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Aug 01, 2023

AC Mirage Can Redeem The Most

Assassin's Creed Mirage could return the series to the heights of its best

Assassin's Creed Mirage could return the series to the heights of its best games, but looking to the other end of the spectrum might help it do so.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is poised to act as a back-to-basics for the franchise, but it also has an opportunity to deliver on the potential of the most hated Assassin's Creed game. Releasing on October 12, the newest title in Ubisoft's historical adventure series returns to an emphasis on stealth missions in one city, a focused approach that, combined with the Middle Eastern setting, immediately brings the original Assassin's Creed to mind. That isn't the only game that Mirage can take lessons from, however, as Assassin's Creed Unity could surprisingly be the key to making Mirage all that it could be.

The year 2014 saw a dark point for the Assassin's Creed franchise, as the release of Unity shattered the faith that fans had in the series. Although it wasn't the first Assassin's Creed title to launch with some bugs, Unity was absolutely rife with them, and screenshots and clips of glitches quickly drowned out any discussion of positive experiences with the game. Even beyond the technical issues, many players were less than thrilled with the game's story compared to its predecessor Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. However, looking back at the game shows that Unity is better than players remember, featuring strong points that the series should consider today.

Related: Assassin's Creed Mirage Has A Protagonist Problem That Even Basim Can't Fix

Among the various failings of Assasin's Creed Unity, one feature that stands out in a positive way is the game's crowds. Pedestrians milling the streets of cities have always been important to Assassin's Creed, bringing a sense of life to the historical settings and providing a way for protagonists to blend in and avoid detection. As Unity was set in the bustling city of Paris at a pivotal point in history, it took advantage of the then-new PS4 and Xbox One hardware to render much larger crowds than the prior games had ever handled.

Assassin's Creed Mirage reintroduces crowd-blending mechanics, so it would benefit significantly from employing these huge swarms again to make the setting of Baghdad feel alive while opening up a number of gameplay options. Certain scenes in games like Origins and Odyssey suffered from having an unconvincing number of NPCs on screen, an aspect of immersion that Mirage should fix. The Hitman series provides a strong example of the potential of crowd-focused stealth, which can add a lot of variety to escaping detection beyond what Assassin's Creed games generally implement.

After Assassin's Creed 3 and Black Flag diverted from dense cities with a strong focus on parkour, Unity returned to an urban center with significant verticality. The game featured a revised freerunning system to make use of this, leaning into stringing together movements to increase the fluidity of leaping along the sides of buildings. The main axiom of Unity parkour centers around running up versus down, with different buttons aside for each priority. Although this posed an awkward learning curve for some players more used to traditional Assassin's Creed controls, thosewho were able to master Unity's system could perform tricks that looked cooler than anything that had come before.

Assassin's Creed Unity's parkour has left behind a mixed legacy, with some players remembering it as a franchise peak and others hating the frustration of Arno jumping up on unwanted objects or failing to leap through a window. Its animations could also occasionally feel sluggish, trading snappy responsiveness for greater realism. Syndicate followed up on Unity's system, but dealt with player frustrations by simplifying some aspects and limiting dangerous jumps. Although this was easier for players to accustom themselves to and avoided a lot of Unity's potential for frustration, it failed to meaningfully progress on interesting ideas for mobility.

Even taking into account the naysayers, parkour is certainly more fondly remembered than most aspects of Assassin's Creed Unity, giving the series enough grounds to take another serious stab at it. By bringing back this classic parkour as the base for movement in Assassin's Creed Mirage, Ubisoft can return to a balance of freedom and fluidity while taking care to eliminate potential sticking points. Allowing the protagonist Basim to navigate Baghdad in a way that recalls Arno's impressive footwork should make the game stand out from other recent entries, and the focused development on a less expansive game than other recent entries should have room to nail the system.

Related: Assassin's Creed Mirage Parkour Is Inspired By AC Unity

With a recent increase in accessibility settings in games, options that allow players to tweak the parkour system could be a key to making it fully click in Assassin's Creed Mirage. Although animations and principles of movement need to be consistent across any settings, toggles allow players to choose whether certain movements require inputs, or HUD options for dynamic prompts would let players approach the system at their own pace and adjust it to their needs. Taking the game's general return to Assassin's Creed's roots into account, a renewed focus on platforming could also task Basim with missions that clarify the best uses of a complex approach to parkour.

The Assassin's Creed series has learned the wrong lessons from Unity, focusing on building a new legacy with recent titles that have taken the series in a different direction. Although this has proven generally effective in moving beyond the controversy, Assassin's Creed Mirage taking up the mantle of classical Assassin's Creed gameplay once more makes this the perfect time to address Unity head-on. Implementing its strengths in a title that could avoid its pitfalls would make players more appreciative of how it set up the building blocks for another good Assassin's Creed game instead of leaving it as a one-time mistake.

Right now, players can expect Assassin's Creed Mirage to build on the legacy of games like the original Assassin's Creed and the Ezio trilogy while following up on modern game design explored in the open-world titles. With the developers also mentioning Unity as a source of inspiration for parkour, the game holds the potential to redeem this less-loved experience. Until then, gamers could always give Unity another shot, as its focus on parkour may be more appealing than ever after years away. Unity may be the least fondly remembered game in the series, but Assassin's Creed Mirage could stand to learn a lesson or two from this particular black sheep.