I pretty much agree I expected what was shown after following the game for so long. It looks to be a good middle ground game that both sides of the fanbase could enjoy. I hope they keep leaning in this direction, I'd like to see them go back to advanced movement systems again with the next titles.
That's my exact thought, yeah. Assassin's Creed without advanced movement is just missing something, a core part of its essence. As much as I think I'll enjoy this game, I'm never going to stop wanting to be able to fling myself around however I wish.
Well, it doesn't look like something RPG players would enjoy much, because it doesn't really have RPG elements beyond maybe some light crafting like in AC4. So this game is made specifically for the fans of the linear AC experience and I have yet to find people who prefer Origins-style gameplay over some of the previous titles (be it AC1, Ezio Trilogy, Kenway saga or Unity) among these non-RPG AC fans. With that in mind, I hope this game is not just a one-off cash grab but a serious direction shift where they do "one for us, one for them", cycling between a more classic-inspired release and their big RPG games. And if that's the case, I hope they'll eventually expand this very limiting engine with some of the awesome features lost to previous games.
@@bloodymares codename red will likely be another RPG game but if we want Ubisoft to go in this direction we need to focus on the positive rather than the negative. Sure the parkour will likely be worse than the non-RPG games but it is still a move in the right direction with the limited resources this team has. People point out the game’s flaws because they expect this to be a full return to form when this team was given very limited resources to pull this off, this game basically is like if you had Halo ODST in how it went from a dlc to a full game because it was a completely opposite direction from the game it is based off with Fallout New Vegas’ development, which Obsidian was given few resources and had a very small team and a very tight development time. If Ubi were to delay this game for a year or more sure they could change the animations and maybe make parkour even better but Ubi wants to test the market now and it can’t have much longer in-between releases. Also for what we’re getting from what I see, $40 is more than a fair price considering Ubisoft could’ve just made it $70 like they’re doing for their other mainline games. If we show that we are glad and want this direction to continue and Ubisoft sees that this is just as if not more profitable than the RPG direction then I’d say give them 3-4 years and we’ll see that shift in direction. That’s how long it took for them to respond to the backlash Unity received as everyone back then said the AC formula was stale, and Ubi made the series essentially into a cookie cutter Witcher clone as they thought that would innovate enough for the old fans while also bringing in new ones. This may not be the game we were completely hoping for it’s the game we need right now as fans of the series.
I absolutely love the vocabulary and wordplay you use in your scripts, it feels like you're able to articulate EXACTLY how you (and indirectly many others) feel about the goings on of AC.
Thank you. It's really hard to find the words to express what I want to say, sometimes. I know there are probably a few people who don't always understand what I'm saying, and I don't always have the time to define every term I'm using, but if I'm a little more imprecise I also won't be able to convey what I'm trying to, so I have to make a sacrifice somewhere.
@@marcosa1961Exactly. Also, I learned so much about game design and similar topics from Leo's videos ever the years, that's why one watches a YT video on a topic that's interesting to them, to learn and know more, creators like that are gold.
We need more popular TH-camrs who think like you. I respect the hell out of you keeping a level head about everything. Looking forward to your vids when the game comes out 😁
Thanks so much. There are definitely some really good creators to listen to about this topic, and I've found new things to think about every time I hear one out.
That's unlikely to happen because people love to listen to youtubers either completely trash a property or shower it with love and praise. There are exceptions though.
@@ziwuriNot really, it's more just everyone doesn't want to support the company anymore. They've gotten greedy to the point of ruining a franchise, and if you actually look at what's happening internally in the company it's disgusting (extreme amounts of SH) etc.
I just wanted to say thank you for coming at the game with the most unbiased and unemotional response I’ve seen so far. It’s a really fresh perspective!
While I'm not sold with how they handle the parkour mechanics, I love the fact that they did try to re-create the complex parkour environment. The stealth is clearly a big improve over the RPG games, that's for sure. Collapsable objects, Cherry bombs and Poison mines may create lots of opportunities for creative stealth kills.
