There's a muscle memory built into Assassin's Creed now, and given Mirage is effectively one big nostalgia bath, I wasn't expecting anything less. In this sense, Basim is as much an empty vessel as previous Creed heroes and heroines - an umpteenth avatar for us to slip on like the same old comfortable pair of shoes we've been wearing for the last 15 years. Even when he's fully tooled up with a fully grown out man beard, Basim is still just as nimble at the old parkouring and auto-climbing as he was before, and he was still as much of dab hand at whistling to guards from a hedge and luring them to an unseen oblivion. In truth, the younger Basim I played in the game's early tutorial mission, where he's tasked with stealing a ledger from local Baghdad port office, didn't feel substantially different to the slightly older Basim I was handed in the second part of my preview, which covered both the before and after moments of his official induction into the proto-Assassin Brotherhood (which at this point in AC lore is known as The Hidden Ones). Rather, Mirage charts his journey from boy-thief-to-man-assassin in his pre-Eivor days in 9th century Baghdad - a sequence that's captured in a truly brilliant Lion King-style training montage where instead of Timon and Pumbaa teaching Basim(ba) the ropes, he's got his baby eagle squawking in his ear and the deep tones of Shohreh Aghdashloo (as head assassin Roshan) repeatedly whooping him into shape. You don't need to have played Valhalla to play Mirage (though it does lead in nicely if you have). In case you've forgotten, Mirage is all about Basim, everyone's favourite scamp of a not-villain from Assassin's Creed Valhalla. Manage cookie settings Katharine recently played four hours of Assassin's Creed Mirage and, yep, it's certainly a classic Assassin's Creed game. To see this content please enable targeting cookies. If, however, you don't have much fondness for those older games, and prefer the more action-oriented RPG-ing of recent Creeds, Mirage is probably going to feel like a step backward from all the things you know and like - and you may be better off waiting until the next big open world entry set in feudal Japan pitches up instead. Assassin's Creed Mirage is all this to a tee - as Ubisoft have taken great pains to remind us over the last year as they gear up to celebrate the series' 15th anniversary.Īnd after spending three hours playing some of its early mission sequences, I can confirm this is very much a game whose sole purpose is to scratch that nostalgic itch good and proper (before we inevitably hurl ourselves into the still very ambiguous void of whatever the heck Assassin's Creed Infinity is). The ones where stealth actually mattered, and you felt like a proper assassin working from the shadows. I don't know about you, but after spending 100+ hours in both Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Assassin's Creed Valhalla, I'm well up for an AC game that reins its open world in a bit and goes back to the sort-of single city stab-athon the series used to be.
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