Assassin's Creed: Mirage returns to its roots with a visit to Baghdad

gamedeveloper.com:

Assassin's Creed: Mirage aims to bring the sprawling historical sci-fi franchise into tighter focus—and that's piqued the interest of many long-time fans. Ever since the original game's debut in 2007, the Assassin's Creed franchise has steadily grown in scope, with each new entry dwarfing the size of the previous game, the series moving away from the social steal-action format and into the genre of an open-world action RPG.

With Assassin's Creed: Mirage, developer Ubisoft Bordeaux brings the franchise back to its roots as a stealth action game set in a tightly designed city with citizens to blend in with, rooftops to run across, and tense moments where you tail and strike at unsuspecting targets. As the series returns to the formula, narrative director Sarah Beaulieu sees the game as a tribute to classic Assassin's Creed and as a homage to the lost eras of the Middle East, where the franchise first struck ground.

At the recent Ubisoft Forward showcase, Beaulieu spoke with Game Developer about forming this revisit to a classic era of Assassin's Creed.

Initially planned as an expansion for the sprawling, Viking-era Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, Ubisoft devs stated that idea didn't last long, as they spun it off into its own game after seeing potential in revisiting a "classic" Assassin's Creed. As an origin story for Valhalla's supporting character and antihero Basim Ibn Ishaq, last seen having made his way into the present day following centuries in hibernation, Mirage uncovers his early life as a vagabond thrust into the Assassin order, setting the stage for the events of Assassin's Creed: Valhalla.

According to the narrative director, the prospect of focusing on a tighter, more focused Assassin's Creed game for its narratives