I'm really right there with you on the various stealth verbs we're getting here. My only hope is that the general flow of stealth feels as good as they want us to believe, and that nothing is egregiously broken.
Yeah I can see myself using trap mines for guards that patrol for example. Like even if you could potentially just use a throwing knife, there is situations when you only can get in close enough when they would see you first. So you could set a trap in a moment you couldn't get quite to them but they also wouldn't see you.
thank you for the comment on the aesthetics of assassin focus, so many people bitch about it when we had a magical apple that controls people's minds, we had arno magically instantly morph into an npc as a disguise, but this is where they draw the line apparently
You're welcome! I really wanted to express how I feel about it since anything that pushes the Present Day or Animus layer is part of why I love this universe.
The runaway expectations section really describes the community perfectly. I love AC but the community’s toxicity makes it hard to share that love… As for my own feelings on the game, it’s exactly what I expected and I’m excited for it!
There's gotta be people who can relate to that or feel a little called out, but that was literally me, over and over and over, for years. I'm not above that myself, but I'm definitely more grounded and cautious in my approach these years. I've been misled and had expectation whiplash way too many times, and it's a horrible feeling I tried to help people avoid, but there's only so much I can do.
You've essentially explained what this smaller team at Ubisoft meant when they said "back to the roots". Your emphasis on the environment/world design and opportunities and with the 'dropping ezio in valhalla' example was great! Watching the gameplay for the first time I could not see anything but those original AC aesthetics/elements from the earlier games. Working with the system they have, I can totally see this game being the homage to AC 1 that they claimed. I do think fans can get too caught up in their constructed expectations of game but thanks for bringing it back to reality. Great video!
You're welcome, I'm glad I could bring out something of value. I definitely don't place full blame on players who expected more though, to some extent Ubisoft's messaging around this game kept itself vague and was kind of unclear about what their intentions were or what they could realistically deliver. I imagine if a lot of classic fans were told up-front, hey, movement is going to be _very similar_ to Valhalla, they'd probably feel less led-on. Blackboxes/Assassinations being freeform again is kind of huge for me though. I think if you're an AC fan or someone who enjoyed Unity, there's no way you don't like that.
Man, I feel like I learn something almost every time I watch one of your videos. This video sums up why you're my favorite person on here that talks about AC: you care about the series, think it through and have nuanced takes, don't get all clickbaity, and actually know what makes them work as games and how they can be better. I also like that you don't JUST do AC, you have a variety of stuff. I'm a little bummed about how parkour looks, but it's an improvement for sure. One thing I didn't like is that the ledge takedown moves the camera, but I don't like it when the game takes away camera control outside cutscenes. What I love though is the stealth focus, and that the smoke bomb is red. That's just cool. Sorry for writing an essay, I got excited 😅
I appreciate your comment! Yeah, I also am not a fan of how ledge-assassinates just yank our camera away, I would love to be able to disable that, heh. Air Assassinates basically jail you the same way in ACV, in this game they look a _bit_ less annoying in that regard. (I definitely get clickbaity sometimes, though. :P)
I hope high-profile ledge assassinations are back, they let you move with momentum while also assasinating a target and simultaneously the body doesn't drop down, which you don't want in certain specific situations :v also they wouldn't take away the camera control, since the player is in movement lol
I've been a fan of yours ever since those advanced tips on Unity. Love your analysis here, you always find such great ways to convey your thoughts in a way that makes perfect sense. Hope all is well with you!
@@plagidoktor5812 what he means is back in ac1 after completing something the animus will say fast forwarding to a more recent one. They used it as a Type of fast forward, pause, play, and rewind. So my guess is in mirage for assassins focus the animus will glitch and fast forward to the assassinations
@@xottic.brotherhood and why do u assume that I don't know about it? I played AC1 and i understand what Leo is reffering to. Im just asking MasterAssassin about his thoughts on this kind of an explanation
I swear you are and will be to me the best well spoken and thought-true youtuber that analyzed this with realistic expectation while still being true to your self and is why i really appreciate you as a youtuber. Noted: Thank you LeoK you are one of thef ew that actually understand the literally basic AC lore explanation of how Assassin focus work.
