Assassin's Creed Mirage review: Does revisiting the past succeed?

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While these games have their fans – this writer being one of them – and Valhalla was positively received upon release, it has started to receive more backlash from some as time has gone on.

Chief among the complaints is that the series no longer felt like Assassin’s Creed – a valid criticism to a degree – and so in comes Mirage, a game that takes the franchise back to its roots by putting the player in the bustling historic city of Baghdad and bringing back the focus on stealth.

The scale of the game has been considerably lessened (another complaint of Valhalla was how needlessly big the map was), and inspiration was said to be drawn by looking back at the debut of the series back in 2007.

As a fan of the games since the second release, the idea of going backwards instead of forwards didn’t appeal. Is revisiting the past, despite being a core tenet of the franchise, really the right approach?

This was the first game that I didn’t pre-order since I became an AC fan, and it was barely on my radar since it was sandwiched between the likes of Starfield and Spider-Man 2.

By the time this style of Creed game bowed out with Syndicate in 2015, I was ready for a change, and the idea of traipsing across another map doing the same kind of things was not one that garnered much excitement.

But positive buzz around Mirage drew me in, and it turns out that buzz was earned – to an extent.

To get the negatives out of the way, while Basim is a likeable enough protagonist, his story hardly feels like one worth telling.

It doesn’t help that the character – first seen in Valhalla – has strong links to the Norse mythology plots that weighed down the previous game, and made the DLC content such as Dawn of Ragnarok agonisingly dull at times.

Thankfully, there are no trips to Asgard on the horizon here, though. And, character origins aside, Basim acts like those who came before him. There isn’t much to him, really — he wants to join the order of The Hidden Ones, and soon enough he does just that.

It was a smart move to essentially rush through his assassin training, with it all being done and dusted very early on. But he’s charismatic and serviceable, and there is a fun energy to him that helps elevate an otherwise unremarkable story.

At this point, the Assassin’s Creed series could do with some kind of narrative reset, in all honesty, as the overarching plot has now become so convoluted that it does the game more harm than good.

But while the story isn’t anything to write home about, the city of Baghdad is, and here we have another beautifully crafted location that is fun to explore and marvel at.

It is noteworthy this time that the developers had nothing to go on, with an ancient Baghdad that has been lost to time, but they do a brilliant job at making this seem like a real and lived-in place.

Exploring it is a great deal of fun. This really does feel like wandering around Florence again in terms of style, only without the now iconic annoyances of running up buildings you meant to jog past – free running is as close to perfect as we have had from a Creed game here.

But as mentioned, it is the original that this game takes its inspiration from, and that is none more apparent that in the gameplay.

2007’s Assassin’s Creed had a formulaic structure to its missions that made it feel like a slog, and while there are elements of that in Mirage, it generally does a lot better with the execution (as you'd hope for after 15 years of learnings).

While, yes, you have to pick a mission strand from the investigations screen (a bit of a clumsy way of sorting through your active missions, to be honest), and getting to your assassination target involves ticking off a few smaller missions first, there is enough variety to mostly keep it fresh – something that is helped by the relatively short campaign.

Outside of these assassination quests that also delve into Basim’s past, there are contracts to be taken care of – your standard Creed fare – and these are needed if you plan on maxing out the skill tree.

As for combat, it takes a little getting used to, compared to what we have had with the last few outings - but once you find your rhythm, you should have no problem taking out most enemies that you come across.

You have some fun tools at your disposal, from throwing knives to smoke bombs, all of which can be upgraded and tweaked as you play.

But what of the return to stealth that we were promised? Does it deliver? Yes and no. The option to do most things fully stealthily is there, and it is as fun as ever, but there is nothing to stop you from going in hidden blade blazing if you feel combat ready.

While it is nice to have that option, it does remove the time-consuming need to take out a batch of enemies stealthily if you can take them out in a fight in a fraction of the time – but if you crank the game up to its hardest setting, stealth may then become a must.

And for all of you achievement or trophy hunters out there, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is worth the price of admission in that regard. It may not be the quickest 100 per cent out there, but nothing on the list will cause much trouble.

Mirage, then, is far from the best the series has to offer, but it isn’t one to overlook, either.

This feels very much like Assassin’s Creed in every way, and as much of a fan as I personally am of Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla, there is something to be said about the nostalgic warmth I felt when I opened up the map and made my way to the first viewpoint of the game.

Whichever flavour of Assassin’s Creed you prefer, Mirage makes it clear that there is room for both in the mainline series – which could mean that Assassin’s Creed is in a healthier place than ever.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is out now on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Amazon Luna and PC. An iPhone release, surprisingly, is expected next year.

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