After years of feedback from fans wishing for a return to the traditional formula, Assassin’s Creed Mirage launched this month, promising to appease longtime players with its revival of classic mechanics.
From the beginning, Ubisoft, which published and developed the game, marketed Mirage as a return to form for the series with the restoration of major series staples that did not appear in the last few entries. While many speculated that the game’s smaller scale and revival of older Assassin’s Creed staples was purely a response to negative backlash toward the series’ previous RPG entries, Mirage‘s creative director, Stephane Boudon, spoke to Xbox Wire to confirm that these fan requests did actually influence how the game came to fruition. “We were aware that a part of our community was asking for a more condensed scope,” Boudon said. “And with the Assassin fantasy in mind, many of us on the development team were among them.”
Ubisoft previously revealed that Mirage originally began development as a DLC expansion forAssassin’s Creed Valhalla before it became a full standalone title, but Boudon confirmed that years of fan laments regarding the absence of key features partially contributed to the shift toward a whole new game. According to him, the team at Ubisoft Bourdeaux, a brand-new development studio made expressly to develop the title, was receptive to desires from fans for the return of mechanics like social stealth, meaningful wanted levels, a scaled-down open world and more in-depth parkour mechanics.
Additionally, Boudon wanted to create something to honor the franchise’s 15th anniversary, paying homage to the original 2007 game with its presentation and gameplay. Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set in ninth-century Baghdad and follows the street thief Basim as he embarks on a journey to become a master assassin and rid his home of corruption. Marketing was full of callbacks to the initial title, with some commercials showing off in-game visual filters that make the game look visually similar to the original and a focus on these old mechanics in their demonstrations.
However, despite adhering to feedback from fans in many ways, Boudon revealed that the development team focused more on including mechanics that felt natural in its gameplay and setting rather than simply adding everything that was cut from previous games. Still, many of these mechanics, such as tearing down wanted posters to decrease notoriety, appeared in fan-favorite entries like Assassin’s Creed II, serving as an homage to those classic titles.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is out now on the PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.
Source: Xbox Wire