Few? Literally anyone who played Batman Arkham Knight would understand how this feature plays. I'm more impressed by the fact that he accurately predicted the limitations of Assassin Focus.
@@nnnnmhughuuhhjiijj9457 I don't think they were referencing how the mechanic works. They mentioned the lore explanation, that being the Animus Basim's memories are being re-lived through just can't render Basim moving at such sudden and fast speeds, which is why it represents it as teleporting.
I'm glad you're talking up how Assassin Focus looks visually, I've seen people complain that it looks too 'mythological' or 'fantastical' when it's very clearly an homage to the sci-fi roots of the franchise; we are in a synthetic mind-box that is replaying memories, and that box has limitations. It's just that we've gone so long without actually seeing those limitations that people will simply assume it's fantasy nonsense, when in reality the Animus is struggling to render what's going on for Basim's immense speed, likely due to his status as reincarnated Isu or something. I've been looking forward to your video discussing the gameplay, and I'm glad to agree with you on basically everything. Still holding out hope for more advanced movement options, but if we don't get them then it won't be a surprise either.
Appreciate your understanding. ^_^ I love Present Day and the Animus layer deeply, so this is charming for me, for sure. About the only thing I envision in terms of potential parkour juice is that the density of environments has a small chance to make more attempted ejects register as "valid" despite the action's refusal to activate due to its short range in the Layla Saga.
Your video and mine are definitely complementary, haha. Yours was the optimistic but nuanced breakdown of the good with brief, fair acknowledgement of the bad, while mine briefly touches on the good and has a bit of an emotional lament of the bad 😅 Great video, Leo. Agree with basically everything.
Thank you, man. I really can't disagree with the criticisms too much either, I mean everyone basically knows I Want More and have for years, but since there's no way we're getting it, I'm just kinda like "It Is What It Is v_v"
@@LeoKRogue for sure; that’s really understandable and I feel the same way regarding the game itself. I have no doubt that I would enjoy Mirage in the event that I play it someday, even with parkour being awful (I mean, I was really enjoying _Valhalla_ until that patch completely ruined stealth, so Mirage is a big step up from that😅). It’s more so the advertising that I felt I needed to address, because they’ve kind of been speaking like Mirage’s parkour is a modern take on AC1-Rev parkour and I simply could not let that go unchallenged 😆
@@jcersHard disagree on them saying parkour stating that it was gonna be something like Ac1-Rev. It's been stated a few times that the parkour was just gonna be a more "advanced" version of origins parkour.
Thank you for not hate-mongering on this game. Obviously, the parkour is disappointing. But the stealth looks really fun, and it is clear they are at least trying.
I hope no one actually reads this but if they sold me the ability to free-eject for five dollars I would genuinely buy that shit instantly. I'm hungry. x_x (The stealth does look very fun, I think I'll be able to put together some cool things.)
Honestly I was expecting the worse and didn’t believe a word of anything they were saying. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by what we got to see, this is the way the rpg games should have gone while improving parkour not taking away from it. Parkour still looks stiff and not much control, but looks better then valhallas janky movement. So I will likely support this and hope for more ac games like this moving forward.
That was basically my approach to the entire marketing cycle, yeah, haha Like, there's no way I was believing anything completely until I saw it with my own eyes, I've been promised the world before by Ubi's PR too.
To be fair on the issue of stiff-looking parkour - it would PROBABLY be far more time-consuming for the devs to try and make Valhalla's parkour system un-"stiff" than it would be to just leave it as it is (maybe with some minor tweaks) and instead design a map with the limitations (the parkour system) already has in mind. This could be entirely wrong, though, as I'm not a developer at Ubisoft. I'm just some random on the internet.
