Assassin's Creed Mirage Performance Review

ign.com:

After a three-year hiatus, Assassin’s Creed returns with Mirage. From a visuals and technical perspective, the team at Ubisoft has gone for a “less is more” approach. Powered by the latest iteration of the Anvil engine, Mirage looks stunning, often due to the myriad features it sports that are still not commonplace in all games or engines, such as real-time lighting systems that incorporate time of day, global illumination bounce of light, dense cities, vast landscapes, and huge vistas with rich and colourful flora and fauna.

The bustling city of Baghdad and its tight streets look authentic and have a strong art direction. Sandstone buildings and looming palm trees are bathed with dense fog volumes and crepuscular rays obscuring long views. The same physically based rendering materials and packed clutter across each location still impress, mixed with atmospheric scattering, sandstorms, and a day and night cycle. The NPC count and world clutter is also high, at least on the current generation consoles, and mixed with the real-time and pre-rendered cinematics it stands up to previous entries in the series.

Some small updates came in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and remain here, such as per-pixel motion blur, which enhance the action, though are more beneficial in the 30fps modes. However, the basis of the engine is still firmly rooted in its last and largest technical leap, which was Assassin’s Creed Unity. This leaves a stunning, rich, and vibrant world that stands proud on the last-generation consoles, but on the PS5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC the impact is not so flamboyant.

Some negative aspects do arise on the presentation front. I have to mention the aggressive use of chromatic aberration, which sullies the image,