Assassin's Creed Mirage is a 2023 action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Bordeaux and published by Ubisoft. The game is the thirteenth main installment in the Assassin's Creed series and the successor to Assassin's Creed Valhalla (2020). Set in 9th-century Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age—in particular during the Anarchy at Samarra—the story follows Basim Ibn Ishaq, a street thief who joins the Hidden Ones to fight for peace and liberty, against the Order of the Ancients, who desire peace through control. The main narrative focuses on Basim's internal struggle between his duties as a Hidden One and his desire to uncover his mysterious past.
Originally envisioned as an expansion for Valhalla, the game was reworked into a standalone title to expand its scope. The design philosophy behind Mirage—the first game to be developed primarily by Ubisoft Bordeaux, previously just a support studio—was to return to the series' roots by focusing on stealth, parkour, and assassinations over the role-playing elements featured heavily in recent installments. As a result, the game is much smaller in scale than its predecessors and combines elements introduced in them with those found in earlier installments of the franchise.
Mirage was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on 5 October 2023, and for iOS on iPhone 15 Pro and iPadOS on iPad models on 6 June 2024. Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its world design, focus on stealth and return to form of the franchise, though some criticized the characters and the story's reliance on previous installments in the series. Mirage's successor, Assassin's Creed Shadows, set in Japan during the Sengoku period and returning to the role-playing style of gameplay of previous installments, was released in March 2025.
Gameplay
Assassin's Creed Mirage is an action-adventure stealth game set in an open-world. It was intended to be reminiscent of older Assassin's Creed titles, being more linear and story-focused and reducing the number of role-playing elements present in recent installments of the series. Parkour, close-quarter combat, and stealth are core elements of the gameplay. For assassination missions, Mirage adopts the "Black Box" design previously seen in Assassin's Creed Unity and Assassin's Creed Syndicate, where players have to explore the environment to find different ways to reach and eliminate their targets.
The game is set principally in the city of Baghdad, which is divided into four districts—the Round City, Karkh, Abassiyah with its House of Wisdom, and Harbiyah—but also features several smaller towns like Anbar and Jarjaraya, located on the outskirts of the city. Alamut, the fortress headquarters of the Hidden Ones, is also featured in several missions, but is inaccessible outside of the storyline. Baghdad is much smaller than the worlds of recent Assassin's Creed titles, being closer in size to Unitys and Revelations's depictions of Paris and Constantinople, respectively.
Mirage features a single playable character, Basim Ibn Ishaq, removing gender choices from previous games like Valhalla. Similarly to previous Assassin protagonists, Basim has a large arsenal of weapons and tools at his disposal, including the signature Assassin Hidden Blade, smoke bombs, throwing knives, and poison darts. Both weapons and tools can be upgraded through a skill tree which allows different effects to be applied to them. Basim also has access to both Eagle Vision and an avian companion named Enkidu (after the character from Mesopotamian mythology), an eastern imperial eagle that can be used to scout nearby areas. Unlike previous Assassin's Creed games which featured avian companions, enemy marksmen can detect and shoot at Enkidu, requiring the player to eliminate the marksmen before Enkidu can be used again.
Mirage introduces a new ability called "Assassin Focus", which allows the player to eliminate multiple enemies simultaneously and is recharged by performing stealth assassinations. When the ability is activated, time stops and the player can mark up to five enemies who will then be automatically killed by Basim in quick succession. Another new feature are various poles located around Baghdad, which can be used to cross wide gaps. Furthermore, moving and running animations have been refined to improve mobility and fluidity, with the development team taking inspiration from "samurai, ninja, and even Jedi to a certain point".
Synopsis Setting Assassin's Creed Mirage is set in Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age, primarily during the Anarchy at Samarra, which was a period of extreme internal instability during the reign of the Abbasid Caliphate. Taking place a decade before the events of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, the game explores the backstory of Basim Ibn Ishaq (voiced by Lee Majdoub), depicting his transition from street thief to fully-fledged Hidden One, under the tutelage of his mentor, Roshan bint-La'Ahad (Shohreh Aghdashloo). Like previous Assassin's Creed games, Mirage also features a number of characters based on historical figures, including , leader of the Zanj Rebellion against slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate; the Banū Mūsā brothers, a trio of scholars and inventors; Muhammad ibn Abdallah ibn Tahir, the last Tahirid governor of Khurasan and Baghdad; and the Caliph al-Mu'tazz (Abu 'Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ja'far) and his mother Qabiha, in addition to al-Jahiz, al-Farghani, Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Arib al-Ma'muniyya, and Wasif al-Turki.
Plot Following the events of Assassin's Creed Valhalla: The Last Chapter, the modern-day Assassins use a blood sample provided by Basim Ibn Ishaq to relive his memories during the age of the Abbasid Caliphate.
