3.5/5 ★ – AllieN7's review of Assassin's Creed: Mirage.

Very promising foundation here, with a better budget and a full on standalone title production cycle, I really think they can hit it out of the park and make a true old school Assassins Creed game that can rival that of Assassin Creed II. At its core, it’s a really weird game. A desperate attempt to return to the design of the franchise’s roots while being build off of an expansion to a game that was arguably the furthest away from said roots. There’s definitely some animation work, movement, and aspects where you can really sense the “RPG” game’s DNA. Basim’s movement animations look really similar to that of Eivor from Valhalla, which is funny when you realize the two characters couldn’t be any more different from each other, the menus and just overall style and look really remind you of the past 3 games. The game definitely gets more engaging the further it goes on, as you gain access to more and more tools and resources to make the gameplay much more enjoyable and varied. As expected there’s much more of a stealth enthesis here, sure, you can definitely go into places swords first, but there’s a lot more punishment for errors, as you don’t have much health and more than a few guards at once can really spell trouble. Parkour is really one of the biggest disappointments for me here, it carries the same style as Odyssey/Valhalla with the more restrictive move style, but where those games had more of a focus on massive mountains and small buildings, and levels that weren’t really design with a complex parkour system in mind, while Mirage takes the series back to a massive city that takes up most of the map. Simplified parkour just feels really underwhelming here, just removed any of the challenge or mastery that came with the climbing systems of old, but it absolutely feels better than the past 3 installments. It’s just really lacking when compared to games like AC II, mostly because it’s so held back by this current style of movement. Level Design works so well here, but the core systems definitely need some work. Baghdad is incredible, it’s beautiful and varied with various districts that all feel and look different from one another, and once again the level design is pretty great, making traverse in the city a very great time even with my said issues with the movement. I really wish The Wilderness section didn’t feel so empty and lifeless, I understand it’s a dry desert but outside of some usual collectibles and missions, there’s no real point to it I feel. Part of me doesn’t even understand why it’s in the game when the city section is so strong. Another relatively disappointing aspect of the game for me, is within the story and specifically the characters. The prologue is really great, same with the ending missions, but once you get to Baghdad and the game really opens up, the story starts to fall off. I really like the mission designs, especially with the big assassination set pieces, but the non-linear approach to your targets really makes the pacing incredibly inconsistent and the characters never feel all that fleshed out or developed. The RPG games (mostly Valhalla) receive criticism for their overly long length, but I feel they went the entirely opposite direction here by making everything so short and rushed through, so it can fix into an under 20 hour runtime. Also the actual production design is really weak, especially with the cutscenes and animations, everyone feels so robotic and lifeless, I really wish this series would go back to it’s more stylistic direction when it comes to cinematics. The final act and ending do really make up a lot of story stuff for me though. Maybe I’m being a bit too critical of this game, but I do really like it, if it had more of it’s own identity and was a full on release, I think it would be really special, but as it stands, it’s a pretty great time! Kinda exactly what the series needed at this point, just a good, fun, nice little game that doesn’t overstay it’s welcome or overwhelm the player with hours upon hours of grinding for levels or unnecessary filler. At its price tag, I’d say it’s more than worth it, especially for die hard fans like myself.