The new Assassin's Creed Mirage DLC is a blunt reminder that maybe we've outgrown the series' old-school formula once and for all

Assassin's Creed Mirage was the return to form that we all asked for, yet I haven't uttered its name in two years. The publicity around it was immense, targeting a back to basics, homecoming feel with a smaller-scale world and old-school Creed ethos. I'm talking black box missions, a stronger narrative hook, and pretty much everything else that cemented Assassin's Creed 2 as the de facto best Assassin's Creed game ever.

In 2023, we all thought that a non-RPG entry would be the perfect stealth-action send-off before Ubisoft forged a new future for the series in this year's Assassin's Creed Shadows and upcoming temporarily-titled Codename Hexe. But with the recent announcement that a brand new DLC is coming to the almost two-year old game when Shadows has barely been in circulation for six months, I feel nothing but confusion – especially since Ubisoft didn't even have any post-launch DLC planned when Mirage launched two years ago.

Assassin's Creed Mirage was not a bad game, but if anything, it pointed at the writing on the wall we'd all tried hard to ignore. Nostalgia alone isn't enough to carry old-school Creed into the 2020s, and it's high time we let Ubisoft evolve rather than force it to homage its greatest hits.

New mutiny

It's a funny thing to point out, but I feel like Assassin's Creed Mirage was Ubisoft's attempt at stating exactly why it needs to move on from the school of Ezio Auditore.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla left many of us wandering the barren, besieged shores of Viking-era Great Britain for what felt like eons – some for many many hundreds of hours, given the absurd amount of DLC churned out to complement its 60 to 70-hour base game runtime if you were to race through it. The result? Fans with a desperate craving for the good ol' days of scaling buildings in Renaissance Italy.

"Give us a smaller map," we cried. "Give us black box assassination missions," we pleaded. Most of all, the people clamored for one thing: a non-RPG Creed for the first time since 2015's AC Syndicate.

And you know what? Ubisoft listened. It gave us Mirage, the ultimate hit of nostalgic fan service, doing away with the breadth and brawn of Valhalla to offer up a sub-25-hour experience that can be tied up with a neat little bow. We got everything we asked for, but I have to admit: I played it, uninstalled it, and never looked back. That, in itself, speaks volumes.

Even after doing exactly what fans wanted it to and netting a very positive four out of five stars in our Assassin's Creed Mirage review, I'd sum up Basim's adventure as a fun if forgettable blast from the past. Maybe that was Ubisoft's point all along – "you want old-school? Here's old school! Not very exciting now, is it?"

Mirage is an old-school throwback, not an iron-clad indication of the series future, and I'd rather it be remembered as exactly that rather than be pulled into "forever game" territory like Valhalla. Again, I don't mean to be unkind. I simply mean to say that the game, while not a stinker, didn't make strong waves on either end of the reception spectrum.

It was good enough for what it was, but sure enough, I haven't seen many people asking for Mirage 2.0 since. If that was Ubisoft's intention, fair play. What better way to prove a point than give the people what they want and let them come to the same realization for themselves?

Ultimately, the new Mirage DLC is superfluous at this stage. The game has done its job and furnished that point entirely too well, and as I look ahead to 2026 and all the other upcoming Assassin's Creed games on the horizon, I'm hoping that Ubisoft takes the opportunity to strive for something new next time. How, you ask? Wait and see. With Hexe rumored to be based on the witch trials, I think there's fresh magic to be found in Assassin's Creed yet.

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