Assassin's Creed Mirage has been billed as a 'smaller' more traditional Assassin's Creed title since the day it was officially announced, and Ubisoft's still pushing that perspective as we creep closer to the game's October launch.
In an interview with French YouTube channel Julien Chièze (as translated by PCGamesN), lead producer Fabian Salomon gives some insight into how long Mirage actually takes to beat. Salomon says internal playtesting has shown that a "rushed" playthrough lasts roughly 20 hours, while a much more complete run takes anywhere between 25 and 30 hours.
If these figures are fairly accurate, then we're obviously looking at a much smaller adventure than what we've grown accustomed to with the series' 'open world RPG trilogy'. That is, Assassin's Creed Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla — all of which could last you close to or well over 100 hours if you included update content and expansions.
Indeed, Mirage seems to fall in line with, again, more traditional Assassin's Creed releases. Each of the Ezio games, for example, took around 30-ish hours to complete, so that's the kind of scope we're expecting from Basim's origin story. It's also worth noting that Mirage is a lower price release, retailing at $50 / £45 or thereabouts, rather than the full $70 / £60 price tag we've come to associate with current-gen blockbusters.
How do you feel about Assassin's Creed Mirage? Are you relieved to hear that it's a lot shorter than recent titles? Keep things tight in the comments section below.
[source youtube.com, via pcgamesn.com, eurogamer.net]
Comments 44
As long as the focus is on quality and fun - this sounds like good idea at the lower price point.
But really instead of game length and comparing it to other games Ubisoft needs to really focus on making a good game people will enjoy. The company seems to be running on bad algorithms lately.
Yes this is great news. Hopefully the story will be memorable and the setting/characters will be ‘realistic’ for the time period.
Gotta say I’m shocked by the cheaper price to be honest. Lot of 30 hour games priced at the full ‘next-gen’ price.
Good on you Ubisoft.
Well thank God for that. I will buy this game as a sign of support for the direction of travel, it doesn't look particularly ambitious but if the narrative and historical setting is great and accurate then I'm all in.
And that price gives me more nostalgia than the game loool
It doesn't need to be a problem as long as missions and side quests have quality. They need to add to the story and overall experience. Just don't give us 20 hours of uninteresting forgettable fetch quests like collecting feathers.
I need this game to be good.
If it sucks, this will probably be my last game in this franchise.
I found Odyssey underwhelming and Valhalla a major letdown.
The promise of returning to their roots with Mirage is the only thing keeping me interested at this moment. I need Ubisoft to fulfill that promise.
@itsfoz They have to know people simply wait on Ubi games to hit a lower price on "sale". At some point they have to dig in and keep their games at the retail price for longer than a few months.
That is what they are doing here. They have to re-establish brand and pricing.
gl they used to be really good.
Honestly my most anticipated release of the Fall season. Everything I've seen and heard about this game has me very pumped. Not much longer now!
Im surprised they reduced the price
It's Shrinkflation on games now!!! Well at least the price shrunk with it. Really surprised TBH.
I've played AC since the first on PS3 and Odyssey still remains my favourite to this day, with Black Flag second. These games were enhanced by the map sizes. I'm fine with the new game being smaller and going back to the era of the Assassins, but the previous few games are not bad and definitely not worse because of their size.
It was a good endeavour to see how big they could make their games and a lot of people missed the blatantly obvious, that changes from Origins onward were because they were prequels to the Assassins. People also didn't understand that if Ubisoft did not change things up the franchise would have probably died due to repetition fatigue. It's happened to other franchises.
I like Odyssey and Valhalla for what they are but I can’t deny that they’re bloody tiring towards the end. Well up for this!
@JohntheRaptor The sheer size and seamlessness of Odyssey's map blew me away at the time, and it was one of the reasons I enjoyed it so much. But I understand that kind of scale might not be for everyone, especially since Valhalla was so huge as well.
This is music to my ears. Love AC, but I get burnt out on them. Origins and Odyssey, I got worn out like a third of the way in and Valhalla, I got much further before burn out, but it still happened. It lucked out on being pretty much the only PS5 game when the console came out, perhaps? I dunno. I liked it a lot, but the amount of content did get daunting and repetitive.
Anyway, 20-30 hours is the perfect length for them, so I’m really excited to play enough to want more. It’s better to want more than be so stuffed you never want to eat again, you know?
Will be waiting for a 20 bucks sale then.
@JohntheRaptor i'll agree odyssey was my fave too and i saw it through to the platnium. I was really digging valhalla too but jesus its a time sink and then some. I'll revisit it at some point to wrap it up but i'm seriously invested in diablo 4 for the next god knows how long 🤣
I'm glad it's much shorter. I pre-ordered Valhalla, and then decided to wait until all the additional content had been released as I hate returning to games, and forgetting what I had done in them before. So I patiently waited, and then once all the content had dropped, I looked at the ridiculous amount of time I would have to put into the game to get it all done, and... still haven't got round to playing it. The game is just too big. It'll take too much of my time, and as much as I like big games, this one is just mahoosive, plus, after a while, with Assassin's Creed games, you are just doing the same activities time and again, so they become repetitive and boring.
So, I'm more than happy to return to the shorter format...
I’m also very happy they are returning to a shorter format. 25 hours sounds ideal for an AC game.
Valhalla is the first game to get me to say "this game has too much content" out loud while playing.
