Ubisoft pulled the veils back on its Assassin’s Creed: Mirage title, which is coming out on October 12, 2023.
I’ll fill you in on my preview ahead of the Ubisoft Forward event, but first I’ll note that Ubisoft unveiled its new Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR title coming for the Meta Quest VR headsets. In the VR title, you can hold your controllers like knives and make lunging moves to take out targets.
It shows that Ubisoft still believes in the immersiveness of VR, though it was a bit surprising that the title isn’t yet being announced for the Sony PlayStation VR 2 headset. Ubisoft is also working on Assassin’s Creed Project Jade for release as a mobile game. That title is an Unreal Engine game set in the warring states of the Qin dynasty in the third century.
Mirage
But the big title coming this year on October 12 is Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which is being built by a team led by Ubisoft Bordeaux, which has grown to more than 400 employees. Overall, more than 500 people around the world are working on the title, which will debut on the consoles and the PC and Luna.
The game reflects the same struggle between the Templars and the Assassins that has spanned centuries. Your job is to grow from a street thief to a master assassin.
The game is set in ninth-century Baghdad at the peak of its Golden Age. The narrative-driven action-adventure has a coming-of-age storyline, a majestic open city, and modernized legacy gameplay focusing on parkour, stealth and assassinations.
The new hero is Basim Ibn Is’haq, a thief with a mysterious path who will join the Hidden Ones in Alamut on a quest for answers. Basim’s mentor, Roshan, is voiced by Emmy-winning actress Shohreh Aghdashloo. Coming on the 15th anniversary of the franchise, the game is an homage to the first Assassin’s Creed game. The series has sold more than 200 million copies since the first title in 2007.
Rather than an RPG, Mirage is more like the original.
The preview
The hands-off preview went on for a while. Basim has a sense of purpose as a Hidden One, but he has nightmarish visions that are haunting him. The empire is at a turning point, as unrest is growing against corruption and arbitrary justice. One of the historical figures in the game is Ali bin Mohammed.
The game has a focus on parkour, one of the most iconic elements of Assassin’s Creed, which has taken different forms in previous games, depending upon the setting and the environment.
The demo showed Basim jumping down on targets in broad daylight in the middle of the city. He kills the target, dips a feather in the blood, and escapes to the walls and poles on buildings. He jumps across the buildings and quickly loses his pursuers.
Of course, you can also take out the targets in a stealth way. You can dive into piles of grass and the clueless non-player characters (NPCs) seeking you will be fooled. Ubisoft says they have improved the AI reactions, but the NPCs still seem kind of dumb. They make up for it by having a lot of them around. Basim has throwing knives that come in handy in silencing some of the pursuers.
The story looks pretty compelling but it will be interesting to see if gamers will find enough fresh material in this game to get really excited about it.