Alright, this review is going to be a weird one because it's going to be that and by extension an opinion piece on the series of Assassin's Creed, this might come off as jumbled and messy but with the release of this game and how it was my first mainline AC game since Unity while also never touching the RPG games, I am going to both make a review of AC Mirage while also at the same time describing why AC as a franchise in premise, story and gameplay is something that may have sounded appealing on paper, but when put into practice, everything about it is just silly and hard to take seriously when I start thinking about these games for more than anything more than the "junk food" power fantasy they provide. It won't be all negative in this review and I did get some enjoyment out of the game but overall, throughout my entire playthrough of Mirage I was just saying to myself, "do I even find this series unappealing no matter what it does?"
I'll start with the story of AC Mirage and by extension the series as a whole. Mirage's story on it's own isn't particularly good, the first few hours were decent stuff but the more it went on the more unengaged I was. Basim and Nehal started off as characters who were moderately engaging at first with decent character interactions in spite of the not so good character designs and stifly animated cutscenes which is something even I'll admit the franchise in its previous outings did manage do a better job with.
After the opening few hours and when Basim becomes an assassin however, the story just turns into what Middle Earth Shadow of War did and it has a bunch of episodic "standalone" stories with barely any bearing on the overarching plot at large. The game very much does take inspiration from the first Assassin's Creed in terms of narrative and structure and the latter is one of the more enjoyable stories in the series for me since even if it did start off in a questionable way and introduced a mythos I can never get invested in now but more on that later. AC1 had a sense of an overarching mystery and how each target Altair killed slowly revealed more pieces of the puzzle while Altair was questioning himself about his master's teaching and how he shouldn't view things in black and white.
Mirage doesn't really have this, it's Basim going on a bunch of assassin missions with a loosely connected plot binding everything. All the assassination missions and investigations you go doesn't reveal on overarching mystery since most of the important things happen at the start of the story and at around the end with middle portions being fluff. The ending twist is nonsensical and even stories like Call of Duty Black Ops doing a better job with the whole, "the person helping you the whole time was never there twist" since that game had some aura of foreshadowing of leading up to it since your NPCs in Black Ops never noticed Reznov being there.
Then there is the fact that I am not even sure what the series' story is even about anymore or what genre it even is. I don't recall there being supernatural elements in the older games and could've sworn it was sci fi but no there is supernatural elements now.
Since I am talking about AC's story I might as well talk about why the story is so unappealing to me now. I am not one of those people who think a story needs to be "deep" or have immense theme exploration to be good and I do even enjoy some of the stories in the franchise as standalone stories not part of a bigger narrative like AC1, 3 and 4.
At the same time, everything about the whole series' story is just so nonsensical. Why would a cult war throughout history go on for so long all the way to modern day? Why would every famous historical figure and group get involved in this crazy cult war? Why are the Templars so overpowered and start off every game in control of all of the world's governments? Why do the Assassins defeat the Templars in every game just for every defeat to be a mild and inconsequential setback in the grand scheme of things? Why didn't Ezio with the amount of times he defeated the Templars and with how inept they were in his time didn't just singlehandledly end the war? Why do the assassins constantly promote freedom yet they are in nothing more than a cult group who have their own rules and "creed".
Then there is the fact that even stories like Star Wars with the whole cult war between the Jedi and Sith have more going on. In Star Wars even with it's messy canon, the Jedi and Sith do one up each other. In Assassin's Creed? It's always, Assassins are on the losing side promoting freedom then someone(the player character) becomes apart of the order and then they slowly thin out the Templar ranks just for the defeat of the main villain in that timeline to not mean anything in the long run.
The modern day story seems to be in limbo with no ending in sight ever since AC3 and it makes me wonder if Ubisoft has any clue on what story they want to tell here. It seems to be a period piece story with sci fi elements but Mirage introduces the supernatural while also being a prequel. I am just left confused on what the series was ever trying to do if it ever had an idea on what it was.
Now, the gameplay, and this is going to be the part where I do in fact praise the game. AC Mirage from a stealth mechanics point of view is the most competent AC game ever made. You have got the bare minimum when it comes to stealth mechanics, something previous games in the series lacked. There is crouching, last known position, whistle guards over to you, being able to carry bodies while crouched, and unlike Unity, a detection system that is forgiving making stealth gameplay while achieving the bare minimum does a decent enough job at capturing the power fantasy of being a predator. The lack of a dedicated cover button is questionable but 90% of the time the corner cover kills work as intended which is why I didn't mind the lack of one.
