We have been traveling around the world with the Assassin’s Creed series for years. Followers of the series like us will know that in the previous episode, we went to the northern lands and took our Viking brothers to England on a journey to a new home. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, which we can say is an advanced Odyssey with a Viking theme, adorned with RPG elements by Ubisoft, and lessons learned, also had the distinction of being the first Assassin’s Creed game on the PlayStation 5 platform. Now the new one has arrived! And here comes Assassin’s Creed Mirage.
Yes. Are there anyone here who is tired of the Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla trio? Beautiful. We have good news for you: Mirage is not that tiring. In Mirage, Ubisoft must have realized that the open world elements of the last 3 games of the series had exhausted the player so much that they needed to return to their roots, so they decided to repair this with Mirage. But without forgetting the knowledge and experience he gained in the last 3 games! In fact, the production company signaled a return to its roots with Hidden Blade in Valhalla, which we reviewed before, and began to highlight the theme of stealth; He completed this with Mirage; all the more so by eliminating the RPG elements and reining in the open world theme.
We’ll get to that, but first let’s take a closer look at Mirage’s story and our main character, Basim. Mirage takes us to 9th century Baghdad. In the game, where we have the chance to see Alamut Castle under construction, we witness the transformation of Basim, whom we know from Valhalla, from a simple street thief to a master assassin and his joining the assassin sect also known as The Hidden Ones.
Basim’s story and his rise to assassin is filled with 15 to 20 hours of mystery, discovery, and amazing character development. With minimal modern storytelling, Mirage begins with a series of focused cinematic stories revolving around clearing the rot that lies beneath Baghdad’s gold plating, and builds to unraveling the mystery of Basim’s target, the “Ancient Order.”
In this game, Ubisoft’s focus on the story by getting rid of the open world interactions that are confusing for many players, has paved the way for us to identify more with the main character and to immerse ourselves in the story arc throughout the game. In other words, we have a game that has a more linear structure than the last 3 games of the series, which is a step in the right direction in terms of addressing the fact that we are assassins rather than warriors.
Yes, as you can guess, privacy themes are at the forefront in this game. So, we cannot progress by blaming us like in the previous games. We must maintain secrecy and move further into the shadows. But that doesn’t mean he can’t handle Basim’s sword and dagger. However, you should put more thought into deflection, parrying, dodging and timing. Entering enemies head-on can have bad consequences; Instead, adopting a patient and analytical approach will enable you to be more successful, which is one of the best aspects of the series that we miss. Our eagle is also at our disposal to conduct environmental research.
Baghdad is also a very conducive environment for secrecy. It contains countless places where you can hide and move through the shadows. On the other hand, the same is true for parkour. Baghdad of that period contains many buildings to climb and pass through. This prepares the ideal ground for Basim, who loves to show off his skills in parkour. While well-thought-out track routes enrich the game, the rotating swing hangers are among the details that add speed to the track.
We said that RPG elements were eliminated in Mirage. So, what does this mean, do we not have a skill tree? No, we have a skill tree. There is a skill tree grouped under 3 main headings: Phantom, Trickster and Predator. We can unlock the abilities here with the skill points we obtain by progressing in the story arc and completing missions. Besides this, of course, we can also improve our weapons.
The combat system in the game is based on killing by hiding and setting traps, rather than attacking directly like in Valhalla. Besides, Basim is not that durable of a character anyway. It is difficult to fight enemies when caught; Of course, the fact that the enemies attacked all together, rather than one by one, also played a role in this. When we add to this the fact that the combat system is cumbersome, we have no choice but to proceed by hiding. Sword attack moves are very cumbersome, including the Parry incident. It’s clear that the developers did this to move the game towards stealth. So, it would be better to think again before attacking large groups.
Mirage has removed RPG elements but has an open world. However, it is not as large as Valhalla. Some people will be happy about this, some will be sad, but we think it is a development that contributes to focusing on the story. The open world reflects the atmosphere of the game well, and of course there are side missions in this partially open world; You can increase the game time with these, but let’s say that we do not find them very impressive in terms of story.
On the other hand, while trying to search for missions with the help of a compass in the open world, there is a high probability that you will lose focus for the next mission. Meanwhile, there has been a change in the task list. In Valhalla and previous games, there were quest lists respectively. In Mirage, icons appear on the target board and tasks appear around these icons.
Another thing we don’t like about Mirage is that the camera angle gets closer when you are hidden. This can sometimes make it difficult to see your surroundings depending on where you are hiding. Hah, and artificial intelligence. Bad artificial intelligence strengthens your assassination actions against large groups, but makes it unrealistic. In our opinion, the development team did not establish the balance correctly here.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s PlayStation 5 performance is – as expected – extremely successful. 60 FPS works wonderfully in 4K and the visuality tightly connects you to the atmosphere of the game. We especially recommend playing in high frame rate mode, but there’s noticeably more detail in quality mode. Of course, not only PlayStation 5 owners, but also those with PlayStation 4 can play Assassin’s Creed Mirage. By the way, it is worth underlining that Dualsense’s adaptive triggers are not supported for this game, unfortunately Valhalla was a game that could not benefit from Dualsense’s capabilities. You can benefit from neither adaptive trigger keys nor speaker support. Of course, there are vibrations.
Conclusion
Yes, to sum up, Assassin’s Creed Mirage was a successful production that returned to the roots of the series. The fact that it focuses on the story and returns to the theme of privacy are the details we miss. Basim’s fast-paced journey from a simple street thief to a master assassin is a production that will please the fans of the series with its stealth-oriented action, intrigues and more. If it didn’t have the shortcomings we mentioned, it could be a great part of the series. However, in this form, it manages to be one of the most enjoyable games of 2023.
TAG
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Ubisoft
Genre: Action
Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PC, XOne, Series X/S
Web: www.ubisoft.com
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