Assassin’s Creed Mirage will reportedly take the series back to the Middle East

A French YouTuber said the next Assassin’s Creed game will make a return to the series’ roots — in more ways than one — in a video partially corroborated by Bloomberg industry writer Jason Schreier.

The game’s title — Assassin’s Creed Mirage — and setting, Baghdad in the late 9th century, are correct, Schreier said on Twitter, citing a person familiar with the project. But other details in the video published Sunday by YouTuber j0nathan are incorrect, he said, such as a setting that involves multiple cities to explore. (The video is in French; a translated summary was provided on Twitter by Rebs Gaming.)

Schreier was not more specific about which additional claims j0nathan made were inaccurate. Bloomberg in February reported that the game, then codenamed Rift, was originally planned as an expansion to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and stars a popular supporting character from that game, the assassin Basim.

In the game’s convoluted sci-fi canon, Basim is actually a human reincarnation of the Norse deity Loki, who actually belongs to an ancient and highly advanced humanoid species.

Bloomberg also reported in February that “the game won’t be a massive open-world role-playing game like previous recent entries, focusing instead more on stealth gameplay.” Bloomberg then said in July that Assassin’s Creed Rift/Mirage, in development at Ubisoft’s Bordeaux studio, had been delayed from a February 2023 launch to the following spring.

Other details j0nathan shared, but Schreier did not comment on:

• RPG elements such as dialogue choices, leveling, and gender choice (because the player character is Basim) are not present.
• The “Eagle Vision” power, last seen in 2015’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, returns, but so does the “drone bird” that players could use to observe and mark enemies in the three most recent games.
• Ubisoft is secretly developing a remake of the original Assassin’s Creed, using much of the work and assets created for Mirage.
• Much more will be revealed during the Ubisoft Forward online event on Sept. 10, which the publisher announced back in July.

Polygon has reached out to a Ubisoft representative for additional comment, but the publisher rarely acknowledges, much less confirms, rumors about games it has in development.

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla launched in November 2020. The most recent Assassin’s Creed project, confirmed or announced by Ubisoft, is codenamed Assassin’s Creed Infinity. It is planned to be a live service game, involving multiple settings and timelines, with persistent content updates.