I do love me some Assassins Creed. Initially I was a naysayer ignoring their existence until revelations. Once I chose to actually play them I was firmly hooked by Brotherhood and since then I’ve played every mainline console title other then Rogue, which is on it’s way to me as we speak. I’ve played the PSP and DS titles, and I’ve got liberation on my Vita which admittedly I haven’t gotten that far in, so I was always going to get Mirage the same way I’ll absolutely be getting Shadows when it eventually releases.
This game serves as a precursor to the story of Valhalla, as that is when we first meet Basim and learn of his past and ties into the overall story of the AC world and less then confusing lore. Granted I had forgotten a lot of what happened and had to refresh myself with what was going on. I have weak memory retention for these sorta things. Which is a shortcoming of the game, as one of the defining features of the main line titles in the series is the duelling stories of your assassins past and the protagonist of the future. This game omits the secondary protagonist so there is no present story this time round.
Another issue with the story is I found to be brutally honest it doesn’t serve any purpose overall. Sure, you can say it’s nice to see how Basim was originally and ultimately became. From unlocking his true memories and inherited legacy he gained via rebirth. However, it does nothing to enhance or progress what you already know from Valhalla.
The gameplay is more tightly focused on stealth again. As even by AC 2 the games had made combat basically primary with optional stealth kills, along with infiltration etc. Mirage really went for the assassin lineage in this game as the game really wants you to be a real sneaky boy. Combat blows major ass, I mean it’s pure dog shit. You can do light or heavy attack with the same trigger button, parry which hardly works, dodge with a roll physic that likes to roll you back into the enemy your aiming to avoid. It’s highly counter productive. Your swings are combo limited and don’t get any better from the skill trees. You get a roll over move that lets you vault over the bigger enemies. Which by then if you just pop a smoke bomb you can go behind and assassinate them anyways.
Your primary way of getting around your targets is the tools you get which honestly just pump your resources into throwing knives and smoke bombs. Once they’ve been fully upgraded you can fuck major shit up. Don’t worry about running out. Most your victims will carry some item or another plus most places contain replenishment loot boxes so you’ll never be short.
You can only chain two assassinations together which is weak and if the focus skill wasn’t available you’d be a really weak assassin by previous games. Once you have all three upgrades for focus, you can one shot five enemies in a row which is fairly helpful.
The world looks utterly incredible even if this game is limited to just the area of Baghdad. One thing the AC games always knock out the park is the worlds. Hardly any other title or series rarely manages to create games that look so impressive. Off the top of my head I can think of maybe the Witcher 3, or Ghost of Tsushima that creates such a striking world to explore and complete.
As graphically impressive as the game looks, on occasion character models often looked less then impressive. With character movement and facial expressions being kinda janky, but I can find that forgivable for the most part.
For the main story you are tasked with taking down the order that is controlling Baghdad with five targets in total to kill. The first four allow some freedom in that you can find the headquarters and start that chain of mission if you choose. It’s a bit like breath of the wild in that you have objectives and it’s your decision in which order you complete them.
Along with the main missions theres a few side quests I say a few as there are 7. You also have contracts which again there aren’t many. These are mostly kill missions, extractions or escort someone to safety. All of which are highly missable unless you are going for the platinum trophy. The same goes for the collectibles which are gear chests which give you weapon or outfit schematics which again are few in number, and honestly don’t do much outside of damage, defence and maybe noise reduction.
You have notoriety again in this game, which you can pay to clear it or tear down a couple of wanted posters. But the game doesn’t care f you are wanted or not most time and guards will just swarm you like a fly to a freshly plopped shit. So you often end up running round waiting to clear your name to get back on with the story.
A good chunk of the explorable world is the wilderness and it’s basically empty. Therea no outposts to clear, no real threat from wild animals even though you encounter a rogue Ostrich from time to time. It’s just lacking in content all round. I don’t think every game needs to be the size of Valhalla or Odyssey. Probably somewhere between this and Origins just so you aren’t swamped by an overbearing sized map or having nothing to do.
You can pickpocket anyone that has a purse strapped to their back, but there is an over reliance on getting your money and bribe tokens this way. There aren’t many items to collect and most are junk you just sell to merchants anyway. Once you’ve hit the midway point of the game you don’t even really need bother with it.
Oddly this game comes with new game plus as well and honestly I don’t see why you’d bother going through it again. You can 100% this game easily in one playthrough with only missable trophy/achievement which is fairly hard to miss if you just do what the game tells you to do.
Overall I’d rate this game a Tasty 6/10.
I know a lot of people enjoyed this return to more stealth game play, but I just think even in that regard there wasn’t much. I think nostalgia goggles play an important part in that sentiment. The game has few big locations to enjoy and often you end up in combat even when playing as sneaky as you can. Then it just unfolds from there. The world is mostly empty. And, I’d argue this comes from the fact it was originally developed as DLC for Valhalla and you can see that in the finished product. With every area lacking in depth or content. It’s worth a go but if you don’t want to miss it out you’re not even losing any extra long term story development. It’s not as essential as it should’ve been and that’s what let’s it down the most.
Released 5th October 2023 on Sony Playstation 5.
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