Assassin’s Creed Mirage: Review

This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

Reviewed by: I.C. Leviathan

This review of Assassin's Creed Mirage was played on an Xbox Series X and the score is a 4 out of 10.

Assassin's Creed Mirage was supposed to be a DLC of Valhalla, the gameplay and story make this very obvious. Even though combat is supposed to go back to basics and be reminiscent of the original games, it falls on its face with the disconnection of moves caused by a large delay from the controls sometimes. 

One good thing about this game is that the end credit's screen looks interesting, like a watercolor 'painting' of Baghdad with the credits scrolling over it. The music that accompanies this interesting moment is amazing to listen to as well.

Gameplay –

The world is big, but not as big as Valhalla's open world, and outside the cities is a very bland wasteland of desert in the north of the map and fields in the south. There are barely any animals to see outside of the city and the synchronization points are few and far between outside of the cities. In the cities, there are synchronization points also known as fast travel points, but they leave much to be desired sometimes when traveling between them.

The store for the Assassin's Creed games is in your face to buy something in this game, always showing up on the pause screen and the start screen. Also, the best weapons in this game are only available through the store, so technically it's a pay-to-win game.

The game itself is quite glitchy whether it be climbing or battle. The climbing in this game is a reminiscence of the original games that brought Assassin's Creed to life, but with more glitches to say the least. It's very annoying to climb up a tower only to jump backward and fall to your death. The fighting is the same regarding being glitchy. When using focus sometimes it would only incapacitate the soldiers instead of killing them and the only way to kill them is to use throwing knives or bombs, attacking with your weapon wouldn't work.

The other thing about the combat in this game is that it tries to be old school with the new school fighting system. Instead of having a strong attack attached to the right trigger and a weak attack attached to the right bumper, they've combined both attacks to the right bumper with the difference being holding the right bumper to activate a strong attack. The problem with this is that holding the right bumper wouldn't register as using the strong attack half the time. Combine that with split-second parrying which is a must-understand and it can be a nightmare in combat sometimes.

The parrying system in this game is terrible compared to the new games in the franchise. While yes, the other games have had their button input lag issues, that is nothing compared to this game. The input lag in this game is sometimes slow, resulting in you getting hit half the time rather than parrying or defending yourself.

Story –

The story is ok for the most part, but quite boring for most of it. There are moments where it feels like something should be done and then underdelivers the point it tries to make. The ending for the game was supposed to link into how you become Basim from Valhalla, but in the end, it goes a very confusing route that makes no sense. The reason why it's confusing is because something 'awakens' inside of you that even your bird doesn't recognize who you are, but it doesn't make any other points to explain why.

In conclusion, Assassin's Creed Mirage just isn't a good stand-alone game. It was supposed to be a DLC of Valhalla, just like Dawn of Ragnarök. You can tell that there is something to be desired after finishing this game and you will be left wondering why this was not just part of Valhalla. While it did have some good moments, the negative criticism of this game looms over it like a dark cloud. If you didn't like this game, Ubisoft has a few other Assassin's Creed games up their sleeves to keep you engaged in their games.

Reviewed by: I.C. Leviathan