Double assassinations were quite finicky and would work and at other times they don't, the game in general has an unpolished nature to it, the double assassinations is one of them but also the parkour system while feeling "okay" just never feels as precise as I want it to. This is an issue the series always had where I want to do one thing and the parkour system had no idea the direct inputs I want to make. If you want to move diagonally, the system will just have no idea which area I want to jump in. There there is the fact that I want to move down super quickly and the game will just be confused on which direction down I want to go. AC's climbing always put looking cool and cinematic over being precise and feeling like I have direct control over my character.
Now to give the game more praise while at the same time criticism is that I am glad the investigation system AC1 and Unity are back and I always did like the idea on paper since unlike other open world games like say Grand Theft Auto, the smaller missions and the more intel you learn about the main assassinations could benefit you in the long run, the smaller missions do help you in the assassinations, this taking place in an open world even makes it stand out from other games like the Hitman series.
The issue I have with Mirage is that while I like that the system is back making Mirage feel like the third offical AC game to me where AC1 felt like the first and Unity felt like the 2nd. So many of the missions feel similar to each other, so many of the missions revolve around searching for something while evading guards, the lack of your performance in one assassination could potentially change how the rest of the investisgations play out still isn't here.
This is also partnered with the dumb guard AI, the lack of new enemies being introduced after the first 2 hours or any kind of situational depth where the rules of the game changes or juggling multiple factors makes the game super monotonous to play even it's bare minimum stealth mechanics. The most the game does is throw a "Marksman" enemy that doesn't let you use your eagle to tag enemies and you have to take them out in order to use it but there is always one of them, they are never used in a new light and if you choose to get the stealth recon skill later in the game, the eagle becomes trivial.
Speaking of trivial the notriety system is that. It's back to the Ezio days of easily finding 4 posters and people will stop noticing you, I wonder why this is even the game if getting it down to 0 is that easy to pull off.
I do like that combat in Mirage doesn't feel as easy as it did in past ACs making me want to use the bare minimum stealth mechanics and this time it doesn't involve the game instantly failing me upon being seen in order to reinforce them which is good.
However, due to the above mentioned issues, on top of AC being games were enemies use swords and slow firing guns unlike say Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Batman Arkham, and Hitman as well the Basim being able to climb surfaces with ease and the dumb AI. This means that many of the stealth encounters in Mirage is a game of, "be unseen until you get alerted, break line of sight and and evade enemies until they stop looking for you then go back to stealth". What do you get if you got a stealth game where you are the Flash and all the guards are Solomon Grundy and that is what AC Mirage is.
So much of the stealth gameplay is basically this, which gives the game a rather one note feel in terms of gameplay. While this might be the most mechancially sound AC game in terms of stealth mechanics, the overall structure and design while "functional" still isn't remarkable much like the rest of the series.
This is also by extension why the series slowly lost it's appeal for me. The whole promise, of a "social stealth game" that Ubisoft promised back in 2007 may have sounded interesting on paper but in practice the whole thing is a mess. It's why so many AC sequels avoid being stealth games or lean into this premise since so much of it flawed by design.
How does a stealth game that is focused on hiding in crowds even make me want to do that when I can climb anything with ease with one button does everything parkour? How is a player character who can climb up anything and is super fast and nimble ever have geniune depth with guards that don't even have access to traditional firearms even in games like Metal Gear Solid and Batman Arkham, getting away from guards requires more effort by comparison since everyone can quickly damage Snake and Batman due to them having guns and they both can't climb everything. Splinter Cell Blacklist's parkour was far more balaced since Sam Fisher can't climb everything in the level meaning escape from guards was harder to do. It's why the series after AC1 had easy combat, linear missions and reliance on setpieces. Making a pure stealth game out of this was already going to be quite the climb and Ubisoft knew it.
This is why so much of AC never dealt with this premise because so much of it starts to make less sense the more I think about it, much like AC itself.
Overall, while I think Mirage is the best game in the series due to it being the first time where an AC game with the bare minimum in terms of stealth mechanics and a forgiving detection system got made. While also having the return of AC1 and Unity's investigation system. The game with it's lack of throwing much of anything new at you after the opening hours with the same guards, same missions and abusing the same tactics for so much of the game is a rather a montonous experience. As well not having the most polish in the world. I am surprised I got some enjoyment from the game at all for being an AC game but playing it reminds me why the series will ultimately never appeal to me.
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