I'm a longtime fan of this series, but I had absolutely begun to miss the tighter scope of the original games. Valhalla was far too big and longwinded, and I could never bring myself to complete it.

So going into Mirage I was excited for a return to basics, and a reduced scope. I was also really amped to explore Abbasid Caliphate era Baghdad. On each of these points I think AC Mirage really succeeds, and (overall) I did really enjoy my time with it.

There are however a couple of things that reduce my personal score a little.

The realism of the parkour means you often feel really slow. I'm of the opinion that even if it's unrealistic, they could serve to increase the speed of some of the parkour animations and the blends between them so I really feel as acrobatic as possible. Travelling around the city and across rooftops should be a major draw of these games, and it needs to be fast. They need to do for AC parkour what the Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 did for Spidey web-swinging.

Secondly, the combat has gone back to a simpler style and whilst I appreciate that it now has some difficulty if you're not playing it well - it's a pretty boring system and I do kinda wish there were a little more to it.

Thirdly, and this is perhaps the more important one. Basim's personal journey is something that anyone who finished Valhalla (or read about the ending like I did) will know the key aspects for. But anyone playing Mirage as their first AC is going to be extremely lost by a lot of what happens in the last section of the game. I feel like they could have done more with presenting this game as a potential first AC for someone, and onboarded some of the weird lore a lot better.

Anyway, it's pretty good. If you liked old AC and didn't like the rpg ACs, you'll probably be in for a good time.