This is the home stretch for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, since we are less than a month away from the game’s release. A year after its announcement and after having sparked debate around its proposal to return to the sources, and therefore to old-fashioned gameplay, we finally had the right to play the game. For more than 4 hours, we were able to discover the adventures of Bassim, in the company of the developers from Ubisoft Bordeaux. Because yes, it is in France that this new episode of Assassin’s Creed was developed. Besides, casually, it’s already been 3 years since we were treated to a new episode of the franchise, since Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Long gone are the days when Assassin’s Creed was an annual license, and quite honestly, it’s much better that way.
The Assassin’s Creed Mirage case is interesting in more than one way, because you are reminded that the game was originally a DLC for Valhalla. An idea that only lasted a few weeks and only on paper, since the project grew more and more and thus transformed into a game in its own right. The idea of starting with a new character arrived very quickly in the project, as did the desire to propose a return to the sources, both in the gameplay and in the proposition. Indeed, with Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the idea is to return to the basics of the series by abandoning the overly pronounced RPG side of the latest opuses. The adventure will also be smaller, and will require between 15 and 20 hours of play to complete and will transport you to the middle of the city of Baghdad, in the shoes of Basim. And this is also one of the great strengths of this Assassin’s Creed Mirage, namely the city of Baghdad, represented with quite impressive care and fidelity. I let you look at these gamelay images, captured by me, and which allow you to see the beauty and wealth of this city which was considered to be the capital of art, knowledge, innovation, power, science, or even commerce. We also know that the developers have documented themselves in order to offer a faithful reproduction of Baghdad of the time and you can feel it.
BAGHDAD IS BIG
We are in the era of the Abassids who therefore created this capital which is Baghdad, which is both gigantic for the time, with around 1 million inhabitants. At that time, there were only two cities comparable to it in the world, namely Cairo in Egypt and Beijing in China. Equipped with a smaller scope overall, Assassin’s Creed Mirage allows the license to reconnect with its origins by not offering a vast open world but a dense city, full of nooks and crannies, buildings to climb and alleys to explore. full speed. It is precisely these small spaces that give this impression of wealth, but also because the city is overflowing with people. So look at these images, there are NPCs everywhere walking around and their number creates a truly exhilarating crowd feeling. So obviously, NPCs have fairly limited interactions, especially compared to titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, but it’s not uncommon to be stalked by a merchant who wants to sell you his products and thus distract you from your mission. . I don’t know to what extent the game will emphasize this kind of detail in order to promote immersion, but we easily let ourselves be lulled by this quite surprising and above all ultra-lively world. I’ll let you enjoy it in full screen.
As you know, Assassin’s Creed Mirage emphasizes parkour and infiltration, two elements that had disappeared a little from previous Assassin’s Creed. The developers of Assassin’s Creed Mirage have strived to make Parkour as accessible as possible in order to encourage players to exploit each element of the setting. And it’s true that the fact that Bassim can climb everywhere with this legendary agility of the series, it encourages exploration. The Baghdad of Assassin’s Creed Mirage being a trading city, with many shops, but also full of flat roofs, everything pushes the player to look up at the sky. The verticality of the level design contributes enormously to this feeling of urban movement linked to Parkour, which allows Bassim to move from one house to another with ultra-pleasant fluidity.
YOU CAN’T PLEASE EVERYONE
Where it gets tricky and risks dividing players is in the gameplay. By opting to return to the mechanics of yesteryear, the game will come up against this feeling of going backwards, almost into the past. So I know that for some, this is good news and a guarantee of quality, but as it has been 5 years since the Assassin’s Creed saga opened its gameplay, with more contemporary codes, more Dark Souls in certain aspects, difficult to tell ourselves that we will be able to do fewer things. Infiltration is therefore the key word of this Mirage and everything pushes the player to remain discreet in his actions. Not that it’s not possible to play it action and nag if you want to, but the game will also penalize you, by the number of enemies alerted, but also by the power of the latter. Nothing is obviously insurmountable, but we clearly feel that the game was built around discretion and deceit. To remain a shadow soldier, Bassim has several weapons to aid his stealth attacks. His whistle to begin with, which allows him to attract guards in his direction, but he can also use a whole bunch of gadgets if I may say so, often made by Abu Jafar Muhammad (in his Bureau of Assassins) that we can use. go and see regularly throughout the adventure. Bomb that just makes noise (and no damage as you understand), knives or daggers to throw, ideal for eliminating from a distance, smoke bomb to disrupt the vision of enemies and execute them with a single blow, in total, there are 5 items to collect, knowing that each of them can be upgraded. It’s obviously a change from the excessive loot of the last episodes, and some are happy about it, but personally, I find that we lose a little freedom of action. there is also Endiku, the imperial eagle, who can be called to spot targets to shoot down. Be careful though, the animal can be the target of snipers and you sometimes have to clear the area before calling on the eagle.
If it’s quite pleasant to act in the shadows and kill enemies in a single shot, even the strongest ones, we realize that this choice of game design also brings out the biggest flaws of the series, start with the fairly defective AI of the game. We especially realize that the game is very permissive and that the soldiers have a very limited field of vision and completely faulty hearing. It will not be uncommon, for example, to throw a bomb in an area to alert only a soldier or two, the others being out of range of the blast. Catching an enemy from tall grass is almost cheaten, as Bassim is truly safe from everything in the thickets. And at worst, if the alert is ever given, all you have to do is hide in a haystack or leave the area for the guards to lose their lucidity and forget that they were chasing Bassim. It doesn’t work every time, but it’s quite common nonetheless.
We therefore have the feeling that for 15 years, the series has not evolved in terms of infiltration and artificial intelligence, which will not fail to make you jump off your hinges at times. Fortunately, Bassim also knows how to fight, even if he is less efficient and complete than Eivos, Alexios or even Bayek. Perhaps Bassim will have a more developed range of moves, but over the 4 hours of demo, he could only limit himself to parrying the opponent’s moves and dodging attacks. The game also sets up a “parry” system, which consists of countering an opposing attack at the right time, with a timing to be respected and thus destabilizing the enemy and opening their guard. This is obviously the basis, but it is still quite limited. And then, as you can see, the animations in terms of free combat are quite limited too.