Assassin's Creed Mirage

I was too excited about this game, hoping that Ubisoft finally decided to go back to its roots and give us the good old Assassin's Creed. But my excitement waned after the first few hours of play. Although, unlike Odyssey and Valhalla, Mirage brought a much smaller map and a not so boring environment with RPG elements ... but too many bugs, boring story and lackluster missions simply decided to give this rating. It's unbelievable that after 15 years Ubisoft can't recognize that they have gold in their hands and commit to making a game worth paying attention to. If they don't already have the talent and good writers who will make a good story, then they can simply go back to the past and use the old formula and make a good game. The only good thing left in Mirage is that there is more focus on stealth missions and a more closed type of map than on a large open world and rpg style gameplay. The graphics of the world are well done and really look beautiful, but the characters look like they are from the Playstation 3 era. The bugs annoyed me a lot and there are a lot of them on PS5 (I don't know what the situation is on other platforms) and that's why I repeatedly wanted to I stop playing. For example, it often happened to me that I would go to a merchant or a blacksmith to do something and I just couldn't click to interact. Likewise, in some missions I had to interact with NPCs, but for some reason it was not possible, so I had to reset the mission or do something else and return to the mission to continue. The combat is very clunky and the enemies are very stupid. What disappointed me the most was the story, totally without any imagination... boring! I would like one day Ubisoft to team up with Naughty Dog on at least one project and make a good story in AC games... The only thing that makes me happy, in the end, is that AC followed in the old footsteps and that maybe in the future we will play the good old ones Assassin's Creed. Not to forget, thumbs up to Ubisoft for not charging full price, the game cost $50.

This entry in the Assassin's Creed franchise provides a fairly compelling answer to the question of what a modern take on the gameplay style beloved by many from the classic AC titles would look like. Save for some clunkiness in the melee combat mechanics, the hybrid model works quite well; although, I would still like to see the scales tip slightly more classic if they attempt this style of game again (and I hope they do).

The game's biggest weakness is its story, but that seems to be a side-effect of its short length. With more screen time to flesh out the side characters and get to know the allies and villains of the game, they and the plot itself could have all been more compelling. As it stands now, Mirage's narrative is a nice extra chapter in Basim's story to supplement his character arc in AC: Valhalla, but this story on its own does not contain nearly as much substance as the earlier games it is paying homage to with its mechanics.

All told, Mirage is a good game that's worth playing if you're a fan of classic Assassin's Creed. If Ubisoft continues to refine this new take on the formula over future instalments, I would be happy to continue playing them.

Let's address the negativity growing around first off:

Yes the games is short in comparison to Origins, Odyssey or Valhalla however those iterations were more RPG the true assassins creed. In this version a solid return to stealth has been achieved and with out the easy wins.

In Origins you can wipe out masses with flesh decay, in Valhalla you can empty a camo with poisoned sniper arrows. Mirage you have to play as an assassin.

Don't get me wrong, they were great games, great fog games but nothing like true assassins creed.

Now let's look at the Mirage game: It's awesome!

The game has good exploration, lots of fantastic historical facts and insights.

Back to the roof tops which is great. If you mess up the assassination you her to employ run and hide tactics which can be challenging at time with enemies being smarter in this game.

The parkour of brilliant with some new moves and new assassinations.

Gear collection is not as simple as the RPG as you need to solve puzzles to gain access, which in enjoyable.

The gear collection is also not exhaustive like it is in the RPGs where your constantly selling/ buying/ upgrading, in this game there is still some of that but it's more meaningful.

The characters are engaging and storyline is solid.

I really liked this game and will replay it many times.

I don't know why, but Ubisoft haven't evolved on the graphics on the Assassin's Creed series since Origins.

It's as dull as a ps4 game released 10 years ago. Shameful really. Apart from that, the story is almost twilight level bad and predictable with mediocre to laughable voice acting.

The bad out of the way, the assassin approach in this game in direct contrast to the past 3 RPG titles, is a welcome change. It brings a sort of mix of the rpg and the old AC vibes. It feels rewarding to be stealthy. The upgrades and tools also make for a good change of approach on your missions and it's fun for a good handful of hours, if you can refrain from cringing over the voice acting and bad facial expressions.

6/10.

I have played all of the main Assasin's Creed games many times and I LOVE this game!!! I found the story to be quite interesting and the world and atmosphere alone are worth playing this game for! The focus on stealth is exactly what I like about this franchise and the tools make for a very interesting and fair stealth experience which (yes I know) really makes you feel like an assassin. They also made combat more interesting but also more difficult which encourages you to use stealth even more. Basim and his different robes look great and the blackbox missions, fantastic music, the many hiding spots and the more parkour-friendly open world make for a combination of the best features in the franchise.

I finished this game in about 26 hours and I'm not at all bored by it. In fact I kind of want to replay it again right now, unlike Vallhalla which I didn't like nearly as much as Mirage. It is really impressive how they made this game feel really different from Valhalla despite using the same engine, UI and similar gameplay systems. How they made it feel good again is a mystery to me but I love it.

I would highly recommend swapping (on xbox) RT (right trigger) with LS (left stick). This makes the game feel so much better as you have more control over whether you are sprinting or not and it feels like the good part about the older games; it makes you feel heavy. The tool wheel is perfectly usable on the left stick but you could also switch that around if you prefer something else.

In Mirage you'll be eavesdropping and tailing targets in some missions as well which I personally loved about the older games. The assassin fantasy takes center stage and even the larger story about the isu stuff, which I never really cared about until Valhalla kinda, is also really interesting to me here.

The voice acting and camera movement during dialogue and its animations could really use an overhaul though. Social stealth and blending options are here and they're great, but a lot more could be done with them. The parkour and combat also still suffer from the crappy animations from the previous few games but you can't really fault the game for this too much.

To me this game is much more than just a "trip down memory lane" which I'm a little bit sick of hearing by now. I think this is a very competent game which deserves its place in the series. Hopefully this wasn't the last game with this level of quality Assassin's Ceed-ness because this confirmed to me why I love these games.