I’ve had a tenuous relationship with the recent Assassin’s Creed games. Origins was a decent entry, I really disliked Odyssey, but Valhalla hooked me, and I sank hours into it. When they announced a spin-off that was smaller in scale and a return to more Unity/Syndicate era gameplay, I was interested. This game puts you in the shoes of Basim, he was an old master assassin in Valhalla who, without getting heavy into spoilers, was a major player in that game’s overarching story. Given his importance in the game and the aura of mystery that surrounded him, he’s a good candidate for a solo game.
The game is set in the city of Baghdad around 861AD during the height of the Abbasid Caliphate. The map isn’t as sprawling as the maps in other recent entries, but that’s not a bad thing. There’s still plenty to explore with most of the map being the city of Baghdad with the rest being the surrounding deserts and small towns. The city of Baghdad is fun to explore as you travel through the various districts and come across historic landmarks. There were a few times where I’d stop just to gawk at the architecture. The city bustles with the appropriate amount of people. The market district is filled with well-dressed merchants, while the working district has impoverished people in run down clothes. Map navigation is handled similarly to Valhalla. The map’s broken into districts that each have a list of collectibles to find. The mysteries and side quests from Valhalla return, but in a much more limited scope. There’s maybe 5 total vs the 50 or so in Valhalla. While I would’ve preferred a few more Baghdad stories, the much smaller list of collectibles makes them feel manageable. Ubisoft has a habit of making vast worlds with 100s of collectibles that it becomes a chore to collect them. Here in Baghdad, collectibles are fun to search for because you can knock out a collection or two in one sitting.
One of my favorite parts of Assassin’s Creed games is exploring the history. There are collectibles that give you a deep dive of information about life in 9th century Baghdad, going over topics like religion, table manners, rug making, currency, etc. I made it my goal to collect all these bits of information and read each entry. The actual game stumbles on actual history though. You come across a lot of named characters, but when I’d look them up online to learn more about them, I couldn’t find anything about them. Either they weren’t real people or Ubisoft was using a vastly different version of their name. There were a few of the side characters who were historical characters, but other games set during a ‘golden age’ like Black Flag or Brotherhood usually see every character being someone real. Obviously, this is one of the older games, set in the 800s AD, but even the game set in Ancient Greek had real people. The ruler Basim kills a the beginning doesn’t appear to be a real person. Those names are recorded, it could’ve been a real person. This game feels the most like a “history theme park” vs an actual historical era. I do admit the writers have their hands tied because they can’t pick any time during Middle Eastern history. The game has to be set within 40 or so years before Valhalla takes place.
I played a little Valhalla after finishing Mirage, and it helped to accentuate the difference in gameplay between the two. Mirage goes for a mix of the modern RPG gameplay and the Unity/Syndicate era gameplay. Combat is still very much in the modern RPG camp when it comes to controls. There is a lesser focus on combat though. Where in Valhalla, walking into a camp to start a donnybrook would be a viable option in most occasions, Mirage pushes you towards stealth. Basim doesn’t have all the special power attacks Eivor had and the combat feels clunky. That may be on purpose to, again, encourage stealth gameplay. Basim doesn’t get a ranged weapon, outside of throwing knives, which I did missing having a bow. There’s also a focus on closed-in urban environments. There is a desert to explore, but 90% of the game takes place within the city limits. One thing I loved about Valhalla was the ability to turn on “one hit assassinations”. I hated in Origins & Odyssey that assassinations weren’t a guaranteed kill because it meant every mission ended in a fight. In Mirage, assassinations are one hit kills by default on all, but one particular “super enemy”, and I’m fine with that. Assassination targets return to the Hitman style missions Unity & Syndicate had where the mission was more than just, sneak into building & ice a dude. You can look around for opportunities like distracting guards by freeing caged animals, ala Far Cry, or bribing a servant to let you in the back door or fulfilling certain conditions for a custom assassination. This style of assassination mission has always been my favorite.
Much like a few of the older AC games, Mirage doesn’t last very long. I was able to knock it out in a week or so vs the months the RPG era games can take. The story moves at a quick pace as you follow Basim’s early years in the assassin order. It’s a much more traditional AC story, it’s the first game focused on an established assassin order since probably Unity. As the fancy graphic at startup reminds you, this game also marks the 15th anniversary of the Assassin’s Creed series. So, along with being a spin-off of Valhalla, Mirage also feels like it’s meant to be a spiritual reboot of the first game. With the more traditional gameplay, the return to the Middle East, and the basic “climbing the ranks” story, this game feels like it was meant to be an entry point game for those new to the franchise, like when comics reboot their storylines to bring in new readers.
Basim starts out as a young thief on the streets of Anabarr, a “suburb” of Baghdad. He works with a friend who are both members of a gang of young street urchins, but Basim yearns to be an Assassin. After a burglary in the ruler’s palace goes sideways, all of Basim’s adorable youths are killed and he escapes Anabarr with a local Assassin. He joins the order and trains up at their secret base. After their secret base is discovered by mercenaries, they send Basim to Baghdad to assassinate the leaders of the proto-Templars, the Order of Ancients. Now comes some spoilers for both Mirage and Valhalla, so skip to ‘all in all’ to avoid them. Along with the standard coming of age story, Mirage also sets up Basim’s arc for Valhalla. I think the story does falter in this aspect. Basim is haunted by nightmares of a Djinn and drawn to learn more about an ancient artifact he found in the palace. But it’s not till the end of the story that we start getting the storyline about Basim being a reincarnation of a being from an advanced pre-history race. That was his big plot point in Valhalla, but it’s an afterthought in Mirage.
I think the lackluster writing is what makes that plot fall flat. Basim’s new VA does a fine job, but the dialogue is very utilitarian. Most conversations between our assassins don’t go beyond, “Here’s some objectives to follow” “I will complete these masterfully.” Basim never seems like he’s interested in trying to learn about what he really is or chafe with the tenants of the Order. He does want to learn why the Djinn haunts his dreams, but that plot point just spins wheels for most the game. If they sprinkled in some more scenes of Basim disregarding his mentor’s orders or feeling he has a greater purpose, it would’ve enhanced the overall story. There is this twist that Basim’s childhood friend is actually a manifestation of his personality that wants to learn about his past life. Given she shows up so sparsely in the game, it didn’t leave me with much of an impact.
All in all, AC Mirage was a fun game. It’s a nice callback to older Assassin’s Creed gameplay. I don’t expect them to fully return to this style of gameplay in AC Shadows for fears of being labeled stale, but I do think the baby was thrown out with the bathwater in the change from Syndicate to Origins. The city of Baghdad is impressive and worth exploring, but the story is very boiler plate and didn’t lean into the plot points set up in Valhalla as much as I expected it to. If you are either a new Assassin's Creed fan or a diehard one, I'd recommend Mirage.
