Assassin’s Creed Mirage is going back to the series’ roots with an emphasis on stealthy stabbing and a leaner historical setting to explore. That smaller world is thankfully reflected in the game’s length, as Mirage will be around five times shorter than the last mammoth entry in the series, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
That’s according to Ubisoft’s lead producer Fabian Salomon who recently chatted with French YouTuber Julien Chièze to talk about the upcoming Baghdad-based sequel. “Given that we do a lot of playtesting internally at Ubisoft, it’s part of our process, we really want to get as close as possible to the players, so we’ll say that the latest playtimes we’ve received average at around 20-23 hours,” said Salomon. “That can go up to 25-30 hours for the completionists, and we’ll say that those who will be rushing the game will be around 20 hours.” Thanks to PCGamesN for the transcriptions.
HowLongToBeat - the site that shows average playtime - sheds some light on how Mirage’s length compares to previous entries in the series. Both Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Odyssey can take around 140 hours to fully complete, while simply beating the main game takes between 45-60 hours.
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Mirage’s leaner 20-hour runtime should be encouraging to fans of the older, more traditional entries in Ubisoft’s series. Fan favourites Assassin’s Creed II and Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag can be beaten in about 20-25 hours. No bloated open worlds in Mirage, then. Phew.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage harkens back to that era in more ways than one, though. The game’s parkour system is “closer to the Ezio games,” and its map is roughly the same size as Revelations’ Constantinople. Although the upcoming game is also revamping much of what made the series beloved in the first place.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage comes out on October 12th, close to other big releases such as Alan Wake 2 and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. So the shorter playtime should help us get through all the exciting newness.
In the meantime, be sure to check out every new Assassin’s Creed game in development. Bigger RPG-ish games are in the pipeline, just in case you were a fan of that style.
