Assassin’s Creed Mirage is getting a major piece of DLC and it’s exactly how Ubisoft should be treating their series from the beginning. Valley of Memory, a major expansion to Mirage’s story, is set for release this November 17.
Ubisoft Bourdeaux’s continued efforts to make a true Assassin’s Creed experience is finally perfected with this coming update.
A Focused Narrative
Right off the bat, what makes Mirage different from the modern Assassin’s Creed titles is its focused narrative. There aren't fifty different contract missions, five hundred objective markers plastered on the map, or multiple bounties to hunt; it’s just Basim and his quest to find out the true origins of his lineage.
Valley of Memory continues Basim’s coming-of-age story, and it will focus on finding his missing father. In his search for answers, he finds himself in the DLCs new area, the ancient Arbabian city of Al-Ula, recreated from the ground up with Ubisoft’s open-world expertise.
Improved Parkour and Free Jump Make a Return
One of the biggest additions to Valley of Memory is its overhauled parkour system. Players are no longer constrained by the geometry of Mirage’s open world looking for scalable objects. They can now parkour wherever they want, however they want thanks to the game’s Free Jumping system. It’s a mechanic that has long existed in the classic Assassin’s Creed titles but absent in the modern entries, and Mirage revisits it for players itching for more freedom of movement when it comes to parkour.
Replayable Missions and Challenges
Another major addition to Mirage’s Valley of Memory DLC is replayable missions, something that’s absent in the modern RPG Assassin’s Creed titles. These games thrive on experimentation with their stealth system and how players approach quests differently, but without any way to replay them, replay value kind of gets lost with all the fluff in their bloated open worlds.
Mirage fixed this by providing an Animus system that allows players to replay every black box mission in-game. They even went the extra mile by adding challenges, which includes extra rules like “No Eagle Vision” or “No Assassination,” just like the classic titles.
All of this is FREE!
The final and most important thing about the upcoming Valley of Memory update is that all of it is completely FREE. You aren’t going to be spending any Helix Coins or whatever in-game resource Ubisoft throws at us.
Valley of Memory guarantees over six hours of gameplay with its story and side-activities. It maintains the series’ roots by creating a focused narrative, non-bloated open-world and replay value that encourages experimentation. The fact that Mirage is one of the first modern AC titles that understood what the fans want is already telling us that Ubisoft Bordeaux has the potential for making another entry in the franchise with the same level of attention and detail.
It’s a shame that the other Assassin’s Creed titles fail to recognize that these improvements are basically what players have wanted from the get-go.
Future Assassin’s Creed titles should take a page to how Ubisoft Bordeaux handles Mirage, as it checks all the right boxes for the “true” Assassin’s Creed experience that longtime fans are craving.
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