Assassin's Creed Mirage

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.

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 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.