For 15 years now, the Assassin’s Creed games from Ubisoft have been turning history into a playground for stealth and action fans alike.
Each game is set in a particular historical era, meticulously researched and detailed by the development team. Some of the settings have included the Holy Land during the Third Crusade (1191 AD), Renaissance Italy, Viking England, and Ancient Greece.
The newest addition, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set in Baghdad around 861 AD, and casts you as Basim Ibn Ishaq, a street rogue who finds himself being drawn into a millennia-old battle between The Hidden Ones (the titular “Assassins”; the good guys) and Order Of The Ancients (the bad guys).
While I’m a big fan of the series (I do love history!), it’s undeniable the two most recent games in the series (Odyssey and Valhalla) were monumental epics requiring well over 100 hours apiece to finish, and there was a general consensus they were simply getting too big and bloated.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is a return to the series’ roots – a shorter (about 20 hours long), more focussed experience which is well paced, and delivers what the core Assassin’s Creed experience is about – stealthily making your way through a detailed recreation of a historical city and assassinating bad people, with some Ancient Aliens stuff as a treat.
It’s a much more accessible experience as a result, and doesn’t outstay its welcome or cross over into grind territory as a result.
The few issues I have with the game are that it’s still essentially “More Assassin’s Creed” – which isn’t a bad thing, but it lacked the “wow” factor of some of the previous entries for me.
The new “wanted” mechanic (where people summon guards to chase you if they see you committing crimes) proved irritating at times, and I had some issues with what I thought were some confusing aspects of a couple of the “big twist” plot reveals as well.
Otherwise, though, this is a pure Assassin’s Creed experience and has the benefit of being completely accessible to newcomers to the series. It’s well worth spending some (Arabian) nights experiencing this one.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is available now on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.
