After Ubisoft released their fourth and final DLC 'The Last Chapter' for Assassin's Creed Valhalla, fans now anticipate the upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage. While there has been a lack of information regarding the game except for its cinematic reveal trailer and some details regarding the title's story and the idea of revisiting its original roots, there is a huge expectation from many fans that Mirage will see drastic changes within multiple regions.
With no release date confirmed yet, fans of the franchise continue to speculate in regard to what this installment will maintain or revisit from previous beloved games, and the potential new innovative features to make the title unique.
5 Combat Overhaul
One of the most prominent complaints about the recent titles in the franchise is the combat and the little changes made after each installment. Ever since Assassin's Creed Origins, Ubisoft has stuck with the same combat system, which often felt quite unrealistic and unpolished most especially in Assassin's Creed Valhalla in the aspect of the animations. While many fans know that this is still tolerable for their gameplay experience, it is often one of the reasons players abandon the games given the combat's tedious nature.
For Assassin's Creed Mirage, developers must ensure a heavy focus on a combat overhaul for the game, to provide a new and fresh experience for players to enjoy. This could still include the vast number of abilities and attacks to unlock within the skill tree as usual, but changing the animations and the manner in which the player and NPCs move will be pivotal to the game's success levels.
4 Shorter Story
A large majority of the recent Assassin's Creed titles have contained very long stories and playtime, often reaching 100 hours depending on the number of side quests that are completed. While this can be great for many players who prefer much longer playtimes with plenty of activities to do across each map, it can get to a point where the title overstays its welcome. Even for those who wish to do the main story quests and those alone, the runtimes are still very long.
Despite the need for a shorter story, it does not mean Mirage's runtime should be reduced to a significantly short amount, but developers would be doing many players a favor by keeping this away from 60 hours or more for the main story alone. This could help benefit the game's replayability, as players may feel more inclined to revisit the story and choose different paths and make other choices depending on how much of an impact they have during certain missions, especially side quests.
3 More Linear Path
With Ubisoft's intentions of revisiting the original roots of the franchise of stealth assassinations, and parkour, made clear, it also appears as though the story will be much more linear. The game's narrative director Sarah Beaulieu confirmed that in-game decisions will have no impact on the main story unlike its predecessors, and this is certainly beneficial in the aspect of fleshing out the story and characters to a greater degree.
Many players will know that the Assassin's Creed titles are often labeled 'checklists', with most of the activity revolving around open-world gameplay which includes completing side quests and finding new loot. This is not necessarily a negative aspect considering the franchise's RPG elements, but Mirage must tone this down to fit a game that contains a linear path.
2 Parkour
A major part of the original Assassin's Creed titles that followed Ezio included parkour which was aligned with stealth assassinations. Recent installments took a huge turn away from this, and instead focused on an expansive open world with a plethora of activities to complete, and more of an RPG focus. Considering how long players have had to play these titles, this is the perfect opportunity for developers at Ubisoft to shift this back to what gave the franchise its current popularity.
Given the fact that there is still much more for fans to see before the game's release, it is left to Ubisoft to reveal how far they have gone in order to reinvent the original titles' gameplay mechanics and combat, and whether this will suffice in the eyes of fans.
1 Narrative Driven
Akin to its first few titles and the modern-day narrative-driven titles such as The Last of Us and God of War, Assassin's Creed Mirage has the opportunity to shift the franchise toward one that fans can begin to identify as compelling dramas and ones that stand out much more. While titles such as Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla do contain a lot of story points and arcs, its other issues aforementioned such as their long runtimes and monotonous open-world exploration spoil it, as players are much more prone to lose interest in characters or story plot points.
Based on Beaulieu's confirmation of a linear story path, this would suggest that a large majority of Mirage will be focused on cutscenes, dialogue, character development, and much more. If Ubisoft is able to execute this well, it could very much put them back into the good books with a variety of fans.
Assassin's Creed Mirage is currently in development.