Highlights
- Assassin's Creed Mirage breaks from the series' usual modern-day segments, which have been divisive and considered a distraction from the historical gameplay.
- Previous entries, like Black Flag, suffered from dull and frequent modern-day sections that disrupted the fun and adventure of the game.
- Mirage focuses solely on the historical storyline, eliminating modern-day segments altogether, allowing players to feel more connected to the protagonist Basim.
The usual gameplay loop of Assassin's Creed sees players control an all-powerful Master Assassin as they parkour their way through a historical location, find some kind of evil target, and assassinate them, a cycle which repeats until the big bad of the game is defeated and the credits roll. While this gameplay loop has been changed a few times over the last 15 years of Assassin's Creed, it's a cycle that still remains at the series' core, being clearly present in even the latest entry, Assassin's Creed Mirage.
As far as consistent franchise gameplay loops go, Assassin's Creed has one of the best out there, with plenty of variation between entries to keep fans coming back time and time again. But the Assassin's Creed franchise has never been content with just being a series of compelling hunts through historical settings, they instead force players to take a break from the old-time-y action and participate in a mundane modern-day sequence, though Assassin's Creed Mirage might have just changed that for good.
Assassin's Creed Mirage Feels Better Without a Modern-Day Segment
Present since the franchise's debut back in 2007, Assassin's Creed's modern-day segments have always been pretty divisive, though complaints were definitely less frequent back during the series' first few years. In Assassin's Creed 1, players are introduced to Desmond Miles, a man living in the present day who's agreed to be a test subject for the mysterious Abstergo Industries and use his DNA to live through the memories of his ancestor Altair. Voiced by Nolan North, Desmond is a very likable protagonist, and his slow rise to the rank of Assassin throughout Assassin's Creed 1 and the Ezio trilogy was pretty engaging to experience, interweaving naturally with the events of the past.
However, since then, Assassin's Creed has had a real issue when it comes to its modern-day sequences. Many fans feel as though these modern-day sections just end up pulling them away from the actual fun of the game, with no real reason aside from building some lackluster story that isn't really connected to the events of the past, or the future of the wider Assassin's Creed narrative. Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag was the first big offender of this, with strange first-person modern-day sections coming all too frequently during the story. And in a game where adventure and exploration are so fun, Black Flag's dull modern-day sequences only served to stand out even more, and for all the wrong reasons.
The most recent Assassin's Creed entries haven't been as egregious as Black Flag with their own modern-day sequences, with Layla's journey actually being woven into the past events she experiences, but they definitely haven't been a highlight of the experience either. As mentioned up top, the Assassin's Creed franchise has always been about parkouring through an authentic historical setting, using stealth to assassinate various targets, and when players are forced to take a break from that only to walk around some ruins or talk to characters that don't have much relevance on the overarching story, the game grinds to a halt and loses some key parts of its identity.
But Assassin's Creed Mirage might mark the end for modern-day sequences in the franchise. Mirage is the first mainline game in the series to feature no modern-day sections at all, and it's all the better for it. Rather than have to split focus between two different groups of characters across two time periods, Assassin's Creed Mirage keeps the story focused on Basim, and his own personal journey, which in turn makes players feel more closely connected to him. Back in September of last year, Assassin's Creed's Vice President Executive Producer Marc-Alexis Cote mentioned that the modern-day sequences would start to be phased out of mainline entries, and it seems like Mirage is the first in line to do so.
Assassin's Creed Mirage is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.