I welcome this. Origins and Odyssey were great but I grew bored and the only thing putting me off starting Valhalla is the length.
Like the few folks with grand taste above, Odyssey is my favourite too. I even favour Kassandra over Ezio as the best AC protagonist.
As long as the game and story itself is great, I really don’t mind.
Sounds like they are making good moves.
I greatly prefer the detailed vertical city maps of the old Assassin’s Creeds versus the huge horizontal game worlds of the more modern open world games.
Prefer a game with more hours of gameplay so probably won’t be getting this. We’re all different but 20-30 hours is just too short
I see this being some average 70s on Metacritic, would be surprised if it does better than that. It's a test case on how going back to linear AC is going to be received. Open world AC ftw, or maybe they should just drop the name AC so we can stop hearing "not an AC game" comments and enjoy the open worlds in peace.
I've completed Origins and all the bloat therein, but have yet to play Odyssey and Valhalla and I do plan on playing those before this. However, if this gets decent reviews, I will buy it close to launch and at full price because I do want my wallet to vote for games with this type of length (and the cheaper price point is welcome too), even if I probably won't get around to playing it any time this decade
Im in. AC is great, but i never digged the endless unfinishable episodes.
I really liked AC for what it was: a game I would buy yearly, play for a month, enjoy my time and then move on. It was a snack to me, but I understand that Ubisoft wanted to make AC into a main course. As a result it lost some of its charm to me, so I'm happy for something like this.
It's hard to imagine they'll make a lot of money from it, but I'm happy it exists!
This is perfect. Ideal lenght.
I'm skeptical of the price point. Ubisoft doesn't seem like the type to decide a 20-30 hour game is not worth the AAA price (especially with their flagship franchise).
Hopefully I'm wrong but it seems like small scale means much more is being scaled back than just a tighter shorter story. Obviously the rpg elements like weapons and armor rating are probably gone too but why would Ubisoft view a brand new game in the old style as only worth AA pricing? If it is on par with Black Flag, syndicate or even 2/brotherhood I would think they would be confident people would buy it at $70.
Maybe Ubisoft has changed and is just being gracious with this price point but everything they have done in the past suggests otherwise. They are notorious for the copy/paste sequels that come out at full price then immediately price drop. For them to acknowledge that a new Assassins Creed game is not worth full price at launch worries me.
I’m staggered by that bombshell. head is still ringing, maybe they know most folk hold typically out until that price point now and want to revert to traditional practice of sales on launch?! Doubt
Didn’t Ubisoft say around announcement that mirage was a much shorter game? And people acting like it’s never been said before. Hence the lower price.
The game after this goes back to the open world formula
There is still Black Flag remastered coming so... that was my favourite one.
A shorter Assassin’s Creed game is VERY welcome. I loved Origins and Odyssey and everything in those games but Valhalla was a slog. It never seemed to end. Even after 200+ hours, hitting nearly every point of interest on the map, and fighting who I thought was the final enemy - I don’t really think I actually finished it. I loved Eivor and their whole crew but holy cow that game needed a proper ending.
I'm always looking for redemption arcs from the AAA companies so I hope UbiSoft can just about do that with the upcoming titles.
It's funny that publishers got so used to huge 100+ hours open-world games that a 20-30 hours game is considered small and not worth a full price tag.
Not complaining about paying less, just wondering why won't they create more "smaller" games if you can even make a profit with a cheaper price tag...
quite shocked this stale franchise still has some fans left... i guess that means it hasn't quite hit rock bottom yet.
There's nothing wrong with large, sprawling games, but at least populate it with meaningful stories instead of tired, exhausting, repetitive fetch quests and collectibles. There are precisely zero developers who can keep a 100+ hour game fresh. Just give us linear adventures with semi-open environments, that last around 10 to 20 hours. I don't know why that's such a taboo these days.
Completely fine with the story length, and the fact that they are releasing it at a lower price is great. As always with new games I will wait for reviews, but I am excited about this.
I fully respect and understand the fans of the original AC gameplay format. As for me, I only started liking AC since Origin and Odyssey, but Valhalla truly went overboard... To the point of being boring. And many people agree with me. I probably won't be buying Mirage, but I'm hoping "AC: Red" will be more in the style of Origins and Odyssey. Although I don't think so, because ninja's are supposed to be discrete, and the protagonists of the latest three games weren't.
Love this is smaller and shorter. The other games have dragged a bit imo
As long as it's not a crap game, all for it.
"Kill 10,000 enemies (single player mode only)"
Yeah could Devs please stop with stuff like this, we are all TIRED!!
@ChronoBreak777 Ass Creed: Origins was soo good, even after getting the plat and doing ALL of the DLC, i felt like they hit it on the head, time wise. I heard Odyssee (sp) and Valhalla were just too effin long so I didn't even want to play them, i just don't have the life hours to spend doing that type of stuff. Give me a 30-40 hour game that I can stretch to how ever long I want it, but I want it to be MY choice, not by the devs doing. With time being the only thing we humans can't make or 3d print, as we get older it becomes more valuable.
its funny how shorter games get shat on and the companies that make them get all this vitriol, when your average gamer has like DOZENS of games that they haven't even started or finished yet!! We are all consumption who***, just finish playing the games you have and spent money on, rather than slobbering at the mouth for everything that is dropping every month or so!!
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