i really can’t express how much i agree with you on the first part of video. the saddest part is that i know the exact feeling that hyped person is going through and i really don’t want anymore people to keep getting disappointed. AC gotta be really one the biggest missed potential in gaming. such a shame
Really appreciate that you did your best to keep everyone's expectations in check. After grounding myself after the initial hype, I'm really happy with what I saw and pretty much agree with everything you said here. On another note, I am playing Ghost of Tsushima for the first time, and I have been missing out for so long. Very excited to dive into your Ghost vids soon ^_^
Really love how you articulate your views and reasons. Also probably the most balanced take I've seen on the game. Obviously this game isnt offering us everything we want from an authentic AC experience, but we can certainly appreciate the effort being put in from the individual devs themselves. Honestly surprising to see this game even come out with the direction they've been going in recently. I just hope this isn't a one-off and they keep releasing titles like this in the future with hopefully more "back to the roots" things. Great video btw! Loved it.
Thank you so much. I think we will see more of these smaller, or more "classic-aligned" experiences over the years, judging by their stated intent for their publishing strategy in this article; www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-wants-to-make-more-focused-games-rather-than-have-one-game-do-everything
I'm actually kind of impressed. The stealth looks pretty good, and I think it's a step in the right direction. But like you said in one of your previous videos, AC has two massively different fanbases that they have to please. The different modes idea is something I have thought about for a lot of other games, but I think, given the circumstances, this may have been the best possible outcome.
Definitely, yeah, especially considering their new approach to building out different games for different playerbases: www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-wants-to-make-more-focused-games-rather-than-have-one-game-do-everything
@@LeoKRogue That's really promising. There seems to be many steps in the right direction, but using the advice of a wise man, best not to get too excited.
I could be entirely missing the mark on the materials, but 135 steel ingots feels like a lot for just tools and more personal stuff like armour or weapons. I think it's possible those materials may be to invest in the bureaus Basim was tasked with setting up, and I certainly hope it is as well--even though Valhalla had base-building and raiding missions (the sense of community I got when strolling through the village I helped build was about the only thing I actually liked about the game) I miss the days of Brotherhood when we actually had fellow Assassins to command and send on missions without us. It really made the Assassins feel like an actual shadowy organization that existed for centuries rather than the patchwork groups we've been shown in the games that followed.
That actually makes SO much more sense, yes. While Ubi might just be working with ridiculous numbers it's more reasonable that these are meant to be construction materials. Good mind.
The pressure to make crucial decisions is why I think I would enjoy this game. In the AC Series, the most rewarding moments to me were, when you did a mission and the way and path you CHOSE to do it worked smoothly. Now the best example for this is the assassination of Marie Levesque in AC Unity. Love that mission. It just hit that perfect sweetspot for me. You cannot go in headlessly. In Unity that is almost certain death or at least failure. And there is alot of guards, so it's not like it doesn't matter where you go as long as you go stealthy. But it is also easy enough to not have you try 5-6 times before finding a route that you probabaly still wouldn't be able to repeat. Also the replay value of well designed black box missions is just really high because you can try and figure out multiple approaches.
That's what appeals to me as well, and has for a long time. It's why it's a little deflating for me that Mirage won't have mission replay or quest replay of any kind. If it has manual saves we can drop before a mission, that's probably fine but it's never going to be as comfy and repeatable for the sake of developing interesting strats the way Unity's replayable memories were. As for Hoarders, that's probably my favorite Assassination in all of AC Unity as well. This is my best run of it I've ever done, and still one of my most popular stealth videos to date. I still get props on the ending today xD th-cam.com/video/909Zc-9VG7k/w-d-xo.html
Yeah same problem with AC2. Sometimes you finish a mission but it didn't go as smooth as you wanted, and you just want to try something else. Yeah I know that one, love it.
Great great video!! I 100% agree with basically every point you said, except for parkour, I'm still quite sad about the parkour, kinda like Jcers' vid. And also thaaank yooouuu for explaining the futuristic sci fi aesthetic choice with multi-kill. I feel like so many people aren't seeing the Animus stylistic choice there!
