Today’s Ubisoft Forward event has revealed a first glimpse at Mirage, next year’s new Assassin’s Creed adventure – although we’re still waiting for a look at gameplay, and there’s still no firmer release date than “2023”.
Still, we now know much more about Mirage than we did through this year’s drip-feed of leaks from around the internet – and from Ubisoft itself. And this week, I sat down with several of the game’s Bordeaux-based development team for a deeper dive into what was shown publicly today. Read on for details of djinn, a popular rumour seemingly being denied, and more details on that Prince of Persia crossover.
Mirage is set in Baghdad and begins in the year 861, when the city enjoyed a golden age where it was a commercial and cultural crossroads. It was home to all manner of faces from all parts of the known world – a perfect cast for an Assassin’s Creed game – and also, of course, future Master Assassin himself, Basim Ibn Ishaq. When the game begins, we meet Basim several decades before his journey to England and arrival in the story of 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Here, on the streets of Baghdad, Basim begins as a petty thief, who catches the eye of the Hidden Ones.
Details on Mirage’s story remain thin on the ground, though we’ll play as Basim as he rises through the ranks of the proto-Assassins, and crosses paths with the Order of the Ancients – the group which would, post-Valhalla, become the Templars.The city of Baghdad will offer a linear story over several distinct city districts – which all sounds like classic Assassin’s Creed – but will also give way for trips to Alamut, a mountain fortress where Basim will train (inspired, I was told, very much by Masayaf from AC1). Here, surrounded by the upper echelons of the Hidden Ones, as well as those who support the group’s free-will-inspired way of life, Basim will eventually be welcomed as one of the group’s own.