After 13 years I’m in the mood for Assassin’s Creed again
With Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Ubisoft wants to go back to the roots of the brand. Up until now I thought it was just PR blah blah. But the scenes shown in the last Ubisoft Forward actually give me hope. After 13 years I’m finally in the mood for the new Assassin’s Creed!
A commentary by Robert Kohlick
Assassin’s Creed Mirage: More stealth, less open-world bullshit
A gigantic game world, a never-ending quest log and cheap role-playing and loot systems that nobody needs. I’ll admit it: Even though I’ve played through the last few Assassin’s Creed parts Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla – they didn’t really blow me away. And if I hadn’t played it with my roommate at the time, I probably would have uninstalled it again after a few hours.
In fact, I haven’t looked forward to a new installment in the series since Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. However, after 13 years of euphoria, Ubisoft has now managed that I can hardly wait for the release of the new Assassin’s Creeds.
I was skeptical about it until now. The whole “we want to go back to basics with Mirage” sounded to me after pure PR gibberish. And the published gameplay trailer gave me little hope – because it didn’t live up to its name. There were hardly any real game scenes in the two-minute video.
It’s best to get a picture of the said “gameplay trailer” for yourself:
However, that all changed with the presentation during Ubisoft Forward. For the first time, Ubisoft shows a small mission from Assassin’s Creed Mirage – uncut and without frills. Just gameplay. And that was something to be proud of. Because I immediately remembered the times of the first two Assassin Creed parts.
Instead of running blindly into a crowd of enemies and using superhuman special abilities to reduce them to human pulp in a matter of seconds, Mirage seems to be putting the focus back on stealth. In the role of Basim, I scout out the locations I want to infiltrate, take out guards as silently and unnoticed as possible, and only use my sword when the going gets tough.
Just five different tools are available to Basim – including a blowpipe to shoot tranquilizer darts, deadly throwing daggers and smoke bombs, which I can use to temporarily blind my opponents. Less is sometimes more. However, the pre-planning of chain assassinations is completely new for Assassin’s Creed. Like in Splinter Cell Conviction, I can pre-tag multiple enemies and then automatically kill them one after the other.
Finally, Ubisoft has a decent gameplay video of Assassin’s Creed Mirage too:
Assassin’s Creed Mirage relies more on parkour again
After the work is done, I take my feet up and try to gain land as quickly as possible. Ubisoft shines again compared to its direct predecessors more focus on the parkour element to have laid. Every corner within the cities invites you to go to the roofs in order to get from A to B as quickly as possible and to interrupt the lines of sight. Gone seems to be the time when I use Eivor to mark my quest destination on the map and then let my horse ride through the landscape on autopilot for minutes while I still get a mate.
In addition, Basim can now interact with some objects in the streets while being pursued, to throw them in the way of his pursuers. When enemies lose sight of me, I simply blend into the crowd.
Reconnaissance, sneaking up, a deadly attack and then fleeing – this is what a classic Assassin’s Creed should feel like to me. And Mirage seems to offer exactly that to me. Some mechanics that I think are unnecessary will probably still find their way back into the game – such as repeatable quests to farm money and materials. But as long as I can safely ignore them without fear that my hidden blade degenerates into a toothpickif I don’t upgrade them regularly, I can live with that.
After 13 years, I’m really looking forward to the next Assassin’s Creed. I won’t pre-order Basim’s new adventure – I’m not crazy – but this one 12th of October I’ll mark it in red on my calendar anyway.