I was never expecting a revamped parkour system, just something smoother and more satisfying than the last few entries, and that’s exactly what we got. I think it looks great, it’s reasonably priced and definitely on my list of anticipated games for this year. Can’t remember the last time I was actually excited for an AC game
Time will tell if it really is all that much smoother, a lot of players have pointed out (with video examples) that Basim still has that long "delay" between landing on an object and moving to the next one. If there's one thing I hope they touch up, it's that. Overall, seems like it'll be a fun game, though.
I am so glad you said something about the Assassin's Focus ability. I have seen tons of people hate in it because it's "magic" and I couldn't believe that they were ignoring that it is basically an feature of the Animus. Thank you for keeping a level head, I enjoy watching your content immensely because you make sure to look at things from every angle! You're the best!
He's teleporting man. In an otherwise grounded world, him pulling out a move like that is pretty jarring. And it's a major game mechanic too. That's why some people are bothered by it
Nah, it's a bullshit excuse. Ubisoft is just too lazy to actually put in effort and make a cool animation like in Arkham Knight or Ghost of Tsushima, which they clearly drew inspiration from. They've proven time and time again that they are a company interested in cutting corners as much as humanly possible and squeezing as much profit as possible out of their half-baked projects.
Yup, thats the detailed analysis so far. I did not know about the smoke bomb on quick use and quick drop so that was cool. I'm feel okay with Assassin Focus, as it feels like Animus Magic than... magic and it is as OP as disguise in Unity. Can't wait to see more choreography shots with this :D
I am really hoping people like myself, Treviso, Lang etc can do something interesting with this game as far as exhibition/showcase videos are concerned. There's no mission replay so that already hurts it a little, but general gameplay seems conducive.
I never used Disguise in Unity for that reason. I want to play an assassin and work within the assassins limitations. Using the animus to hack the simulation and make it easier for you kinda cheapens the experience for me personally. If the PC can’t do it, I don’t want to be able to do it. But the assassin focus is pretty cool
@@Hoppelite it’s fair. I use it since the game offers me to and it doesn’t punish me for it. I like to test the limits the same way an animus user would. But in this case it’s not an animus hack/boost like assassin cache, community sense. I wonder if there are conditions to setup the assassin focus. Can I just select the target and then use the remaining for the ones on top? Because that’s sort of an exploit I would use to “manipulate” the animus that’s well within bounds. I tend to play trickster builds mostly so this is appealing 😅 but I get where you are coming from as well. It feels hacky but it’s a tool that the game provides that maximizes my play through.
completely agree! i'm also a bit sad the parkour is this simple. wished it was allot more like ac1 or unity, but whatever. maybe engine limits or they didn't have enough time to completely change up the movement. but i love that it's stealth focused again and i love the tools we are able to obtain. can't wait.
Another great video, Leo. One of the few people on this platform who truly understand what an Assassin's Creed game should be, very well expressed and said!
Focus being inherently skill-based is amazing. If you are more lethal, you will get more charge. Speed and lethality are encouraged more than ever. No more sitting in a bush planning your stealth sequence for an hour.
Yes. I genuinely love that, it makes sense mechanically and narratively. The Animus needs data from kills to extrapolate and fast-forward through a short kill-sequence, so you have to feed it that information by killing guards yourself. Neat idea.
I don’t appreciate the straw man of “if you don’t like Assassin’s Creed’s sci-fi elements…” in response to be people being upset about the presentation of the chain takedown. Whether it’s the pieces of Eden or the nature of the animus, most fans appreciate these parts of the games, but superpowers have never been a part of the franchise besides a fun dlc for AC3 and Odyssey/Valhalla. I already mentioned on another video that if it was presented better, such as a smoke bomb that clouds the players vision or the fear multi-takedown from Arkham knight then people would have no issue with it. In regards to the rest of the video I actually completely agree, there’s plenty of hints for AC fans to be cautiously optimistic.
