Assassin’s Creed Mirage, Jade, and Nexus offer the series a bright future | Hands-off preview
Many people are excited for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the latest in the mainline series, because for almost sixteen years, the Assassin’s Creed series has been entertaining the masses with its blend of stealth gameplay and historical settings. The series has evolved significantly since those initial games though, with a whole host of RPG elements added to the huge environments to make games that almost feel too vast.
After a couple of years focused solely on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, fans of the series have been interested in where the series will go next. Well Ubisoft is ready to unleash new details on a whole host of games in the series that are coming soon, so let’s dive in shall we?
Nexus VR
The Assassin’s Creed games have always been very immersive experiences, featuring plenty of ancient locales to explore and historic monuments to climb. Well what better a fit for the series than VR, especially since most of the games essentially take place in a sort of fictional VR anyway. Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR will put you in the shoes of fan favourite assassins from the series, and allow you to feel even more hands on with the stealth takedowns than ever. The idea of playing as my boy Ezio and flicking my wrist to murder a corrupt despot is ridiculously cool, so get your Quests ready to join in the fun.
Jade: mobile Assassin’s Creed
Next up we got to find out more about Assassin’s Creed Jade, which is a fully fledged Assassin’s Creed game coming to iOS and Android soon. Ubisoft clearly wants this game to be essential for fans of the series, because it looks fantastic. Set in 3rd century China (between the Odyssey and Origins games) you’ll be surrounded by Great Walls and gorgeous flora and fauna. It’s also the first Assassin’s Creed game that will allow you to customise the appearance of your character, which is an interesting twist. There’s a closed beta starting this summer, so look forward to more mobile murder news very soon.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage
These two games sound great, but really what we’re all eager to find out more about is the next mainline game in the series – Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Development on this year’s big Assassin’s Creed release is being handled by Ubisoft Bordeaux for the first time, with the support of eleven other studios with experience with the Creed.
The main message Ubisoft had to share about Assassin’s Creed Mirage is that this game is taking Assassin’s Creed back to its roots. Everything from the less RPG focused gameplay to the middle eastern setting really means this game feels like a modern update of the original Assassin’s Creed, with the main focus of the gameplay being assassinating targets and stealthing away.
Set in 9th century Baghdad, you’ll be thrust into an important moment in the history of the assassins. Our hero Basim starts out the game as a street thief, and while trying to figure out what’s going on with his nightmares ends up on a journey up the ranks of the assassins. It seems like a fairly tradition story for the series, but Ubisoft Bordeaux are promising plenty of historical figures to meet and some surprises along the way.
What really surprised me about the gameplay shown of Assassin’s Creed Mirage was how much it looked like the older games in the series. Initially it honestly felt like I was watching footage of a remote of one of the early entries in the series, and that seems to be the vibe they’re going for. Basim had a target to take out so parkoured along the roofs, dived into a bush and then wandered over to a group of people and blended in with them in classic AC style.
It wasn’t long before Basim was discovered though and everything kicked off, which meant we got to see the tools he has at his disposal. Again, none of these feel very revolutionary, it’s just classic stealth tools we all know and love. Smoke bombs will never go out of style, and hearing a guard shout “shit you little bastards” as his buddy fell to the floor with a blow dart in his neck was priceless.
Although very much an old school Assassin’s Creed experience, Mirage does have a few new tricks up its sleeve to shake up the gameplay. One of the coolest of these was his bird Enkidu, who you can control and use to tag enemies to make life easier. Basim also has some sort of time stopping ability that allows him to target multiple enemies within range of him and automatically teleport between them and slash them to death. This looked as awesome as it sounds, and will probably be really bloody useful.
There’s one final aspect of Assassin’s Creed Mirage that needs to be mentioned, and that’s the price. The aim of Mirage was to create a game with a more condensed scope, and because of that the price will be lower than you might expect. $50 will bag you Assassin’s Creed Mirage, and even the Ultimate edition will set you back less than most AAA games at $60. Ubisoft could have easily charged full price for this game, so it’s nice to know you’ll be spending a bit less on the 12th of October.
There’s a lot to unpack now for fans of the hidden blade, with three new Assassin’s Creed games coming soon. Whether you’re excited about playing a VR game, on mobile or the next big budget console release, there’s plenty of opportunities for stealth takedowns in your future.
