Assassin's Creed Mirage

I had high hopes for this game, following Odyssey and Val Halla, but was very disappointed. I honestly wish that I'd not wasted my money.

The storyline was very short, with nothing in terms of character development or adventure.

Once again we were uncovering a hidden/ancient group of cultists, just like the in Odyssey, but outside of that was nothing.

If you're looking to buy this game, I'd say don't waste your time. I wonder if this game was just a short term money maker, while they develop the next real adventure?

Very disloyal to the lifelong players of Assassin's Creed, by teasing with vague elements of the original games.

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.

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.

3 years since Assassins creed Valhalla, AC Mirage goes back to somewhat of its roots with the toned down rpg elements and more approaches of stealth. However it does feel like I'm just playing a re skin of Origins. Baghdad, while beautiful on my console is just boring.

The dialogue is atrocious. I hope they get new writers for the next game because the acting and dialogue is just plain awful. You can tell they're not even trying to act. Character animations seem like they haven't been worked on since origins. Hopefully this is the last of this engine because I don't feel any emotional attachment to characters that are blatant npcs. Unlike Ezio and his family.

There's loads of parkour options but the buildings aren't as tall as previous games and there's no giant monuments like pyramids. Although I do like the smaller map. It feels like I don't need to just fast travel everywhere.

The combat is very clunky, the standard enemies are fine and perfectly balanced however the fast bounty hunters are almost impossible with their incredibly fast attacks and insane damage. Brutes are easy to kill with a few dodges.

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.