Summary

• Assassin's Creed Mirage returns to the franchise's roots, focusing on stealth and set in a stunning recreation of Baghdad.
• The game's map size is similar to Assassin's Creed Unity's Paris, making it smaller and more manageable compared to the massive maps of recent entries.
• The developers faced challenges in recreating a lost city like 9th-century Baghdad but worked with historians to piece together as much knowledge as possible for accuracy.

Assassin's Creed Mirage has been a return to the franchise's roots, with a smaller, more stealth-focused title set in a stunning recreation of Baghdad in the year 861. The title tells the origin of Basim Ibn Ishaq, a character who was introduced in the franchise's last title, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, by which time he was already a Master Assassin on his travels to Norway​​​​​.

Assasin's Creed Mirage's story brings the series back by returning to the Middle East. Many years before Altair's story in the first Assassin's Creed, which took place during the Third Crusade in the Holy Land (modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Syria), a 17-year-old Basim worked alongside his mentor, Roshan. He would go on to grow from being a common street thief in Baghdad to a fully-fledged member of the Hidden Ones by taking down of The Order of the Ancients.

Ubisoft Previously Compared AC Mirage's Map To Past Games'

Assassin's Creed Mirage's developers compared the game's map to previous entries in the long-running series during 2023's Summer Game Fest. During this interview, Ubisoft stated that Assassin's Creed Mirage's depiction of Baghdad would be similar in scale to Constantinople in 2011's Assassin's Creed Revelations and Paris in 2014's Assassin's Creed Unity. However, these maps varied quite significantly in size. The Constantinople map was 0.94 km², whereas Assassin's Creed Unity took advantage of the improved hardware available with the release of the PS4 and Xbox One and offered a hugely detailed Paris map more than twice as large at 2.40 km².

This comparison was presumably intended to point out a difference between the scale of Assassin's Creed Mirage and the massive maps of the franchise's last three mainline entries, Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. After years of the franchise using a similar formula with annual releases, Ubisoft opted to change the direction of the series by adding more ARPG elements and showcasing huge open-world maps consisting of parts of Egypt, Greece, Norway, and England. Valhalla's total map size came in at over 99.7 km², which is a far cry from the likes of Revelations and Unity.

While this change has received praise from many, there are of the Assassin's Creed fandom who have complained that these games feel too large for their own good and would rather see the series return to its roots. Fortunately, Ubisoft seems to be catering to both parts of the fanbase with smaller, stealth-heavy titles like Assassin's Creed Mirage and larger ARPG titles like the Japan-based Assassin's Creed: Codename Red in the coming years.

How Big Is AC Mirage's Baghdad Map?

Assassin's Creed Mirage's Baghdad map will be around 2.30 km², which is nearer to the size of Assassin's Creed Unity's Paris than Assassin's Creed Revelations' Constantinople. Previously, images of the game's physical copies — some of which included a physical map — revealed that players could visit the surrounding areas outside the city, such as the Abbasiyah, Harbiyah, and Karkh districts, and Alamut. The latter of which should be familiar to long-term fans of the franchise as a major stronghold of the Hidden Ones and Assassins.

This led YouTuber DG VFX to make calculations using gameplay footage objective markers. According to these calculations, Assassin's Creed Mirage's total map size is 45 km², with the playable area being 13 km². This makes the game larger than both of the titles Ubisoft previously compared it to, but fortunately, much smaller and more manageable than entries such as Odyssey or Valhalla​​​​.

AC Mirage's Baghdad Recreation Was A Challenge

While the Assassin's Creed series does have its mythical and fantasy elements, it has also been known for its incredibly detailed reconstructions of real-world locations. The most famous example was when Assassin's Creed Unity's depiction of Notre Dame was used to assist in rebuilding the real Paris landmark after a structural fire in April 2019. Ubisoft and its team of designers, artists, and historians who had spent years researching and recreating the cathedral and offered its 3D model to the French government and other organizations involved in the effort. The company also pledged to donate half a million Euros to help with the restoration and encouraged fans to donate as well.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Assassin's Creed Mirage's depiction of Baghdad is following this trend. Assassin's Creed Mirage's Art Director, Jean-Luc Sala — who has a personal connection to the location, having grown up on the other side of the Tigris River from Baghdad in Iran before moving when he was 11 — had previously spoken on the challenge of recreating a 9th-century version of the Iraqi capital with Gamesradar+.

The main challenges stemmed from the fact that Baghdad during that time was technically a lost city after being burned down by the Mongols in the 13th Century. Therefore, little is known about the location in that era, and historians actually wished the team at Ubisoft Bordeaux luck with their recreation, warning them that the lack of information would be "problematic."

Developers Worked With Historians For Accuracy

This didn't deter the team, however, who continued to work with historians and scholars around the globe to piece together as much knowledge as they could from archeology and references in literature to recreate the location as faithfully as possible. Sala stated, "It's not 100% accurate, but this is the best it can show," and explained that historians can now use the game's 3D model to talk more about the subject.

According to Sala, Dr. Ali A. Olomi, the esteemed historian of the Middle East and Islamic history, was "like a kid" when Ubisoft showed him around Assassin's Creed Mirage's recreation of Baghdad. Olomi had spent his life studying that period and that city, and therefore, Sala stated that it was an incredibly "emotional" experience for both the professor and the developers, showing that Ubisoft's hard work and dedication had truly paid off.

Therefore, while Assassin's Creed Mirage's map may be smaller than other games in the series, it has plenty for players to explore. With the game taking place during what historians have referred to as the Golden Age of Islam, it should also offer a unique experience for those wishing to visit a previously unseen version of Baghdad and its surrounding areas via Basim's story and one that's extremely different from most modern depictions of the Middle East.

Source: DG VFX/YouTube, Gamesradar+