After several leaks, Ubisoft has officially unveiled the next major Assassin’s Creed game. As expected, it’s called Mirage and will shift the time-traveling series to 9th-century Baghdad, where players will take on the function of a budding assassin named Basim.
Fans might remember that name from an appearance in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla; Mirage takes place two decades before that game. So there’s a lot of on the way in Assassin’s Creed.
Notably, Ubisoft says that the game will return to the series action-adventure roots, which means that the RPG mechanics from more recent games will not be present. Mirage is anticipated to launch sometime in 2023. Also of note: Shohreh Aghdashloo will be voicing the role of Basim’s assassination mentor in an inspired bit of casting.
But that’s not all for the sequel, as Ubisoft also made several other big announcements regarding the franchise’s future.
Let’s start with mobile. Ubisoft is developing the first open-world version of Assassin’s Creed for smartphones, currently dubbed “Jade,” which is set in ancient China and will let players customize their characters. You can also parkour across the Great Wall, which seems fun. “Codename Jade” is listed as coming soon. Elsewhere, Ubisoft also says it’s functioning on an unnamed mobile title for Netflix’s gaming service, though there are no details on that right now. Finally, Netflix and Ubisoft are working on a live-action series based on Assassin’s Creed.
As for the future of the mainline series, Ubisoft shared a few details on the games that will come after Mirage. One of these games, codenamed “Red,” is developing at Ubisoft’s Quebec City studio and will be set in feudal-era Japan. While the Montreal team is functioning on another codenamed “Hexe,”; there aren’t many details yet, but it appears to be about witches in some form. While Mirage is largely eschewing the RPG mechanics of games like Odyssey, it seems that both Red and Hexe will retain them.
The publisher provided more details on Assassin’s Creed “Infinity” project, an online hub connecting the mainline games and standalone multiplayer projects. Think of it like the Animus from the games; only you use it to launch video games.
Assassin’s Creed is an action-adventure open-world stealth video game franchise broadcasted by Ubisoft and designed mainly by its studio Ubisoft Montreal employing the game engine Anvil and its more advanced derivatives. Created by Jade Raymond, Patrice Désilets, and Corey May, the Assassin’s Creed series represents a fictional millennia-old struggle between the Assassins, who battle for peace and free will, and the Templars. Furthermore, they desire serenity through order and control.
The series features science fiction, historical fiction, and fictional characters intertwined with real-world historical events and figures. In most games, players regulate a historical Assassin while also recreating as an Assassin Initiate or someone noticed in the Assassin-Templar conflict in the present-day framing story.
Believed a spiritual inheritor to the Prince of Persia series, Assassin’s Creed took motivation from the best-seller Alamut by the Slovenian writer Vladimir Bartol, based on the chronological Hashashin denomination of the medieval Middle East.
The series’ first eponymous title was released in 2007 and has featured twelve main games, the most recent being 2020’s Valhalla. The primary contests in the Assassin’s Creed series are set in an open world and played from the third-person perspective. The gameplay revolves around combat, stealth, and exploration, including using parkour to navigate the domain. The games feature both main and side assignments, and some titles also include competitive and collaborative multiplayer game modes.
A new story and occasionally recent periods are introduced in each entry, with the gameplay components also evolving. There are three overarching story arcs in the series. The first five main games track Desmond Miles, a descendant of several important Assassins throughout history. It uses a machine called the Animus to relive his ancestors’ memories and find powerful artifacts called “Pieces of Eden” while attempting to prevent a catastrophic event that wiped out humanity by the end of 2012.
From Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag to Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Assassin initiates and employs Abstergo (a company used as a facade by the modern-day Templars) record genetic memories using the Helix software. It helps the Templars and Assassins find new Pieces of Eden in the modern world. The most recent games Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Assassin’s Creed Origins, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla follow ex-Abstergo employee Layla Hassan on her quest to save humanity from another disaster.