During the same year the first iPhone was released and Prince played Purple Rain at a halftime show where it literally rained, another bit of culture was changed forever: the first Assassin’s Creed was released to mixed reviews. Not everyone loved Ubisoft’s approach to stealth and action, but it was widely agreed that this game was on to something. In the 15-plus years since, its many sequels traded stealth for something far bigger and flashier, but lost sight of the very spirit of how it began. Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes a lot of important, imperfect steps to get back to its roots, and though that means as it does no particular thing that hasn’t been done before, the focus and commitment to briskly paced missions and stealth-heavy exploration scratches an itch that the RPG-based entries couldn’t reach. It might not be the most ambitious of games, but it does restore hope that there’s still room for a version of Assassin’s Creed that we haven't seen in almost a decade.
Stealth is king again in Assassin's Creed. Mirage does away with the XP and leveling your character completely, meaning every enemy is just a hidden blade away from doom if you play your cards right. Most areas have lots of ways to stay hidden, and the returning eagle scouting option helps you check all angles before deciding your next move. It was refreshing to approach a scenario and have to weigh my options based on its many moving parts rather than simply considering if the loot is worth the mindless slaughter that will follow. Strongholds like high-security prisons and coastal fortresses regularly feature many guards with staggered patrols and overlapping sightlines. Early on especially, the threat of fighting multiple enemies at once is so daunting that using the shadows, sharp timing, and the environment is a necessity to make progress towards well defended objectives. Even more than in the pre-Origins games, I have had to make vigorous use of precariously hanging dock supplies or conveniently placed spice bags to cause enough chaos to see to my ends.
That said, it’s not one of the Having played all of the DLC expansions for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I admit I never once thought “I would like to know about the origin story for Basim,” the mysterious frenemy of Evior and Layla Hassan. I’ve now put almost 20 hours into learning his history as he takes the lead role in Mirage, and the story hasn’t really changed my mind on that front. Basim’s origins as a plucky cutpurse with a heart of gold turned vengeful assassin feels like the most fast-forwarded Hidden One’s story in the series. Before the blood from his slain friends dries, he’s trust-falling into hay stacks and chopping his own finger off. He’s a pretty milquetoast, golden retriever of a man, largely agreeable and affable when it comes to his interpersonal relationships, and chooses what’s right every time without much conflict. He’s fine, if not all that interesting most of the time, and by the end I was still left wondering how this guy became the scheming triple-crosser we met years ago.
That said, Basim’s story is far shorter and more linear than those of the recent Witcher 3-inspired games, and for my dirham (that’s money) the adventure is better for it. Your main tasks start on the investigation board, a web of leads and clues that all point toward the main targets. Solving smaller issues, like identifying a local rebel leader or stopping a spree of abductions, often lead you to bigger reveals, which in turn take you further and further up the chain until you get to take another stab at the big conspiracy that's causing all this chaos. Admittedly, the board makes things feel more open ended than they truly are because you can tackle tasks in any order you like, even though they are almost all mandatory. But breaking the stories into little chunks that keep expectations clear and concise does wonders for the pacing of a game like this.
Though it is more focused, Basim’s quest is pretty lackluster in relation to the other games in the series. The contrivance that gets him into the assassination game – revenge plus a calling to a higher purpose – has been done before and in more captivating ways in previous games. Save for maybe the final four or so hours, his hunt to track down members of the villainous Order of the Ancients is rather basic and predictable. Each of them and their flunkies are staunchly, almost cartoonishly evil without any nuance, and though it’s inoffensive to make the subject of your ruthless yet justifiable murders so simple, it's still a little disappointing that we haven’t had another big bad as complex as Haytham Kenway or as cackling mad as Rodrigo Borgia.
The same goes for Basim’s allies, who are all various shades of “conspirators but for good” types you’ve seen all over the Assassin’s Creed series. With the exception of Basim’s own master Roshan, brought to life expertly by Shohreh Aghdashloo’s distinctively smoky voice, the supporting cast of Mirage is no more than adequate both as characters and in their performances.
Among my favorite “characters,' though,' is the city of Baghdad and its surrounding areas. The different districts, from the dense bustling heart in the Round City to the dusty slums in Karkh, feel busy and lived-in in a way that hasn’t been present in the series since Unity or perhaps Syndicate. It’s full of busy streets full of people to blend in with and city blocks with open homes you can sprint through while eluding pursuers – things you’ll be doing a lot thanks to Mirage’s notoriety system. It’s in many ways a throwback to the Ezio days, and it scales up the efforts to take you down based on how many beehives you're kicking around town. Thanks to the iron grip that the ruling caliph has on the city, guards are on every corner and it gets very tough to escape their lines of sight simply by running. If you can’t hide, removing wanted posters and paying off town criers can help to clear your name. It asks a lot of you when it comes to evading capture, so it's nice that it also gives you lots of ways to meet its expectations.
