Say the words “Assassin’s Creed” to any fan and chances are this is what will spring to mind: historic locations, epic action sequences, and a rather dangerous attitude towards sharp pointy things.
Yes, the franchise juggernaut is back for another go, fresh(ish) from its last world-conquering outing, 2020’s Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. In that one, you played a Viking on a mission to pillage their way through Europe. In this one, you play a street thief on a mission to pillage his way through the ancient city of Baghdad.
Same difference, smaller scale? Kind of. Our protagonist is Basim Ibn Ishaq (one of Valhalla’s antagonists, for reasons I won’t go into here) who we meet as a weedy punk with a bit of an attitude. He wants nothing more than to join the Hidden Ones — the Assassins of the title credits — and, when a job goes bad, he gets his wish. Soon enough, Basim is powered up, missing a finger, and sent off to Baghdad with the aim of purging it of the malicious influence of the Order (aka the baddies).
So far, so Assassin-y. But Mirage feels like Ubisoft has pressed the soft-reset button. This is a leaner and more muscular beast than its rather bloated franchise predecessors: whereas Valhalla and Odyssey clock in playtimes of 100+ hours, this is a slimmer 20 in length, trimming down the side quests and XP grinding in favour of engaging storytelling and a smaller world. Getting back, in other words, to the glory days of the early Assassin’s Creed games.
Not that it’s any less engaging for it. Stepping into the sun-drenched streets of ninth century Baghdad (streets so accurately rendered that they reportedly brought historian Dr Ali A Olomi, with whom Ubisoft worked to create it, to tears) is a feast for the senses, a warren that begs you to dive in and soak up every last drop. Here, mosques tower above alleyways, guards lurk in front of notorious prisons and droplets of real-life lore about Baghdad’s past and the Abbasid Caliphate (catnip for me, a history nut) are sprinkled around, waiting to be found.
The game also makes a decent fist of combining the best features of the older games with enough newness to keep things fresh. So yes, the hiding spots return — the benches where Basim can lurk, out of sight of guards, the curtain-covered boxes to which he can lure enemies, the epic, sweeping Synchronisation points — as well as the ability to pickpocket and scope out locations with Basim’s eagle, Enkidu.
The biggest new addition has to be the token system, which caused me no end of confusion when I started playing. These fall under three categories — Merchant, Scholar, or Power — and can be pickpocketed from passers-by, looted from strongholds, or won from completing quests. A Merchant token could let you bribe traders to access a castle; a Power token could convince a group of mercenaries to act as a distraction; a Scholar token, spent wisely, could bribe somebody or gain you access to a treasure map.
Once you’ve got your head around all the different tokens, this makes for a surprisingly versatile game, enjoyably so. Whereas later entries to the canon favoured the hack ’n’ slash approach, Mirage rewards stealth, and gives you multiple ways to infiltrate restricted areas and off your targets. At the same time, if everything goes down the pan, Basim is just as capable of taking out his enemies in bloody hand-to-hand combat; it just makes things a lot more difficult.
So yes, this is very much a return to the franchise’s roots — and a damn good one, at that. Is there anything better than flinging yourself with deadly abandon through the streets of some ancient city, knife in hand, willing to inflict gruesome death upon any thug foolish enough to cross your path? Assassin’s Creed has the formula down to perfection at this point and, even if it doesn’t break too much new ground, that’s fine: the grass is just as green on this side of the fence, thanks very much.
