I’m Worried About “Assassin’s Creed Mirage”

At last September’s Ubisoft Forward, the company showcased the future of their Assassin’s Creed series, revealing not one but four titles coming to the franchise.  The most notable of these, sub-titled Mirage, was touted to be a return to “classic” Assassin’s Creed. The team at Ubisoft Bordeaux mentioned how the focus during development was to tackle the three pillars that made this franchise iconic: parkour, assassinations, and stealth. After years of getting Assassin’s Creed games with colossal maps, an intimidating amount of busywork with bloated side activities, and a seemingly less focused gameplay and narrative surrounding the idea of being a proper assassin, it was nice to see Ubisoft going back to the franchise’ roots—including setting Mirage in an Arab city, this time Baghdad. Nine months later, and eager fans of this longtime series would be treated to a proper showcase of the game at another Ubisoft Forward that took place just a few weeks ago as of writing. This time, however, it seems sentiments surrounding Mirage have slightly altered since its original reveal.

The gameplay walkthrough opened with the protagonist, Basim, dawning a familiar white cloak reminiscent of that worn by the series’ original protagonist, Altair, perched atop a beam overseeing the city’s central square. We then saw him hop, skip, and scurry in familiar Assassin’s Creed fashion across a series of awnings and beams until finally resting atop a rope above his target. After eliminating his target with the classic hidden blade, the player-controlled Basim then made his way to the rooftops, hopping across more beams, pulleys, and balconies, before eventually entering a door, which triggered a cutscene. Everything about these first couple minutes looked…familiar. Maybe even egregiously so. From the animations of Basim’s movements, to enemy reactions, to the environment that, though supposedly new, looked like a place I’d seen before—albeit with a new coat of paint.

But even that paint looked, if I may be so blunt, a little stale. The visuals weren’t bad by any means, but they weren’t striking. At first I thought I was being unfair, so I went back and watched the gameplay trailer of Assassin’s Creed Origins from 2017. When comparing the two, I was a little shocked to see how well Origins fared when put next to its modern-day brethren. Mirage was still superior on most technical fronts from lighting to texture quality, though the margins were very slim, especially when it came to the facial animations.

When watching the cutscene after the short vertical slice of the game’s parkour, I was immediately underwhelmed. Firstly, and this is a bit of a tangent but deserves noting, when Basim greets the character named, Fuladh, he does so with the phrase, “Alhamdulilah.” Fuladh and another character, Abu Jafar Muhammad, return his greeting with the same phrase. For those unaware, this Islamic phrase translates to, “praise be to God,” and isn’t the proper way of greeting someone as that would be, “Assalamu Alaikum.” Islam became the predominant religion in the Middle-East around the seventh century, so using Islamic language is appropriate given Mirage being set in 8th century Baghdad, but misplacing such a simple term is a fairly big oversight.

Now, to be fair to the devs, I do think context matters here. In the scene, Basim is returning with a feather, signalling his success with the mission, so the others – all of whom we can assume Basim met earlier that day – are simply congratulating him, for which “Alhamdulilah” would be appropriate—though Basim returning the phrase back to them makes little sense. What made this whole scene worse for me was that the line delivery of all the actors left much to be desired, as did the facial animations, which looked like something right out of the early days of last generation’s consoles. This isn’t new for the series, of course, as Assassin’s Creed was never known to have the greatest voice acting, dialogue, or facial animations, especially when it came to the supporting cast. Exceptions do exist, as both Abubaker Salim from Origins and Melissanthi Mahut from Odyssey are deservedly fan favorites. Mirage isn’t deprived of talent, either, as the character Roshan is being voiced by the supremely talented Shohreh Aghdashloo. Still, something about this entire scene felt incredibly lukewarm and I hope it isn’t indicative of the narrative at large, though something tells me I shouldn’t hold my breath—especially after watching the story trailer that recently released, which has only furthered my concerns for Mirage.

After the cutscene, and after the player character takes on another mission, we would see Basim return back to the rooftops to scout out his next target using his trusty heron. We would watch as he leap-of-faithed into a couple of conveniently placed piles of flowers and hay, camouflaged with a group of unconcerned women, and snuck his way past groups of guards—using all the well-known tactics from blow darts and throwing knives, to distracting explosives. There was one mechanic that did look quite interesting, however. While balancing on top of a rope, the player went into what looked like a time-sensitive-freeze in which they highlighted a group of three guards. Once set, we saw them teleport from target to target, eliminating each of them in succession with a ghost-like flair. It was a fun thing to see, and makes for interesting and flashy moments to break up some of the classic stealth monotony. With another target eliminated, Basim then has to make his escape, which the player does so with classic Assassin’s Creed flashiness.

I took a couple days to ruminate on this presentation, going back to watch it for a second, third, and fourth time; doing the same for the other trailers as well. It had been a while since I’d invested this much time dissecting trailers of an upcoming Assassin’s Creed game, as my senses have dulled for the franchise over the years, with Origins being the only title since AC2 that truly sparked anything of note in me. The reason, I guess, is because I want Mirage to be good. Great, even. Though something about everything I’ve seen thus far has done nothing but raise concern. Again, nothing that was presented looked bad by any means, but it all simply came across as milquetoast. I’ve ridden this ride before, we all have. Though I understand that this might be exactly what fans have been eagerly wanting for the past half or so decade, I question whether abiding so strictly by the structures of its original titles without having an identity of its own is the way to go for Mirage.

At the very least, I was hoping that the story trailer would curb my concerns, but if anything it only furthered them. Obviously a trailer is just that, a trailer, but it depicted yet another seemingly simple story of The Hidden Ones versus the The Order, with a new member in Basim joining the fight. Poor facial animations aside, it was edited and presented well enough, but it did little in terms of establishing Basim as a character. I would’ve liked to see more moments between characters and a sense of who Basim is, as well as getting a better sense of Baghdad during this time to better understand the world. You may be thinking this is asking too much from a simple trailer, to which I would rebut and guide you to the original story trailer of Assassin’s Creed Origins. In a little under two minutes the trailer establishes the world, who Bayek is and what his role is in the wider world, while also leaving a sense of intrigue in regards to The Order.  All the while giving us snippets of character moments and plot events that drives Bayek’s emotional fight.

I understand that Ubisoft have split up their teams, each of whom are assigned their own Assassin’s Creed game, which may have led to some of the technical shortcomings we’ve seen in these trailers. Still, I’d be happy to let go of graphical fidelity and stride through the well-beaten paths of classic Assassin’s Creed gameplay if it meant Ubisoft Bordeaux provided me with a compelling narrative. Mirage had me excited for the series for the first time in years when it was initially announced.  Unfortunately, that excitement has been tempered a great deal with this past Ubisoft Forward, though I am still cautiously eager to see how Basim’s story unfolds.