Assassin’s Creed Mirage // First Thoughts

I’ve been looking forward to a comeback for Assassin’s Creed, and I think Mirage might be it.

Assassin’s Creed is one of my favorite game franchises. I’ve been a diehard fan for many, many years. I’ve played all the mainline games, outside of Rogue (I dunno why), and have enjoyed them all. For me though, as time went on, I started to miss the simplicity that the franchise used to have. Like stealth being more important. Gathering information, and no ridiculous RPG elements. Just give me my badass weapons and let me stab people in the neck, one shot one kill style.

Mirage seems to get back to these roots, while still keeping some of the modern stuff. It is much smaller in scope but still feels large enough that exploring areas can be enjoyable. It definitely feels like more of a return to form with certain things. Mostly stealth. I find myself going much slower, scanning the environment as much as possible while infiltrating areas with many guards. I’m used to Valhalla, Odyssey, and Origins where just running in and taking people out is totally a viable option. Doesn’t seem like that right now in the early game.

I like the bounty board so far. It’s definitely an essential thing to do for the game. Getting materials to upgrade weapons and items is super important, and also getting tokens that you can use to bribe people to help you infiltrate areas, or get rid of notoriety is high on the list for me. I’ve done one so far, and it was pretty focused on stealth. There are others on the list like guarding a merchant and stealing items. Seems like they’re relatively quick and the payoffs are worthwhile.

My screenshots are currently all super early in-game stuff since I completely spaced taking pictures from my previous session. I’ll try to get better ones in the future though.

I like Mirage so far. I think in terms of moving forward the franchise technically, doesn’t quite hit the mark. Feels like the parkour system is somehow worse. I have to be even more deliberate and slower with my movements than before, and even then I find myself jumping way off to the left of a building when I was just trying to run straight. I know the franchise has gotten a bad reputation for its movement system, but this absolutely feels like a large step back from previous games.

I’ll continue to chip away at this game since it is currently in the rotation for a few games right now, annoyingly. I was getting pretty good at sticking to one game there for a bit, but too many games came out recently, but I fell behind again. The next update for this game will more than likely just be my final thoughts, so look forward to that in the future!