Assassin's Creed Mirage

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[Maf]

Ubisoft confirmed this is real. Going by the artwork it looks like a return to a more classic Assassin’s Creed which is good news to me. 
 

I did end up quite liking Valhalla despite not thinking I would, but still more interested in a return to a classic AC style game than the newer ones (although it’s not confirmed that’s what this is, but seems like) 

[Nag]

I still don't feel ready to tackle another one of these... Origins really did a number on me.

[DisturbedSwan]

I’m more than ready, fucking bring it on!!!

 

 

[regemond]

Assassin's Creed of Persia?

 

Honestly, I'm totally up for this.

[Maf]

All rumours confirmed. Here's the cinematic trailer. There was no gameplay today. Out in 2023.

 

 

Usually I'm quick to shit on cinematic trailers because it's basically false advertising. However this is clearly going to be a classic Assassin's Creed game so I'm all right with it, because in a general sense I know what this game is going to be. 

 

It actually makes me really excited to get back to classic AC. White hoodies, missing fingers, dense cities, back to stealth. It's also been 8 years (I think, when this game comes out in 2023) since a classic AC game so I can't wait to see it with new graphics, picking up some new mechanics and systems rom the newer games and it's been such a long time I bet the break helps this feel refreshed. 

 

So yes usually I would shit on cinematic trailers but since I already kind of know what game it's going to be, seeing they're taking that game back to an aesthetic and style I really like works and gets me excited. 

[DisturbedSwan]

Shame there was no gameplay but looks banging! 

[one-armed dwarf]

Apparently it started as a DLC for Valhalla, then got turned into something bigger. Sort of a RE3 remake type of situation maybe.

 

I wonder what that means for being like a classic AC game, can you make one of those in the framework of Valhalla and make it feel the same

[mmmark]

I must admit idk what classic AC means. Valhalla plays almost exactly the same as they always have. Does it just mean the setting?

[Maf]

Hmm. I suppose it is really.

 

In a loose sense the mechanics are the same as before. But the newer games are more sprawling, cross country action RPG’s with a bigger focus on straight up fighting and looting.

 

Where as classic AC is in more dense cities, has a greater focus on stealth, parkour and traversal.

 

The way the games work are similar sort of, but the way the game’s feel and the overall experience of the newer games I think are quite different. And when done well I prefer the more classic style game.

 

But also yes just seeing a return to the classic AC look and things is also doing a lot for me. The way the series has spun out in to pirates, soldiers and vikings was never as cool to me as the idea of a secret history of Assassins. 

[DisturbedSwan]

7 hours ago, mmmark said:

I must admit idk what classic AC means. Valhalla plays almost exactly the same as they always have. Does it just mean the setting?

Does it? I don’t think so. 
 

Classic AC to me is the city based games up until Syndicate (excluding Black Flag) rather than the sprawling RPG country-based AC’s Origins-Odyssey-Valhalla trilogy including Black Flag too.

[Maf]

https://www.ign.com/articles/future-assassins-creed-games-will-not-all-be-150-hour-rpgs

 

Quote

Future Assassin’s Creed Games Will Not All Be 150-Hour RPGs

Mirage marks the first step for a more varied series.

 

Future games in the Assassin’s Creed series will vary in length, and not all will follow the open-world RPG template that has defined the series since 2017’s Assassin’s Creed Origins.

 

As part of today’s Assassin’s Creed Showcase, it was announced that Assassin’s Creed Mirage - an action/adventure game similar to the first game in the series - will retail at $50 for the standard edition. In an interview with IGN, vice president executive producer of Assassin's Creed, Marc-Alexis Côté, explained that the price reflects the scale of the project.

“It is a smaller Assassin's Creed project,” said Côté. “This was conceived [and] built to celebrate the 15th anniversary. So that's why we're using our modern Valhalla engine to build a smaller game that pays tribute to our original game by focusing more on stealth, on close-quarter combat, on parkour, and a denser city that goes back to our roots in the Middle East with Baghdad as the centerpiece.”

 

When asked if Mirage would be similar in length to the older games in the series, which were around 15-20 hours for the main story, Côté said, “Yes, you should expect something that's closer to our original games.”

 

I know AC is a bit like CoD and people love to hate them but, they're saying all the right things to me. This is exactly what I want. 

[DisturbedSwan]

I think the RPG AC's have rejuvenated AC's reputation a lot, there has been a lot more positivity surrounding Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla's launch compared to the last titles in the city-based AC era. Of course there's always gonna be the folks that played up to AC3, got burnt and never went back and now say every title is 'the same' and nonsense like that but that's people for you.

 

I think it's more that whilst most AC fans like the new-RPG style they're also pining for an old-school city based AC for nostalgic reasons. Not me personally, I'd be happy to play Valhalla-like AC's but Mirage is what a lot of folks wanted and the announcement seems to be of gone down very well judging by the folks I follow on twitter and wider SM reaction at least. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I got burned out at Brotherhood, tried again with Valhalla and it still felt samey to me. Just my nonsense opinion tho but the only real difference I felt was more of a combat focus and way more content but I don't think it improved things.

 

Saying that I would like to play one which felt exciting. Like ACI felt exciting, except it wasn't good, and then ACII made up for that. The original pitch of Prince of Persia meets Hitman is something I'm still waiting for somebody to do

[DisturbedSwan]

I'm really not sure how they can feel the same outside the parkour, pretty much a night and day difference but we move lol. Brotherhood is probably where my love for the franchise began, one of my faves in the franchise and in my all time top-10 for sure.

