Assassin's Creed Mirage

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.

I had expectations for this game. I really did. And here is an honest review form a person that supports Ubisoft that likes the rpg games and every ac game. This game feels so boring that I didn't even bother to finish it. I never write a review for something if I haven't finish it.. But it's the first time in my life that I feel I have really better games to play. And you know something is wrong when you feel you are wasting your time from the first 5 hours. And I see that other reviews match my opinion on the topic. Mediocre. Simple enough. My theory is that Ubisoft put so much effort pleasing the crybabies that didn't like the rpg Assassin's Creed that they forgot they need to make a good game for the people that just want to play a banger that they are going to remember for the rest of their life. I understand this wasn't the big project ubi was preparing. I think Codename red is that. This game is like an anniversary gift to the old schools but it just ain't a good game. They tried so hard to copy the old games and that you can see from the game itself. Kind of Disappointed to be honest. Ubisoft please . Continue making good games. Because you are. Stop trying to do things to please the nostalgia meat riders. I honestly don't like what I am about to say but I don't recommend you to play this.

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.

Assassin's Creed Mirage was a giant leap in the right direction after 3 massive open world RPGs. It took elements of those games and elements of the classic games before Assassin's Creed Origins. Assassin's Creed Mirage was about 20 hours long vs the 60 hours for Assassin's Creed Odyssey and 85 hours on Assassin's Valhalla, both of which were argued to be too long. The story was fairly average until the end when it got way better. The intro felt slightly rushed and the combat don't feel like a classic Assassin's Creed game not an RPG Assassin's Creed game plus the addition of the new teleportation mechanic. Fortunately, stealth is back and it is perfect. The developers really nailed that. So all in all, Assassin's Creed Mirage is a good game and worth your time, just understand this is not a classic Assassin's Creed game.

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.