This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee reviews Assassins Creed Mirage. And if you subscribe to The Escapist Patreon or YouTube memberships, you can view next week’s episode on Lords of the Fallen right now, as well as an uncensored version of this and every Zero Punctuation going forward!
For more major games Yahtz has reviewed lately, check out Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, El Paso Elsewhere and ?, Mortal Kombat 1, Chants of Sennaar and Lies of P, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Starfield, Sea of Stars, En Garde! and Blasphemous 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Viewfinder and My Friendly Neighborhood.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage Zero Punctuation Transcript
If you’re unfamiliar with mirages because you’ve never read a Tintin book or whatever, it’s a phenomenon that appears in the middle of desolate wastelands which seem to be of substance but the moment you get close enough you realise are totally ephemeral. In which case, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage – yes I can see some of you are ahead of me on this one – is the most aptly subtitled entrant into the series until they bring out Assassin’s Creed: Another Bloody Boring Game About Stabbing. So those restless passionate creatives at Ubisoft couldn’t hold it in any longer and just had to spurt out some more Assocreedage after three years of edging, a recurring phenomenon I think of as Assassin’s Creed’s “What the hell do these people want,” breaks. The last one was after AssCreeSyndicate, when they all went “Oh, apparently they don’t want slightly cringey ‘let’s explore a historical time period on the magic school bus’ stabbing adventures anymore, let’s see if they’ll be any more receptive to ‘let’s all steal mummy’s credit card so we don’t have to grind the next five levels in a suboptimal chestpiece’ live servicey stabbing adventures.'” Hence Origins and Odyssey.
But now that audiences regard the phrase “live service” the way a person with severe indigestion regards the phrase “cream slice,” the latest thinking cap session has concluded that we people want the hell out of a return to basics. The prospect of maybe just not making any more AssoCreedence Clearwater Revivals not being conscionable, apparently, but then this series has long ceased to be a collection of individual artworks and is now an underlying force of nature that ebbs into our lives now and again like the tide. AssoCreeMirage feels like not so much a streamlining or refocussing as an attempt to turn back the clock, being most reminiscent of something like Brotherhood or Revelations, the interstitial games between 2 and 3 that warranted neither a new protagonist nor a number all to itself. It’s one measly city with the usual checklist of treasures to find and throats to stab, and it ends with the dude walking into a science fiction room full of LED strip lighting, experiencing an astounding revelation relating to the overarching plot, and then going out again. After which I assume he starts blowing up party balloons. The question is how one reduces scope in a way that feels fresh and not like a step back.
And Ubisoft’s answer to that question is “Sorry did you say something? I was busy putting haystacks under things.” At least Brotherhood and Revelations had Ezio, a main character we might still be invested in. AssCreeMargarine has Basim, a sort of unusually tall wind-up monkey toy. Initially he’s a street thief in 9th century Baghdad who I think we’re supposed to believe is a wayward teenager in much the way of a 29-year-old getting cast in a Jason film, and he’s also a shameless Assassin fanboy. He sees an Assassin working with his regular fence and goes “Ooh ooh pick me pick me, I’d be such a good assassin, I know how to squat in a bush and everything.” But he just can’t catch their eye, until he sneaks into a palace and ends up accidentally stabbing a dude, and that was the display of stabbing initiative they were waiting for, apparently, because he gets signed up with stabbing academy for the fall semester. And for most of the game there’s just not enough strife or doubt in Basim’s character to make him interesting. He joins the Assassins just like he wanted and immediately becomes mentor’s pet. Yes miss no miss can I fetch you some throat lozenges miss I caught Stebbins raiding the tuck shop miss shall I tell him to report to detention.
His only internal struggle is that he has recurring nightmares about a monster, and he could just be eating dodgy kippers for supper. In the end when he goes into the afore-discussed inevitable magic sci-fi room it turns out the dreams are significant, although why wasn’t entirely clear. It’s something to do with memories of a past life as one of those super special before peoples Assassin’s Creed likes so much, and an instance of one of the classic hackneyed surprise twists. I don’t wanna spoil, but it’s one of the following: someone you thought was harmless is actually the big bad, someone you thought was real is actually imaginary, or someone you thought had a vagina actually has a penis. But that’s the very end, and there’s a lot of jugular veins between you and there that need stabbing. As I say, there’s a deliberate return to the Assassin’s Creed basics: you infiltrate strongholds full of patrolling guards to reach objectives, no district liberating, no ship combat, none of whatever that fucking rap battle bollocks in AssCreeValhalla was supposed to be about, just the endless storybook romance between knife and random guards’ throats. The sandbox isn’t even that big compared to past games, so there’s less of a commute between stabbings.
Although it did mean a couple of locations got reused for different missions, and I’d have to clear out a stronghold I’d already cleared out once before. I feel sorry for whatever temp agency the Baghdad harbour employs. And happily there’s no levelling system, so you can stab away without concern for high-level enemies having done enough neck exercise to repel your blade. Well, tell a lie, there is levelling, the game hasn’t entirely cast off the shroud of used toilet paper strips that is the live service model, there’s levelling, equipment crafting, multiple premium currencies and a big fat “go to online store” button permanently visible in the corner of menu like a dog turd on a new rug. Oh, Ubisoft, you tried so hard to keep to your diet, but those cream slices were just too tempting. Thing is, though, you don’t have to worry about any of it. Your hidden blade still instakill stabs whether or not your sword does plus 2.5% stagger damage or your armor is dyed powder blue. And if you get to the point where it does become relevant ‘cos you fucked up stealthing and entered open combat then you’re probably playing it wrong.
‘Cos the open combat suuuuucks. It’s the usual dodge the red attacks parry the non-red attacks, but the addition of a stamina bar, possibly to lure in the Soulslike crowd, is a misstep as it means you’ll be in the middle of a nice flow and Basim will just stop responding to commands like his wind-up key needs turning. There’s the inevitable skill tree as well, doing the usual wrongheaded thing of making the game easier and easier the more you advance in it. Here’s a new upgrade that stabs four dudes at once while also dicing vegetables and conveniently pressing your trousers. It’s like the auto-climbing hookshot from Syndicate: if you’re rewarding the player by letting them not have to engage with the core gameplay as much you’re sort of telling on yourself a bit, there. I do support the rollback of scope as it means Creamy Ass Rage doesn’t outstay its welcome, but frankly it never had much of a welcome. It was a sort of “Oh its you,” situation. It brings nothing to the table to justify its presence. The gameplay’s just more of the usual and the story fires off like the last squirt at an amateur money shot. “So what does Assassin’s Creed need to do to please you, Yahtz? And don’t say piss off and die.” [ long pause ] “Yahtz?” What? You told me not to say it.
