Assassin’s Creed Mirage Review // 10-Hour Playtime Disappointment

I hate saying this, but I think I’m done trying to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage. I’ve had the game since launch, total play time of 10 hours so far, and I just can’t get into it. Normally, even if the story is kind of meh, I still find the gameplay and the world really interesting and fun to explore. Mirage just doesn’t really have it for me though, for some reason.

I was excited that the game was returning to its stealthy roots, and more planning and the like, but it’s just not fun. The tokens for merchants, musicians, and whatever other factions there are, just feels like padding extra work. I get it, help these guys out, they’ll owe you one. It’s just a lot of busy work that’s not enjoyable.

Even the setting feels way too similar to many past games. This is something I feel like Syndicate, Unity, and even ACIII had above a lot of other entries in the franchise. Their settings felt new, and running around and exploring was genuinely fun. Mirage doesn’t have that. There is no draw. Everything looks the same, so the normal run around and getting all the viewpoints isn’t fun at all.

Even the story is super bland right now. I honestly don’t know if I could tell you anything of importance going on so far. It has been so forgettable. The characters as well. Basim is pretty boring, and he wasn’t all that interesting in Valhalla either.

It almost feels like they went way too far back with Mirage. The setting has been done before, there are fewer interesting characters and ways to play, and they eliminated the bloat of useless things on the map, to do what feels like super useless things in side missions. I’m bummed, truly. Assassin’s Creed has been my go-to favorite franchise for years. Lately, though, I think I’m getting exhausted from it. The open-world aspect of games overall has been weighing me down over the years, and I think Mirage isn’t worth my time. I’d like to say I will go back to it in the future, but I know I won’t

Last thing to complain about before I uninstall Mirage from my console. Why are we so afraid of going back to modern-day stuff? Why can’t we lean more heavily into it? The modern-day stuff was so important at the start of the franchise. After Desmond, it just feels like an afterthought. I would love for Ubisoft to go 50/50 on the past and present stuff. Don’t give us little tidbits between chapters. Give me full sections. Those are where I would love to see the stealth make a huge comeback. Give me missions with modern-day Assassins. I want to see how this war with the Templars is going, please!