An action game lives or dies by its combat. Whether it's an open-world adventure game, a first-person military shooter, or a VR zombie slasher, every good action video game needs to have its fair share of satisfying combat mechanics. Even if action isn't the main selling point, any video game that puts players in a combat scenario needs to make that encounter feel fun and rewarding, and even stealth-focused games like Assassin's Creed Mirage are no exception to the rule.

Combat has always been present in the Assassin's Creed franchise, but it was never the biggest focus back in the original set of games. Trying to hearken back to those days, Assassin's Creed Mirage follows a similar formula, paring back the combat mechanics of the recent RPG entries of the series, and putting the focus back on stealth and parkour. But while Assassin's Creed Mirage may not be as mechanically rich as its recent RPG predecessors when it comes to its combat, it can't help itself from making some big improvements to the original Assassin's Creed combat formula regardless.

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How Assassin's Creed Mirage Improves on the Original Series' Combat Formula

In the original 2007 Assassin's Creed, combat was pretty rare. Though the first Assassin's Creed technically allowed players to enter open combat and face off against guards in sword duels, those mechanics didn't feel all that great, and the difficulty of the enemy AI paired with that led to Assassin's Creed's combat being a sort of punishment, encouraging players to instead use the game's stealth mechanics more effectively to avoid encounters altogether.

When Assassin's Creed 2 released a few years later, combat was overhauled, and encounters felt a bit more rewarding, though the emphasis was still firmly on stealth. As each new Assassin's Creed entry released, that balance would shift, and combat quickly became the more integral part of the experience. By the time the Assassin's Creed RPGs debuted in 2017 with Origins, combat had essentially become the primary focus of the series' gameplay loop, introducing a whole slew of new mechanics like a parry, dodge roll, and gear system.

Assassin's Creed Mirage tries to strike a balance between these two approaches, and in the process improves on the original Assassin's Creed combat formula in quite a few ways. Rather than discard it completely, Mirage takes its RPG predecessors' combat systems and pares them back in an attempt to return the series to its stealthier roots. Mirage does this by making combat much more skill-based than it was in the original Assassin's Creed series. When players inevitably find themselves in open combat in Assassin's Creed Mirage, they'll find that a big focus has been placed on skillful parries and counters. Gone are the days of just holding down the trigger and pressing square at the right time to instantly kill four guards; players now have to time their parries and strike effectively.

The same also applies to Assassin's Creed Mirage's dodge roll. A feature that wasn't present in the original set of Assassin's Creed games, Mirage's dodge roll is a vital part of combat, especially when fighting larger groups of enemies. Along with the parrying system, Mirage's dodge roll mechanic ensures that players feel truly challenged during a combat encounter, acting as a subtle way of encouraging more stealthy play. So while Assassin's Creed Mirage's combat is definitely less involved than that of its RPG predecessors, it's still miles above what the original 2007 game offered, and much more skill-based and rewarding than that of most original formula Assassin's Creed titles.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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