Assassin’s Creed Mirage Preview: A Return To Form

ign.com:

With the past few games in the series it's felt like Assassin’s Creed has lost a little bit of what made it so special back when it launched in the late 2000’s. Don’t get me wrong: Odyssey and Valhalla were extremely solid RPGs that offered a vast and unique setting and a definite bang for your buck in the runtime department, but there’s something about those games that didn’t necessarily feel necessarily “Assassin’s Creed” due to their hefty open-world settings and heavy RPG gameplay mechanics. Thankfully, the next installment in the franchise is Mirage, and based on my playtime with it so far, it manages to capture what made the series so special and brings the social stealth history simulator back to its roots in the best way possible.

Gone are the vast vistas of England, the oceanic traversal of Greece, and pyramid-scaling of Egypt in favor of a dense and populated Baghdad full of life and vibrancy. That’s not to say Mirage ever felt small, but from the few hours I played I regularly found myself exploring and getting lost in the latest Creed’s hyper-detailed and fully realized big city playground. The City of Baghdad is, as it should be in an AC game, its own character this time around. From its dangerous and often crowded city streets, to its dense Bazaar and connected rooftops, it was never a chore getting from point A to B.

Due to Mirage’s revamped notoriety system, it’s not as easy to run through a group of guards undetected this time around. The more trouble you cause, the more enemies MIrage throws at you, such as archers and overpowered heavy guards. Civilians will react to your presence and point you out in a crowd if you're not blending in, and guards notify each other while giving chase and doing