Assassin’s Creed Mirage | How long to beat

The newest entry into the fifteen-year-old Assassin’s Creed franchise is Assassin’s Creed Mirage, developed by Ubisoft Bordeaux. It takes place roughly a decade before the events of Valhalla and focuses on the origin story of Basim Ibn Is’Haq, the master Assassin who introduces Viking Eivor into the Brotherhood.

Ubisoft has been quite vocal about making Assassin’s Creed Mirage a smaller, more intimate experience for fans – a far cry from the 70-hour behemoths of Valhalla and Odyssey. It is heavily focused on the story, with much less side conten than usual. But just how long will it take you to get through it?

Assassin’s Creed Mirage | How long to beat?

Compared to other games in the franchise there isn’t a lot of filler in Mirage. It’s not entirely linear, as there are three story arcs around the midway point that can be taken on in whichever order. Most of the missions, either main or side, are presented in the form of Investigations. As Basim, you must first identify targets, infiltrate various areas such as the Grand Bazaar, law offices or enemy estates, and recon the grounds with the help of your falcon, Enkidu.

You can absolutely choose to mainline the story content, but you’ll miss out on a lot of tools and skills that you need to explore to find. Basim’s abilities are XP-related and avoiding extra content will leave you light in that regard.

Our playthrough on standard difficulty and with perhaps 50% of available side content took 17 hours and 23 minutes.

What are the factors that determine how long it takes?

Primarily, your play style is a major factor. If you choose to play stealthily and tactically, it will take longer. You kind of have to play this way for the first three or four hours as you won’t have many skills or tools unlocked. By around the midway point you will start to grow in power and it actually becomes easier to eschew stealth in favour of just removing obstacles with violence.

There are many side concerns, though. You can pickpocket marked targets for your fence, Dervis, for example, or seek out 10 Mysterious Shards which unlock a powerful set of armour and weapons in the late game. Each Bureau has a noticeboard with Contracts, which reward money, Khidmah Tokens, upgrade materials, weapons and outfits or costumes. These are typically very short, simple missions such as freeing a target, killing a target, or stealing a valuable item.

Enigmas give you treasure maps to follow, while golden Gear Chests hold upgrade schematics or new swords, daggers, and outfits – but you’ll often need to solve an environmental puzzle or steal a key to reach them. There’s also a small open world area around Baghdad in the form of the Wilderness. There are bandit camps, smugglers dens, a few beautiful oases to discover, and ruins to explore, but there’s also a lot of empty space in-between.

Can we keep going after the campaign?

Yes. Finishing the story will return you to a point in time before you took on the final area, but your Investigations will all be complete and you will not have access to the final outfit you wore in the end mission. You will, however, be given a new costume. From here, you can either mop up the final few contracts or hunt down the remaining items you missed.

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