In 861 CE, Basim is a young street thief living in Anbar with his childhood friend and companion, Nehal. For his entire life, Basim has been haunted by visions of a monstrous jinni, which Nehal has been helping him cope with. While just a simple thief, Basim has greater aspirations and seeks to join the Hidden Ones, but is flatly rejected by the senior Hidden One stationed in Anbar, Roshan. In an effort to prove himself, Basim sneaks into the Caliph's palace to steal a chest sought by both the Hidden Ones and the Order of the Ancients. Basim retrieves a disk-shaped artifact from the chest, which displays a holographic message, before he is confronted by the Caliph, al-Mutawakkil. Nehal kills the Caliph to save Basim, and they both flee the palace.
In retaliation for the Caliph's murder, the guards begin slaughtering all thieves in Anbar, including many of Basim's friends, and he angrily blames Nehal before parting ways. Now on the run, Basim manages to escape the city with Roshan's help, and she takes him to the Hidden Ones' mountain fortress at Alamut. Over the following months, Basim trains under Roshan and is eventually initiated into the Hidden Ones. When their Mentor, Rayhan, learns of the Order's rapidly expanding influence in Baghdad, he decides to send a contingent of Hidden Ones to the city to investigate, with Basim and Roshan leading the way.
Upon arriving in Baghdad, Basim learns that five Order members have infiltrated the Caliphate's highest levels of power and are exploiting it to excavate or rebuild ancient Isu artifacts. He proceeds to hunt down four of the Order members, assassinating them and their subordinates and foiling their respective plots. During this time, Basim reunites with Nehal, who is distrustful of the Hidden Ones and encourages Basim to investigate the artifacts sought by the Order, believing they are both somehow linked to them. Eventually, Basim confronts the Order's leader, al-Mutawakkil's former concubine Qabiha, who claims that the answers he seeks lie in an Isu temple underneath Alamut. Qabiha then tries to convince Basim to accompany her to the temple, but Roshan kills her and warns Basim not to investigate any further.
Disobeying Roshan, Basim travels to Alamut with Nehal, only to find the fortress under siege by the Order's forces. Basim rescues many captured Hidden Ones and rallies them to fight off the attack while he heads to the temple after convincing Rayhan that the knowledge held within could be used to defeat the Order. However, he is confronted by Roshan, who reveals that she is aware of Basim's true nature and attempts to stop him from entering the temple, fearing what it may awaken within Basim. Basim defeats Roshan, but spares her life and enters the temple with Nehal. Inside, he finds more disk-shaped artifacts and discovers that the temple used to be a prison where the Isu Loki was once held. Basim also realizes that Nehal never existed; both she and the jinni were representations of his repressed memories as Loki. Deciding to embrace his nature as Loki's reincarnation, Basim "fuses" with Nehal and regains Loki's memories.
After leaving the temple, Basim is welcomed back into the Hidden Ones, while Roshan resigns in protest. Now fully aware of his past life as Loki, Basim muses that he has been reborn in a new world, and looks forward to a "reunion" with those who were responsible for his imprisonment.
Valley of Memory Sometime before his confrontation with Qabiha, Basim is told by his friend Dervis of a painting made by the former's estranged father, Is'haq ibn Khalid, which suggests he is at the ancient city of al-Ula. Having not seen his father since he was mysteriously exiled from Samarra years prior, Basim and Dervis travel to al-Ula together to find answers. During his investigation, Basim learns of a gang of robbers terrorizing the local populace and is captured and imprisoned by their leader, 'Abis. After escaping and killing 'Abis, Basim discovers that the robbers have kidnapped Is'haq.
Following a trail of clues, Basim learns that Is'haq is being held hostage by the true leader of the robbers, a local merchant named Nimlot, who seeks revenge on Basim for killing his father—one of the Order members he assassinated in Baghdad. Basim infiltrates Nimlot's stronghold and kills him, saving Is'haq, though he is disheartened to learn his father is suffering from dementia and still believes himself to be in Samarra. As Is'haq recalls his past, Basim accompanies him to a nearby tomb, where Is'haq recounts his memories of Basim and Basim's late mother, revealing how much he loves them both. Unwilling to reveal his identity to Is'haq, Basim parts ways with him and returns to Dervis, glad to finally have a sense of closure so he can focus on his future endeavors.
Development Prior to its announcement at Ubisoft Forward on 10 September 2022, details about Mirage leaked–under the codename Rift–when it was revealed that the game started out as an expansion pack for Assassin's Creed Valhalla before being turned into a standalone release.
Mirage has been described as a smaller Assassin's Creed title, with the main campaign lasting around 15–20 hours, similar to older games in the franchise. It was designed to celebrate the series' 15th anniversary, in which the developers used the technology built for Valhalla to create a game that pays tribute to the first Assassin's Creed.
On 4 June 2023, it was announced that the game would be the first in the series to feature an Arabic dubbing, with Jordanian actor Eyad Nassar voicing Basim in this version.
The game includes an educational database on the history of Baghdad, in which articles are gradually unlocked as the player progresses. These illustrate 9th-century Abbasid culture with photographs of objects from the Khalili Collections, the David Collection, Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art and the Institut du Monde Arabe. The creation of the database involved four academic experts in Islamic art, and was supported with grants from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council and the charity Barakat Trust.