October is an incredibly busy month for the gaming industry, as major titles like Alan Wake 2, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Sonic Superstars, Forza Motorsport, and a handful of other games release back to back. Heading up this crowd, however, is Assassin's Creed Mirage which releases on October 5. Players will take on the role of Basim, first introduced in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and learn how he came to join the Hidden Ones. Because this title is an action-adventure game as opposed to the more recent massive open-world RPGs, it has a lot to prove in a relatively little package, but that doesn't mean it should be underestimated.
Game ZXC was recently able to play roughly three hours or so of Assassin's Creed Mirage via a Ubisoft remote-play event. This preview saw us interact with three key sections: the prologue, Basim's training at the in-construction Alamut and his travel to Baghdad, and a black box assassination mission. Overall, it feels just like what Ubisoft Bordeaux has called it all this time: a love letter to the classic Assassin's Creed games, specifically AC1 and the Ezio Trilogy.
The prologue opens with Basim, conflicted by his dream of the djinni, speaking with his friend Nehal. They go to get work from Dervis, who tasks them with retrieving something from a nearby shipyard. As it turns out, Dervis sometimes provides missions tied to the Hidden Ones, and Basim already romanticizes joining their ranks. Interestingly, players are quickly thrust into a living location. Crowds are moving, children are talking, and high spirits are everywhere, despite not being an idea living quarter. Basim can also interact with the children, and for anyone who is familiar with the Basim of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the stark contrast between their personalities is almost like whiplash. Of course, that's explored in Basim's personal lore, but it's still a sight to see someone who was so conflicted and so in pain put on this strong, confident, and warm front. That confidence may not be unearned either, as players can prove themselves when they infiltrate the shipyard.
As should be expected from a prologue, this saw us infiltrate the location and try to avoid detection. Assassin's Creed Mirage ensures that the "it's stealth if no one is alive to tell about it" method works, even though it's somewhat challenging, but that pure stealth is rewarded too. Using Eagle Vision to determine what we needed, we were able to sneak around to find it was behind a locked door. We identified the person who had a key, managed to sneak around and perform some takedowns from bushes and the like, and obtained the item. From there, it was completing the task and sneaking back out. Immediately, what stood out was the locked door. Many are familiar with the tricks and puzzles tied to various doors in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which at first had a similar vibe, but that proved not to be the case as we encountered more locks throughout the preview. Instead, it's a way to heighten the stakes and push the need for smart stealth maneuvers.
Alamut saw us get quickly acquainted with some key characters like Nur, Fuladh, Rayhan, and of course, Roshan, and it's here that key concepts like throwing knives and the iconic Assassin's Creed Leap of Faith were introduced. It was awe-inspiring to explore the area around the in-construction Alamut, and there were plenty of interesting conversations, moments, and tutorials here. The end result was a training montage that was one of the most inspiring scenes to ever appear in the franchise. We'll spare more details to avoid spoiler territory, but even in the still aura of Alamut, players are going to feel very immersed in the living world Ubisoft Bordeaux has created.
Indeed, another key point this preview proved is how smart the general enemy AI was. While we were caught a time or two, it was because we genuinely committed a mistake, and it was not the result of an over-observant AI and an easy-to-detect player model. Assassin's Creed Mirage developer Ubisoft Bordeaux has detailed how it improves enemy AI and interactions to ensure stealth is fun, and all of that proved true. In fact, one of the best moments for us was when we used our mistakes and detection by the AI against them. When Basim is spotted, he leaves behind a "ghost" so players know the area that guards are investigating. When we were mistakenly spotted, we managed to use that knowledge to circle around a few buildings and enter the target location through the front door as the guards searched for us around the back. Overall, the moment-to-moment stealth gameplay was incredibly satisfying and feels well-designed to accommodate any play style.
This preview also allowed us to go hands-on with Basim's Assassin Focus ability. Players are able to charge this ability by performing stealth kills, with each charge allowing Basim to add another target. It requires players to be smart with it and rewards their stealth gameplay with a useful ability for quickly taking out small clusters of guards. The result is watching an Animus glitch take place as Basim quickly moves from enemy to enemy. It'll be interesting to see if this has a deeper lore meaning in Assassin's Creed Mirage or if it really is just the equivalent of the Animus glitching, but it's fun nonetheless.
