This is where you collect clues to uncover major targets who play a larger role in the overall plot. One of the carryover features from the RPG-heavy Assassin Creeds is the investigations component. This layered approach rewards your patience and uses stealth to great effect, making each successful exfiltration all the more satisfying. Working your way up to a target and then completing the assassination is made more satisfying by the strategy involved. After eliminating several guards and hiding their bodies in haystacks, I eventually reached the pesky marksman and ended their surveillance of the skies, enabling Enkidu to scout from above for my main target. Like other Assassin’s Creed games, the locations in Mirage contain a great sense of verticality for you to approach from many different angles. To take them out, I snuck around and observed patrols manually, carefully moving my way through an encampment so as to not raise the alarm. In practice, this meant I had to treat the marksman as a mini-boss of sorts, whose takedown would further open up my infiltration possibilities. Any attempt to use Enkidu with an active marksman nearby results in your eagle companion quickly scurrying back down to safety, accompanied by a flustered apology from Basim for sending Enkidu into danger. Yes, you still have a bird companion – flanked by Enkidu the eagle this time around – but they don’t function as an instant recon companion.įortresses now include marksmen, bow-wielding adversaries that actively hunt for spying birds. While in previous games, mapping out your approach typically involved sending your avian companion skyward to locate and tag enemies, Mirage requires a more hands-on approach. Aside from freely exploring the winding streets of Baghdad, many of your quests involve infiltrating hostile fortresses where its occupants attack on sight. Perhaps the most promising aspect of Mirage shown in the preview was the way in which you need to plan each encounter. Thinking your way through Assassin’s Creed Mirage Although Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla saw you assume a mercenary-like role where scrapping and scrounging for every weapon made narrative sense, Mirage smartly pares things back to focus on the hidden blade wielded by those in the order. Plus, instead of swapping out your gear every hour, you accumulate materials to moderately improve your current weapons. Split into three nodes – Phantom, Trickster and Predator – skill upgrades improve your overall proficiency as opposed to adding an excessive amount of manoeuvres that you’ll inevitably forget exist in the heat of battle. By all means, you can certainly try to take down foes head-on, although it won’t be nearly as efficient as carefully planning out your approach and silently removing targets from the equation.Īssassin’s Creed Mirage’s upgrade tree is also substantially more streamlined over the sprawling menu seen in Valhalla, focusing on augments to your current skills instead of constantly overwhelming you with new abilities. Enemies cut you down in a few well-placed slashes, meaning you can’t brute force your way through as a one-man army. This is well balanced through open combat being a less-than-ideal approach. You can fell enemies with a single plunge of the signature hidden blade, imbuing a strong sense of power to your actions. Baghdad is a rich, well-designed setting to explore.įortunately, Assassin’s Creed Mirage does away with such a limiting system. Frustration arose from dealing minuscule amounts of damage to relatively minor enemies purely because they were a higher level than you. However, enemies also grew stronger the further you played, offsetting any gains you made while arbitrarily gating areas and encounters behind level caps. Recent entries from the series focused on RPG levelling systems where you routinely gained levels and new equipment, incrementally upgrading your stats in the process. Here in Mirage, hiding and biding your time has a renewed emphasis, and it feels a better experience for it. Stealth is nothing new to Ubisoft, considering its rich history with the Splinter Cell series in addition to the early Assassin’s Creed games. Sneaking your way to victory, one target at a time Ubisoft’s penchant for richly populated and culturally diverse worlds also shines through, yielding a strong first impression that seemingly bucks the industry trend of cramming as much content in as possible. After a three-hour preview of Mirage, its tighter focus is immediately apparent.
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