It’s been a while since I wrote on Assassin’s Creed games, haven’t it? I reviewed Assassin’s Creed Odyssey with all its DLCs 5 years ago and you might be wondering where did the review on Valhalla go? After all, so far I’ve been playing every single major entry in the series. Yes, I did play Valhalla. I did not finish it. I will never finish it. It’s insufferably boring and I was falling asleep while forcing myself to play. That’s the bonus review out of the way, let’s talk about Assassin’s Creed Mirage – a game that started development as a big expansion for Valhalla. A fate it thankfully avoided, because it’s quite good.
Mirage is a yet another reminder that Assassin’s Creed as a franchise has no idea what it is. It has been “missing the point” ever since the very first sequel and its best entries have forged a place of their own in spite of the supposed identity, not because of it. Mirage is doing the same – while utilizing the blueprint that was first introduced in Origins it is attempting to use it for creating the gameplay from the first 4 games (not 4 numbered titles, but all games before AC3… yeah, I know). And while this approach is far from perfect, the intent is strong and the results are fun.
With this “going back to the roots” approach, the game returns to the city environment as its main setting, ditches the focus on open combat in favor of stealth, removes experience and leveling up for the player and enemies and scales down the amount of side activities and icons on the map. It doesn’t completely remove the idea of an inventory or unlockable skills, unfortunately, but these concepts are simplified enough to be just additional flavors for the type of approach in completing missions you prefer. The game also still contains “flat” locations around Baghdad that you will get to explore, but most of the missions happen inside the city. You can still use an eagle to survey the locations, and while useful, I feel that it could’ve been cut entirely this time around.
When the game works as intended, everything clicks almost perfectly. And as a result you get the cool newer mechanics and UI elements of the more recent titles as quality of life improvements and strategy expanding elements on top of the classic mission design. Even the general game progression is built like it was in the original entry, where you perform missions to gather intel on the target and when all of that is done it culminates with the assassination. Though, of course, this time with no utterly pointless “race me to the spot” and the like repeating missions that plagued the very first game. Some of the story beats repeat the original tale as well, though with far less style – those cool “Animus hacking” effects and digital glitches still feel incredibly cool and unconventional in comparison to the far more plain presentation of Mirage.
But, of course, things often work not as intended. The freerunning system and controls are based on the Origins blueprint which was designed for the more flat locations. Due to that the familiar issues that plagued the classic titles return with character jumping in odd directions or refusing to climb down as they should. Which is especially sad, since this problem was already solved back in AC Unity – its “Run Up” and “Run Down” options (when they weren’t glitching) were the perfect solution for parkour in city areas. Game has plenty of odd glitches here and there too, and while most of them are just visual, some may temporarily block your progress.
And some things are just disappointing. The story and characters, for example, never do anything good with how they are originally built up to be. Part of the issue might lie with the need to fit the main character into the role he has already played in a different game. But I feel that it could’ve been done better, with some semblance of a “journey”. Instead, you see him start as one potentially interesting character, until in the last act he must suddenly become a different one. The music hinges on being very very good, but never quite gets there. And you may notice some odd issues that happen when the sandbox elements get in the way of the story in your playthrough.
I did like playing Assassin’s Creed Mirage a lot. But as you might’ve understood by now, it’s more of a “yeah, this is quite good” praise than a glowing recommendation. With this title being the 13th main entry in the franchise you’d think that being “quite good” cannot possibly land you among the best of the series. But the franchise is so full of bloated and disappointing entries that Mirage easily lands in my top 5 AC games. It’s a bit sad, but I am also glad that this franchise can still produce titles I can enjoy.