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

To me the games mostly just feel like a framework shift between titles. Like here is one set in a big city with different districts, here is one with more of a seamless open world country side and with more of a RPG loot progression system. But the foundation they are built on is so similar that the different framework doesn't really do enough to make it feel unique.

 

(To elaborate on that, I'm talking about the loop of doing busy work of clearing towers, camps, outposts or basically any type of easily categorizable and repeatable content 'type' over and over to get stronger, with that making the bulk of the experience rather than the main story. I never felt much emergent gameplay possibility in AC which is horrible for a sandbox game cause it has to have that considering how long they are. Hour 15 feels largely the same as hour 45 and so on)

 

I just don't consider the games that different really. If I'm gone off a formula it needs to be a much bigger difference to bring me back in, like GoW was. If people like them that's fine and I'm not saying the series needs to cater to me but it's not nonsense that people find them samey still imo, I bought Valhalla cause I thought a decade would mean the game would feel a lot different for me but it did not

 

edit I didn't explain this well at all, but basically they just didn't do enough with the Origins series imo

 

edit interesting interview

 

https://www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-wants-to-make-more-focused-games-rather-than-have-one-game-do-everything

 

Quote

At a recent Ubisoft press briefing, vice president of editorial, Fawzi Mesmar, spoke as part of a presentation about how focus, rather than broad ideas, was an important part of the editorial board's current development process. In a subsequent interview with IGN he expanded on that idea, saying that the company doesn’t “want one game to do everything.”

 

“We want to be okay with making a decision around the one game and go, ‘We're going to go for that, and we're going to commit, and we're going to be okay [that it] can make those kind of people happy, but maybe not everybody.’ And that's okay,” he said. “We believe that a more focused game is better for the people that like [that] kind of game.”

 

This is what they need to do, take risks on stuff that are not going to be a hit with everyone but a really big hit with that specific niche. This is why their games feel so similar imo, lack of risk

 

Imagine a Ubisoft game without map markers or something like that, where you have to learn the layout of the land yourself (as an assassin should have to do), even that would be cool

[DisturbedSwan]

You're entitled to your view of course but having finished Valhalla, I can tell you there's a night and day difference between that and Brotherhood. Some of the framework might be the same, I agree in as far as that but pretty much everything is different.

 

I will never understand it personally, I just can't see it or feel it when I'm playing. It is familiar as it's AC and still an open world game but that's as far as it goes.

[Maryokutai]

They designed a perfectly workable ingame solution to getting rid of map markers in Origins (and later with Odyssey and Valhalla) via the bird companion you can summon. It was a seamless transition that allowed you to get a clear view of your surroundings and ping areas of interest. I only ever opened the map in Odyssey when I wanted to see the big picture, not to find something close to me or check on a quest target. Unfortunately these games have a very "designed by committee" feel to it so features like this will only ever work in tandem will the classic overfilled map and not replace them. It's the same reason why "exploration mode" is a setting and not the game's default design principle.

 

I'm not too fond of them going back to the roots btw. because those games have always been laughably simplistic for what could have been a really interesting blend of Hitman, Thief and PoP. I doubt Mirage is going to change that, it's still a mass market AAA title from UbiSoft. It will likely be less repetitive than AC1 but I'd be surprised if it wasn't just a better-looking AC2 in the end. Which will make a lot of people happy of course, but it won't be for me.

[one-armed dwarf]

1 minute ago, Maryokutai said:

They designed a perfectly workable ingame solution to getting rid of map markers in Origins (and later with Odyssey and Valhalla) via the bird companion you can summon. It was a seamless transition that allowed you to get a clear view of your surroundings and ping areas of interest. I only ever opened the map in Odyssey when I wanted to see the big picture, not to find something close to me or check on a quest target. Unfortunately these games have a very "designed by committee" feel to it so features like this will only ever work in tandem will the classic overfilled map and not replace them. It's the same reason why "exploration mode" is a setting and not the game's default design principle.

 

But you are still following waypoints for that tho aren't you? I don't really remember how the mechanic worked.

 

It's chasing down waypoints and checking them off that's the big issue for me, and how at the end of each waypoint is something which fits neatly into a category of content that becomes so familiar after playing more than one of these games (destroy outpost, get loot etc)

 

Actually reading a map is fine tho, games need maps. Looking at a map or looking at organic points of interest in the world is the thing that would be more interesting to me. It's satisfying to build out a mental layout of the land and figure out ways to infiltrate/exfiltrate, not just absently chase a triangle on a radar

[DisturbedSwan]

8 minutes ago, one-armed dwarf said:

It's chasing down waypoints and checking them off that's the big issue for me, and how at the end of each waypoint is something which fits neatly into a category of content that becomes so familiar after playing more than one of these games (destroy outpost, get loot etc)

 

Actually reading a map is fine tho, games need maps. Looking at a map or looking at organic points of interest in the world is the thing that would be more interesting to me. It's satisfying to build out a mental layout of the land and figure out ways to infiltrate/exfiltrate, not just absently chase a triangle on a radar

 

It's something you could turn completely off in Valhalla, I think Odyssey as well.  In Valhalla you don't even have icons on the map just little dots of light, you can customise the HUD so it's like BOTW et al. and not have any markers or anything just the top compass, as far as I can remember anyway.