I started playing the Assassin's games when Origins was released and I've sunk hundreds of hours into the ARPG games, (Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla), since then and loved every minute. I also tried the older games in the series as, according to Assassin's fanboys, the earlier games are the GOAT, but they just aren't. They're clunky, slow paced and the game mechanics are awful, just like they are in Mirage. Which isn't surprising, as this was touted as a return to the roots of the franchise in a pathetic attempt to appease a loud minority who hated the direction the new games took. So, now we have a mediocre game with terrible combat, QuickTime events, skill trees with only a few perks, a short completion time and a tiny map. The only saving grace is that Ubisoft didn't charge a lot for it.
I hope that Shadows is a return to the ARPG style of Origins et al, and that Ubisoft disregard the keening of the minority who are stuck in the past and, when faced with a fantastic game with a large map full of side quests and filler content markers, are unable to realise that they dont have to interact with everything: that they're free to concentrate on the main story and complete the game in 20 or 30 hours instead of whining about the extra content on the Internet, or that they're free to just not buy the newer games in the first place if they don't like the gameplay.
The world has moved on, things change, listening to dewy eyed fanboys in rose tinted glasses barking about the good old days only results in games like Starfield and Mirage two of my worst purchases in recent times.
