts the spotlight on Basim Ibn Is’haq who many will recognise as Eivor’s assassin mentor in AC: Valhalla. Mirage will focus on Basim’s story in a prequel chapter set in 9th century Baghdad as he goes from street thief to legendary assassin.

Not only with the story setup feel familiar to long-time fans, Assassin’s Creed Mirage will also focus on a mix of stealth and parkour in dense urban sprawls as players make use of classic tools such as throwing knives and smoke bombs.

With the launch of Assassin’s Creed Origins in 2017, Ubisoft successfully reinvented the franchise after years of stagnation. While titles such as AC Unity and Syndicate offered incredible sandboxes to explore and stories spliced with real-world history, the series had been losing steam for years. Fumbled plot lines, tangled gameplay ideas, and Ubisoft’s push to get an Assassin’s Creed game on store shelves every year left many jaded.

While more recent games have been a major success, fans have welcomed the approach Ubisoft is taking with Mirage. This is one of several AC projects currently in the pipeline – during a 15th anniversary stream, the publisher announced:

  • Codename Red – a new game set in Japan that will be similar to Odyssey and Valhalla.
  • Codename Jade – a mobile-focused title set in Ancient China.
  • Codename Hexe – rumoured to be a darker instalment set during the 16th century witch hunts of central Europe.
  • Codename Infinity – the long-waited return of multiplayer.

2023 is shaping up to be an exciting year for the franchise with more Mirage news and reveals hopefully just around the corner.

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Senior Editor bursting with lukewarm takes and useless gaming trivia. May as well surgically attach my DualSense at this point.