Datamined Assassin's Creed: Mirage scene makes fans speculate wildly about Desmond, the far future, and "simulations within simulations"

Dataminers have found an unused cutscene in Assassin’s Creed: Mirage that teases massive changes for the long-running series. Beware: possible spoilers for the series’ future ahead.

Dataminers have already dug into Assassin’s Creed: Mirage’s innards and found what’s believed to be a cut post-credits scene with a filename referencing Assassin’s Creed Neo, which is likely a codename for an upcoming game in the series. The scene - embedded below - gravitates around a futuristic antenna lodged into Mirage’s historical desert, all while two voices named “Animus Operator” provide voice-over.

Things get juicy when the two Animus Operators call our 21st century “ancient history,” implying that the conversation takes place in the far future. There’s also a reference to an event called “The Great Shift,” which apparently took place in the series’ version of the 21st century. 

Publisher Ubisoft hasn’t confirmed whether the footage is real or not, and there’s also no clue as to why the scene might have been removed. Perhaps the series’ plans changed direction. Maybe upcoming games - such as the Japan-based Assassin’s Creed Red and the spookier Assassin’s Creed Hexe -  won’t venture into the far future. But none of that has stopped fans from speculating.

SPOILERS - Thoughts on THAT THING that surfaced yesterday from r/assassinscreed

On the Assassin’s Creed subreddit, user Selection3209 recalls a scene from Valhalla: “When Layla talks about the reader needing to look into simulations where Desmond didn’t save the world to look for solutions, this could explain where this comes from. Maybe Hexe will deal with one of these simulations of the future.” 

Redditor eldenbond took things a step further and theorized that maybe we were actually playing as an Animus Operator the whole time. Someone who re-experienced Desmond’s memories in the early games, rather than Desmond re-experiencing Ezio's. “I'm typically not a fan of ‘simulations within simulations’ that the AC franchise has started to get into,” they said, “but man, what a fun reveal that would be.” With this pseudo-multiverse setup in play, Ubisoft could even decide to bring back older fan favorites like Ezio. Though, surely some stories deserve a proper ending, right?

Redditor tisbruce had a more conservative (but still exciting) theory: “Players keep posting on here about their desire for an entirely modern-day game, but here’s Ubisoft possibly shifting the modern-day content into the future. Now that is interesting.” 

Multiverses? Another time jump? Memories within memories? We should have more concrete answers when Ubisoft releases Assassin’s Creed Red, a game that was recently rumored to come out next year. There’s also the nebulous Assassin’s Creed: Infinity, which sounds more like a hub connecting the historical stab-a-thons, although Ubisoft’s been relatively tight-lipped about the project. 

Here’s Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s ending explained, for another deep dive on series lore.