Assassin’s Creed Mirage has taken it back to 861CE (Common Era) with a cunning street thief by the name of Basim Ibn Is’Haq on the streets of 9th Century Baghdad, and it’s based nine centuries after the events of Assassin’s Creed Origins, and eleven years before the events of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

These three titles were known as the Hidden Ones Era, and when we are introduced to Altair in Assassin’s Creed that is when it becomes the Assassin’s Era. You don’t need to play Assassin’s Creed Origins or Valhalla to understand this title but would still highly recommend playing them if you have not already.

I’m glad this game came so close to the weekend to review because I was struggling to put the game down. I played it from start to finish and loved every minute of the story. It deeply immersed me in the Assassin’s Creed Universe, and like a good story, not everything is as it seems, which is great as it keeps you on your toes. The game was still packed with those little mini-quests you can pick up along the way, like tearing the wanted posters from the walls to stop the guards instantly wanting to kill you, down to running around, blending in with society, and getting a five-finger discount using the pickpocketing skill.

The game doesn’t stop with the completion of the story, and there are so many points of interest to unlock and contracts to complete, as well as the usual collectibles that can unlock exclusive gear. These are a load of fun when you have finished the game, just for the sheer fact you are a master assassin, feeling like a complete and total badass.

You will find yourself using your tools more than you would think, starting off with a basic torch that you can throw at people and light them on fire, but that is a completely different topic. Unlocking the throwing knives and blow darts was something that excelled the gameplay even more than I would have expected, and then you can unlock things like smoke bombs, traps, and noisemakers, and these can get you out of those sticky situations you will inevitably find yourself in.

While you are roaming around, and being the master assassin that you are, you will unlock skill points that can be used anytime during the game and will help with your completion of the story. The skill tree is broken down into three categories, with the first being Phantom, which you can probably guess from the name is a more stealth-orientated skillset, with abilities like doubling up on assassinations, or leaping off buildings and slowing down time so you can throw those sick kill shots with the throwing knives.

The next category is Trickster, which lets you do things like holding more tools or more elixirs, and these make life much easier during those harder missions. The last category is Predator, based around Enkidu, your companion, who patrols the skies and can make scoping out an area much easier by assisting you with locating the enemy. As I said before, once you have the points to spend, I recommend using them to make the game experience more exciting, but it also takes a little bit of the difficulty out.

Assassin’s Creed games have always been well-known for the voice acting, particularly with the number of characters you interact with, including random citizens. Assassin’s Creed Mirage did not let us down in this respect, and it felt like it was a proper Hollywood production, and you could feel the emotion in the various character’s voices. The sounds don’t stop there either, with the various animal sounds and the swoosh of your sword when it punches a hole into your enemy. There is nothing better than a game that immerses you so deeply that you feel like you are a part of the game, and the sound is one of the biggest factors in that.

Regardless of whether it’s your first experience or you’re returning to the Assassin’s Creed universe, you are going to slide straight into this title just fine. There’s a small tutorial at the beginning of the game that shows you the basics of movement and combat, which are your two biggest factors. I needed to get used to not pressing “LT” and bringing up my tool menu when I’m mid-fight trying to swing my sword.

Assassin’s Creed has always been a fantastic game for the movement with its parkour movements, and the finishing moves when you go for that final blow to your enemies were freaking awesome. They varied from you throwing them backwards and cutting their throat open to jumping over their back and jamming your sword into their spine. Each time there was a finishing move, I smiled at how awesome they looked. Unfortunately, I did encounter some issues when leaping from building to building – there was the odd occasion when doing this where the character would sort of freeze in place and you couldn’t do anything, at least until the game glitched you out of the area. I’m hoping this is just a pre-release bug and you won’t experience it.

I still remember starting up Assassin’s Creed on my Playstation 3, thinking the graphics were absolutely stunning and that they could not get anymore more realistic. Everything was incredibly detailed everything, and now, fast forward fifteen years since the release of the first title, and it does not compare in any way, shape, or form. There is so much more detail and everything looks remarkably real, and it just makes it so much more immersive.

The developers did an absolutely fantastic job of bringing 9th Century Baghdad to life, with busy streets, people roaming around, and the environments, both in the city and farmlands, with it all looking alive, packed full of animals roaming around, people going about their business, and plantation looking lifelike. They also did a magical job on the cutscenes, so much so that it honestly felt like something I would have paid to go and see at the movies.

If you are new or returning to the Assassin’s Creed Franchise you will not be disappointed. It comes complete with a rich storyline and immersive gameplay, filled with amazing combat and the incredible open-world Assassin’s Creed is known for. I can guarantee you won’t want to put the game down once you have started.

Written by: Hayden Nelson