On the Radar: Assassin's Creed Mirage - A deep dive into the series' return to its roots with Ubisoft Bordeaux
Welcome to On The Radar: the home for in-depth conversations around the world's biggest games on GamesRadar+. We've spent some time with Ubisoft Bordeaux to bring you this celebration of Assassin's Creed Mirage.
For the upcoming Assasin's Creed adventure, we traveled to Ubisoft Bordeaux, the studio that's heading up the new project.
The game follows Basim Ibn Ishaq, a character we were introduced to with Assassin's Creed Valhalla who has quite a complicated narrative. But, this is his origin story, a tale of rags to riches as Basim goes from street thief to master assassin in the ranks of the Hidden Ones.
Fast Facts: Assassin's Creed Mirage
Release date: October 4, 2023
Platform(s): PS5, Xbox Series X, PC, Xbox One, PS4
Developer: Ubisoft Bordeaux
Publisher: Ubisoft
We spent some time walking the streets of Baghdad, tumbling across rooftops, and speaking to the creative minds behind this return to roots experience. The team at Ubisoft Bordeaux is incredibly passionate about taking Assassin's Creed back to its stealth-focused origins for this adventure, particularly when the last few years have seen the series moving to a larger, more player-choice-driven RPG structure with the likes of Assassin's Creed Origins and Assassin's Creed Odyssey alongside Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
Assassin's Creed Mirage is a huge endeavor for Ubisoft Montreal. This is a studio that has spent its time creating amazing DLC like Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Wrath of the Druids and supporting on huge Ubisoft projects, but Assassin's Creed Mirage marks the first time the studio has taken charge as lead developer.
For the next week, we'll be bringing you deep dives into the team's vision - from creating the city itself, our hero Basim and the characters who help define him like his mentor Roshan, and even the now-iconic logo. Yesterday we started with Baghdad, and now we've dropped an exclusive interview with esteemed actor Shohreh Agdashloo and narrative director Sarah Beaulieu on Basim's mentor Roshan. Be sure to keep this page bookmarked and return all throughout the week for more explorations of Assassin's Creed Mirage leading up to the review embargo on October 4.
Creating Baghdad
Assassin's Creed Mirage's recreation of 9th Century Baghdad is so accurate it made a historian cry
We sat down with art director Jean-Luc Sala and other members of the Ubisoft Bordeaux team to talk about making 9th-century Baghdad, the circular city, from scratch.
Introducing Roshan, Basim's mentor and devout Hidden One
As soon as the iconic Shohreh Aghdashloo was announced as the voice of Roshan in Assassin's Creed Mirage, we knew they were onto something special. Now, speaking to Aghdashloo herself on the role, we're even more convinced. Aghdashloo even goes as far as to say that Mirage is doing more to represent the fight for women's rights in the Middle East than other modern media.
The final Assassin's Creed Mirage preview
Assassin’s Creed Mirage parkour feels like coming home, and that’s exactly what I’d hoped for
We spent three hours with Assassin's Creed Mirage ahead of the game's release, starting with some early missions before Basim joins the Hidden Ones, through to taking our first tentative steps under the hood. This was followed by a small jump in time to a narrative-drive black box mission where we were tasked with discovering the identity of someone known as The Treasurer.
Celebrating Arabic in Assassin's Creed Mirage
Assassin's Creed Mirage isn't even out yet but it's already received praise for its Arabic depictions. Whether that's the accurate depiction of the Islamic call to prayer, which is one of the most important parts of worship for Muslims, or the Baghdad city trailer that showing off its Arabic dub. You can watch that above too.
Dive in further to the world of Assassin's Creed Mirage
The Assassin's Creed Mirage map is roughly the same size as Revelations' Constantinople
Assassin's Creed Mirage is returning the series to its roots with a scaled-back, stealth-focused adventure, and the map is more compact to reflect that.
Assassin's Creed Mirage can be beaten in 20-30 hours, making it five times shorter than Valhalla
That should be encouraging to fans of the more traditional entries in Ubisoft’s series. Fan favorites Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag can be beaten in about 20-25 hours.
Assassin's Creed Mirage revives visual effects from the series' earliest days
Animus glitches are back, and fans couldn't be happier. It's a visual flourish when executing the 'Assassin Focus' ability and is meant to represent Basim moving so fast it literally breaks the simulation.
It's not on sale yet, but it will launch in April 2024 and you can pre-order it now for $49.99 or the Deluxe version is $99.99.
This official Assassin's Creed Mirage shirt has haptic feedback to let you feel every in-game injury
This collaboration between Ubisoft and gaming manufacturer OWO lets you feel all the impact Basim experiences. We've all wondered what landing an eagle dive feels like, right?
Pre-order Assassin's Creed Mirage
You can choose from three editions, including the Collector's Case. Pre-ordering any edition of Assassin's Creed Mirage does get you the base game and the Forty Thieves quest line.
Upcoming Assassin's Creed games
See what's next after we take a jaunt to Baghdad with Assassin's Creed Mirage, including next year's big RPG, the Japanese-set Assassin's Creed Red.
