Assassin’s Creed Mirage: 5 major things you need to know

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

The first gameplay trailer for Assassin's Creed Mirage has finally emerged from the shadows and it shows that Ubisoft's upcoming historical murder sim is taking the series back to its roots. The trailer may only be just shy of 2 minutes long, but there are plenty of details packed in there. 

Assassin’s Creed Mirage: 5 major things you need to know

Assassin’s Creed Mirage: 5 major things you need to know

Here are the 5 major things you need to know. In Mirage, you play Basim, a character who played a pivotal role in the story of Assassin's Creed Valhalla. These events play out two decades before he meets Eivor, though, so Mirage is something of a prequel. 

original Assassins

You'll be working with the original Assassins, the Hidden Ones, under the mentorship of Roshan, voiced by Emmy award-winning actor Shorare Agdashloo. While much of the narrative framing draws on the modern RPG era of Assassin's Creed, it looks like the gameplay is distinctly old-school AC. 

Assassin’s Creed Mirage City 

Mirage is set in 9th-century Baghdad, and we can see that it provides an urban city map with a design philosophy drawn directly from the original games. Streets, roofs, and towers create a labyrinth of parkour routes, and there's not a single open field in sight. 

RPG combat 

This is properly classic Assassin's Creed. Basim has even undergone the original Assassin's ritual of cutting off his finger to make way for his hidden blade. After 6 years of RPG combat design, it's great to see Mirage put a huge emphasis on stealth. 

Assassin’s Creed Mirage Enemy

We can see Basim employ several techniques that we've not seen in the series for several years. In this sequence, we see him silently tailing an enemy, and then pickpocketing a key from them, which is used to unlock a door. 

Assassin’s Creed Mirage Missions

We then see Basim sitting and waiting on a bench, or perhaps he's eavesdropping. Long-time series fans will remember that tailing, thieving, and eavesdropping formed the core of Assassin's Creed 1's preparation missions, so it's great to see them returning. 

Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Let's just hope that we don't have to do them on an ever-repeating loop this time. It's not just Assassin's Creed 1 that Mirage tips its hat to in this trailer though. Here Basim's accomplice says, Basim ignores that advice, choosing to stick blades into the guard's necks instead. 

But this whole scenario tells us that we'll have a choice in how we approach our missions, something that was pioneered by Assassin's Creed Unity. Unity's main assassination missions had an almost Hitman-like approach. Each one could be completed in a few different ways, using a number of other opportunities. 

An early mission, for example, allowed you to bypass a tricky infiltration by stealing the keys to Notre Dame, and when inside the cathedral, you could kill your target by waiting for him in a confessional booth. 

This approach was totally abandoned after Assassin's Creed Syndicate, but it seems like Mirage will return to those ideas and hopefully build upon them. 

With Mirage fully embracing Assassin's Creed's stealth roots, it's good to see all the classic kill moves are back in action. Aerial assassinations and ledge kills are present and correct, and Basim can be seen using a throwing knife for ranged kills. 

It looks like the bow and arrow is being left in the RPG games. But there's more than just the classics. Here we see :

• the Anu Assassin's Focus ability in action.
• allows you to quickly mark and kill several targets in a row. 

It's basically AC's version of Splinter Cell's brilliant mark-and-execute system and is hopefully just as thrilling to use. 

While Mirage is definitely looking like a stealth game, it wouldn't be Assassin's Creed without some full-blooded combat. We don't see a huge amount of swordplay in this trailer, but what little we do see is made up of several very cool animations, including a very slick move where Basim rolls over an enemy's back and this lovely sword spin. 

Returning to Assassin's Creed's roots isn't all about stealth and swordplay though. Perhaps the most iconic thing from AC's early years is the image of a hooded killer free-running across an ancient city, guards in tow. 

Appropriately for this throwback game, Mirage promises to serve up plenty of parkour. You can spot plenty of classic moves making their return, including the beam hop, corner swing and rope lift, as well as the signature eagle dive. 

But it looks like we're getting new additions to the environmental toolkit, such as this pole that Basim can ride across gaps much wider than he could jump. 

Those are the big things we spotted in the new Assassin's Creed Mirage gameplay trailer. Did you spot any other cool nods to the series' past? Let us know in the comments. For more Assassin's Creed, check out the Mirage cinematic trailer. And for everything else, stick with IGN.