HomeNewsAssassin’s Creed Mirage
Assassin’s Creed Mirage will let you take a virtual historical tour around Baghdad, which sounds lovelyVisiting sites around the game’s ninth-century city will unlock real-world context from experts
Visiting sites around the game’s ninth-century city will unlock real-world context from experts
Image credit:Ubisoft
Image credit:Ubisoft
The next Assassin’s Creed game will continue the series’ past mixture of stab-people-in-the-face stealth-action video game and learn-interesting-things-about-real-places history simulator with a feature dedicated to teaching you about its ninth-century setting of Baghdad.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage: Gameplay TrailerWatch on YouTube
Assassin’s Creed Mirage: Gameplay Trailer
There’ll be 66 historical sites across the city, with discoveries ranging from a look at the daily life of Baghdad’s inhabitants - from the court to government, down to everyday people - through to art, science and economy.
Mirage’s devs include Middle-East expert and historian Dr. Raphaël Weyland, who worked with studio Ubisoft Montreal to help find suitable historical elements for the game and make sure they made sense in the virtual setting - as well as working with those experts to choose and write entries for its History of Baghdad database.
Weylandaddedthat the game doesn’t shy away from some of the period’s more “sensitive and misrepresented topics”, with subjects including “the harem, the role of eunuchs, and slavery [discussed] in a nuanced way”.
“From the start we had an ambitious premise: to help the players better understand the world of ninth-century Baghdad, a world that is seldom represented in popular culture," Weyland said.
Image credit:Ubisoft
Thierry Noël, Ubisoft’s head of humanities and inspiration department, added that the feature will present “a research-based perspective over 9th century Baghdad and the Abbasid Empire, tackling pre-conceptions and clichés often associated with them”.
Along with the promise of amore intimate scopeversus the gargantuan Valhalla and a throwback to Assassin’s Creed’s origins (but not necessarily Origins), Mirage’s seemingly sensitive handling and passionate exploration of Baghdad has me excited to wander its streets and learn more about its fascinating setting - no stabbing necessary. (Though there’llprobably be plenty of that, too.)
The History of Baghdad mode will be playable as part of Mirage when itreleases on October 12th.
