Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be a unique entry in the beloved action-adventure franchise by Ubisoft. In previous entries, the scale and scope of the games grew to near-insane levels as there were hundreds of hours of content to seek out and participate in. However, things will be a bit more focused in the new game, which brings things back to the Middle East. In fact, the game will be rooted within one city, Baghdad, and through that, the team at Ubisoft will craft a deep and rewarding experience for those who try to seek out all that’s within this city.
Ubisoft sat down with ComicBook.com to discuss why the “smaller” scope will help make for a “denser” experience:
“Our world is smaller, but at the same time, we had to treat it like a city that is way denser than in the previous games. So, bringing back dense cities, narrow streets, parkour, et cetera, is another challenge, to be honest. What is way different is the playtime. Our storyline is shorter, is more dense, it’s condensed. We wanted to have a story that is finished at some point with no RPG or very light RPG aspect is the process. But working on a city like Baghdad as you experience it is not easy. It’s another complexity to be honest,” said Producer Fabian Salomon.
Visual director Jean-Luc Sala added, “When you have a world to fill, you fill landscapes and you can bring that. And we wanted to be focused on the city, even if [the game is] a little bit larger than just the city. Baghdad is the city, and the rest is more village-sized than the city. But, making less can help us to make more. And this was a perfect moment to say, ‘We want to have this amount of level of detail.'”
While that might seem counter-intuitive to what is being done with other games, like a recently released Bethesda title, there are merits to simply making a game that fits in one setting and yet has plenty to do within it. The team has noted that there will be dozens of hours worth of content to partake in. Plus, the smaller scale allowed them to flesh out the details of what they did have or do show to make the game feel more special. Not to mention, they got to do things with Assassin’s Creed Mirage and its singular focus that they couldn’t do back in the OG titles.
