The Assassins Creed franchise has been a phenomenal success story when it comes to the gaming industry, the first title simply entitled ‘Assassins Creed’ was released back in 2007 and through the next 16 years and 11 mainline sequels the series continued to gain popularity and amassed an incredibly enthusiastic fan base.

The later games in the series starting with Origins in 2017 did start to stray away from the original stealth/assassin style gameplay that the series was originally known for into more of an RPG styled experience which did lead to complaints from fans of the original games as they felt that the series was straying too far from its stealthy assassin based roots and turning more open world action role playing game. Ubisoft have listened to the community and fans will be pleased to know that the 13th title in the series Assassins Creed Mirage is a throwback to the stealth based gameplay of the original games, Ubisoft Bordeaux originally pitched Mirage as a DLC for Valhalla but the idea was so well received that it was greenlit to be released as its own separate game in the series. 

Mirage tells the story of Basim Ibn Ishaq who originally appeared in Valhalla as a ‘hidden one’ where he follows the Ravenclan in their Viking invasion of England, 9th century Baghdad serves as the location for Basim’s adventures and follows his journey alongside his friend Nehal as he transitions from a common street thief through to a fully-fledged member of the Assassin Brotherhood. The central conflict of Assassin's Creed Mirage centers around Basim's fight against the Order of the Ancients, a shadowy and powerful group that foreshadows the Templars in the Assassin's Creed lore. You, as Basim will navigate the vibrant and historical backdrop of Baghdad, uncovering the usual complex web of intrigue, conspiracies, and historical events that are synonymous with the Assassin's Creed series.

The map designers and graphical artists have done an outstanding job of recreating 9th century Baghdad from its bustling markets and streets through to its claustrophobic shady alleyways. The city is massive and serves as the perfect backdrop for Basim to utilise his vast array of parkour based skills by climbing up rooftops and leaping around the map in order to avoid enemies or perform the devastating type of assassinations that go hand in hand with the Assassins Creed brand. The city feels lived in and full of character but also riddled with dark alleyways with areas to explore and plot out assassination attempts from. Controlling Basim is an absolute joy and Ubisoft Bordeaux have nailed the parkour based climbing and jumping mechanics that are an essential part of any game in the Assassins Creed franchise, leaping off a building and plunging your blade silently through an enemies neck has never felt more satisfying.

Fans of the franchise have been calling out for the series to return to its roots and Assassins Creed Mirage really is a throwback to the early entries of the series as is evident from its stealth based gameplay and linearity compared to Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. Whilst an older style Assassins Creed experience has been on the wish list of many fans of the beloved series it is one of Mirages biggest successes whilst at the same time being one of its biggest failings. By streamlining combat and reducing a number of weapon options, Mirage significantly departs from its predecessors. Despite the fact that some players may find this streamlining to be appealing if they are looking for a simpler experience, fighting ends up feeling shallow and monotonous. The excitement of battles is diminished by the lack of experience points and character progression, as well as by relying solely on waiting for blunders from the opposition. Mirage practically forces you to play the game in stealth mode rather than also having the option of going in swinging your sword like a madman and taking on groups of enemies at a time as this will quickly get you killed.

I am not a big fan of stealth games but I have enjoyed them in the past if the stealth content is innovative and fun to play. Where Mirage is concerned, the main bulk of its gameplay is based around finding the area your target is located in, by sending up your faithful avian companion Enkidu. Then you can mark all of the targets in the location, before slowly slinking through bushes for the next ten minutes carefully watching the enemies patrol areas and then taking them out without alerting their friends. It is hardly riveting gameplay and most of the time I found myself becoming bored with the continual loop of infiltrating an area and taking out guards to get to the door I needed to go through; only to find out that because it was locked that I needed to kill another nearby enemy in order to retrieve the key and then go back to the door in order to complete the mission. There is a distinct lack of variety and innovation from the older games in the series here and I can’t really help but think that Ubisoft Bordeaux really should have pushed the envelope here and added some more innovative ideas and mechanics to the game in order to stop the stealth mechanics from being as stale and tedious as they are most of the time.

The gameplay lacks depth where fighting is concerned simply because you are mostly forced to play stealthily and this won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. There is nothing wrong overall with the stealth and combat mechanics here it is just that I was expecting there to at least be some form of innovation or improvement over the type of systems that were included in the original game over 15 years ago sadly though there isn’t much of that here. A game isn’t much without a story, especially when it is a more linear game than previous editions, the story is needed to keep the player interested and the players need to become emotionally involved with the stories characters in order to feel compelled to complete the tasks and quests in the game.

Unfortunately I found the story, cut scenes, voice acting and protagonists in this game to be mostly forgettable, especially Roshan whose voice sounds like a colony of frogs being force fed through a blender. Nothing is terrible here it is all just extremely middling and did not leave an impression on me at all and due to this I found it incredibly tedious and boring to slog through the game as I had no attachment to any of the characters and therefore I really didn’t care about their plight, the same can be said about the protagonists in the game and this really brings to light the overall flaws with the mission structure in Mirage. Missions are done through a series of investigations where you travel to certain areas and find clues or kill certain people in order to unlock the boss of that particular area.

However all of these missions are over so quickly that the game really doesn’t even give you time to get to know your enemy and trigger an emotional response in order to make you give a damn about killing them. I never found the story in Odyssey, Valhalla or Origins to be worthy of high praise either but at least the world and character building in those games gave me a reason to push forward and complete missions because I was compelled to see what happened next, there is none of that in Mirage. It was just that found myself not caring about the main protagonist Basim or what happened to him at all which is such a shame because the games recreation of ancient Baghdad is generally stunning, even though there is not much diversity in the different sections of the city. I think the skill system is another reason why I found no desire to push forward in the game, the skill trees are extremely basic and the hardly any of the abilities that you unlock as you play are very exciting.

You can expect to get about 15-20 hours out of Mirage depending on how much of a completionist you are and I honestly think that is the perfect length for a game returning back to its original roots. Overall Assassins Creed Mirage fails to live up to promises due to a lack of creativity, a limited gameplay experience, a lacklustre plot and unrealized potential. In my opinion both devoted series fans and new players hoping for a novel and interesting gaming experience will be disappointed, there will be loads of players especially those who prefer the older games in the series that will enjoy Mirage however I just feel that this whole game is a missed opportunity and that the game had the potential to be great instead of just ok, it feels like Ubisoft Bordeaux created an amazing city and environment only to miss the mark on the game mechanics and story and this inherently fails to make Assassins Creed Mirage stand out from the pack.