Another stealth mission in the preview saw us sneaking into some warehouse buildings searching for information on a specific target. This meant we had to weave from building to building looking for information, while using our bird Enkidu to survey the field and using Eagle Vision to find the small, important notes and track enemy movement. This portion of the preview really put our stealth skills in Assassin's Creed Mirage to the test, as we were outnumbered, had a wide field to cover, and detection would mean overwhelming combat. It took time, deliberate movements, and general awareness to slowly move through the location, take out the various guards, and find the accurate information, and every moment was tense in the best ways.
At one point, we did get detected and were forced into combat. The use of bumpers and parries adds something special to the combat of Assassin's Creed Mirage, and it was noteworthy that the easiest way to get a kill was to parry an attack and then perform an assassination in the opening. Facing groups of enemies head on, while viable, was a challenge, and this aspect really pushed us to lean on our stealth capabilities. In this combat, we were quickly overwhelmed and forced to reload the mission. This is a good thing though because it felt like combat was viable if we were skilled enough, but at the same time, it helps push the message that this is a stealth-oriented game. There was no continuous assassination in combat like the Ezio trilogy, which made it feel all the more weighty, realistic, and fun.
The black box assassination saw us enter Baghdad's Grand Bazaar and obtain key information on a target who is a member of the Order of the Ancients. Leveraging a few favors and picking up on small details, we ultimately had to discern their identity, obtain the item they were after, obtain entry into their quarters, and ultimately escape the Bazaar. There were a number of ways for us to approach these details, though we can't speak to how deep the other alternatives are, but things like how much money we had and how many tokens we had mattered here. Tokens, in Assassin's Creed Mirage, are a form of pseudo-currency that can be used to cash in favors with officials, scholars, merchants, and more. Not just on a mission, either, as we had a chance to use a token to lower merchant prices outside this mission. Their introduction means it's not as simple as Ezio throwing gold at a couple of mercenaries and adds more layers to how players, as Basim, immerse themselves in and engage with the city of Baghdad.
Baghdad, in and outside the Grand Bazaar, truly felt alive. NPCs were coming and going, conversations were around every corner, and it was fun just to explore and take it all in. Doing so, of course, means taking advantage of Assassin's Creed Mirage's parkour options. It does feel less engaging than the systems seen in Assassin's Creed Unity, as it is largely holding forward and holding down another button, but it is far more useful than its state in the open-world RPGs. Part of this is because everything takes place in the city. One AC Mirage dev has previously said that, as long as someone is on the roofs, they can get anywhere in the city, and that holds true. The city structure ensures players are performing parkour to get everywhere, but mileage is going to vary on whether the city set-up is enough to make it up for parkour fans.
Another system that felt somewhat underwhelming, at least in how we were able to experience it in this work-in-progress build, was the social stealth options in AC Mirage. In our time with the game, we never had a chance to blend in with a crowd or saw any use in leveraging that in our gameplay. The black box mission did give us a chance to eavesdrop on a nearby conversation, which saw us follow them from point to point, but if there was any chance of failing that, it was not immediately obvious.
Dotting Baghdad was Wanted posters we could pull to lower our wanted levels, as well as artifacts, historical sites, mysterious shards, and so forth to find, collect, and interact with. Anyone who has ever played a Ubisoft game knows what to expect when they open the world map, and the same methodology applies to the city of Baghdad. Its smaller scale ensures that players won't be overwhelmed, however, and most of the detours we took were very informative about the city. At one point, players will also visit Assassin Bureaus where the overall design is immaculate. It not only evokes the Assassin Bureaus of AC1, but it makes them feel very modern.
At the end of the day, it's clear that Assassin's Creed Mirage's return to roots approach specifically means the earliest games in the franchise, triumphs, technical elements, and all. There are some things that later action-adventure titles did better before the open-world RPGs that are missing here, but the story glimpses we saw, the excellent core stealth gameplay, the various characters we met, and the detailed construction of Baghdad all eliminated our smallest woes. For any AC fan, Assassin's Creed Mirage is a love letter well worth reading.
Assassin's Creed Mirage releases October 5 for Amazon Luna, PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