Not being a scholar I can’t speak to whether Mirage’s many real-world locations are more historically accurate than past games (as the focus on finding historical sites seems more pronounced than in the recent past), but there’s no singular monuments or landscapes that really took my breath away like The Great Pyramids in Origins or Athena’s Statue in Odyssey. On the whole, though, the golden rolling dunes and tropical oases are beautiful and the city and its suburbs have plenty of alleys and nooks to explore if collectible hunting is your thing. Ubisoft’s renewed focus on a smaller region has allowed it to flesh out more of the details, and that’s a win.
Your tools, which can be easily worked into combat but are invaluable during stealth, really shine in Mirage, especially when you upgrade them to increase effect ranges or have dramatic additional effects. My favorite dissolves the bodies of anyone I kill with a throwing knife, destroying all evidence of the deed. Realistic, no – but extremely useful. Basim also has a special stealth kill combo ability that functions almost like Deadeye in Red Dead Redemption, allowing you to mark a number of targets and kill them all in stylish and slightly bizarre fashion. This is great for clearing a room of guards that would be tricky to separate otherwise, or for taking down priority targets when an out and out fight will be unavoidable. It’s powerful, but balanced by the need to charge a special meter by performing quiet kills the old fashioned way, and that it can only be activated when you are anonymous.
I wouldn’t say the locations you infiltrate here are better or more interesting than we’ve seen in recent years, though. If you’ve slunk through one hardened location in an Assassin’s Creed game, you’ll be well equipped for the sorts of hallways, underground docks, and fortified walls you’ll need to tackle here. Guards are still pretty easy to manipulate and lack basic self-preservation skills when spotting any uncovered corpses you leave behind.
I did appreciate that there were some new and returning ways to sneak into and soften up the fortifications. Bribing a merchant to let you pretend you are one of their helpers delivering goods was one of my favorite ways to saunter through a gate I wouldn’t be allowed in otherwise. In a later section, many different parties are congregating in the courtyard of a wealthy target’s manor, and helping a group of indentured people riot against their captor helped cause enough of a commotion to lure the big man into my blade. That sort of approach makes the world feel more alive and real, and takes cues from fellow stealth assassination games like Hitman.
When I had no choice but to openly scrap, I found combat to be limited but challenging. Basim only has one combat style: using a sword and dagger to become a spinning dervish of death by weaving quick and heavy strikes together for short combos. You can switch between many types of swords and daggers, each having unique combat abilities you can mix and match, like a dagger that slows down time when you parry attacks or a sword that does more damage every time you strike with it in quick succession. I didn’t find the differences between weapon options to be so impactful that my playstyle changed around them, but I can see where some weapons, when fully upgraded and bestowing their biggest gifts, could be vital at a higher difficulty than the standard one. It’s the same story with your armor sets, which I almost never felt compelled to change for gameplay reasons, but frequently switched simply because Mirage’s line up of gear is a serve, fashion-wise.
Combat is jarringly slower and more deliberate than we’ve become accustomed to, especially coming from Valhalla’s bevy of weapon types and special attacks, but I prefer Mirage’s heavy emphasis on counters and dodging incoming attacks, enforced by the sometimes erratic attack patterns from enemies mixed with the high damage they do in melee. Attackers don’t wait for their friends to be cut down before taking their turn to come at you, so you often need to avoid multiple swings at once – and engaging more than two or three guards at a time can be oppressive.
There are very few enemy types: regular soldiers, bigger armored soldiers that can’t be damaged head on, and elite hunters who are sent for you when your notoriety is at its highest level. However, these all can vary slightly based on the weapons they have – a heavy soldier with a mace is a different sort of threat than one with a greatsword, for example, so you’d always have to be aware and adjust accordingly, and I never found myself wanting for new challenges. For as much of Mirage’s design feels like a callback to old eras of the series, combat feels like the biggest change that’s unique to this game, and it’s one I really liked.
Mirage’s pared-down ability tree does have a much more dramatic impact on how you’ll want to play, though. Three branches – focused on killing, scouting, and gadgets – only have seven skills to unlock, but each one has big effects. Some simply help you do the things you can already do but better, like helping you eagle pinpoint objectives and targets faster. Some feel like features that existed by default in older games, like rolling over enemies to switch facing. I never regretted spending points on any one upgrade though, as they all made me better, but since you can respec all of these points at any time for free, you’re only ever a couple of minutes away from a new character build anyway.
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