More details I noticed in the gameplay walkthrough video: - The assassination animations is a mixture of Valhalla and Unity. In the gameplay trailer, you can clearly see two high profile assassination animations ported from Valhalla and in the gameplay walkthrough you can see two new low profile assassination animations heavily inspired by Unity (leg kicking and mouth covering one to be specific, and both are zoomed in while the animation occurs, just like in Unity). Though, I wish they re-added the crouch assassination from Syndicate. - Eagle vision makes a return (for real, this time. Not just the Animus Scan-thing from Origins and Odyssey that Ubisoft renamed in Valhalla then called it a day). Still don’t get the point of the bird mechanic that they added since Origins as a replacement of the traditional Eagle vision. If I were the one to design this mechanic, I would’ve make the bird “the identification tool” to identify which one is your real target (it’s basically how Eagle vision in Revelations works). That would definitely create an extrinsic motivation for people to actually use the eagle mechanic IMO, while also keeping the classic Eagle vision, just to scan your surroundings. - Quick throw button finally makes a return, I think? You can see it when Basim throws down a smoke bomb, but the camera sightly zoomed in when he does that. So I assume that the quick throw button will be mapped with the aim button, press LT/L2/RMB will be a quick throw and holding down will be aiming. Though I’m still not sure about this. I hope that the ability to have two separated quick use button, one for ranged weapons and one for throwables from Unity makes a return one day… Edit: apparently you’ll have to hold down the aiming button and press the assigned button to quick throw those specific tools. - The old detection system and SSI is back and I think this one is the closest to Unity, where in stealth, there will be three layers of detection: sus, but still don’t care (white), sus and start looking for you (yellow) and alert (red), where in Origins - Valhalla is a more of traditional detection system (if the white bar is almost full, the guard will come and check for you, but if he sees you, you’ll have a split of a second to take that guard down, in slow-motion). Personally, I prefer the old detection system, as it was more consistent and friendlier to player that is not good at stealth. I wish they added the last-know position from Unity and Syndicate as well. Speaking of SSI, I hate the fact that it was removed in Origins. When I played that game for the first time I was confused about my current status. I ran and hide from the guards, the music calmed down but I still not sure if they’re still looking for me. Here you can see the blipping yellow dot above the detection meter, I assume this means that you’re vanished but guards still looking for you. That’s looked good already. - The Assassin focus ability is clearly inspired by mark and execute from Splinter Cell. I believe the reason why it’s looked like Basim was teleporting is not because of the Animus, it’s because the studio is too lazy or Ubisoft doesn’t want to put more budget into the studio just for this, otherwise we would’ve seen some badass multiple takedown animations just like the one we had in Arkham Knight and Ghost of Tsushima. - Another thing that I wished they’d show more is the combat. I know that Mirage will be heavily focused on stealth and Basim is a glass-cannon. The reason why I don’t play RPG games is because enemies with level. I’m fine to fight bosses with loads of health in action games, but in Origins, a lot of times I have to stab a normal guards ten times until he died. That’s immersion breaking and it doesn’t work in Assassin’s Creed, where many assassins you played in each games usually strike an enemy three or four times, then finish them off with a killing blow. Each hit is swift, but powerful, where in RPG trilogy each hit depends on your level, the damage of your weapon and the health pool of the enemy, which a lot of times leaves a huge gap in-between. In the walkthrough video, I saw what I assumed to be rank indicator above guard’s head, and I hope it won’t make a huge difference when fighting them head-on. - Still sad that the diagonal wall climb, side drop, spinning drop or some of Unity’s parkour animations/mechanics won’t be returned. I’m sure that these mechanics will add so much depth and fluidity to the current parkour system we have. They’ve already chosen the city that’s suitable for parkour, but didn’t refine the current parkour mechanics? What a missed opportunity. Oh, I assumed that the manual jump button won’t be return either. It’s sucks as you said, but at least Baghdad’s urbanized, dense city structures will make us appreciate the current parkour system a bit more, who knows? - Finally, the facial animation and cutscenes. Oh god…THEY ARE TERRIBLE. I had a hope when the leak said that there will be no dialogue choices, so I assumed that all cutscenes will be pre-rendered, no more awkward AI generated cutscenes! Oh god, I have no idea. Seriously, I don’t know what they’re thinking. Watch Dogs Legion uses traditional pre-rendered cutscenes, maybe Far Cry 6 as well. So I assume that they specifically uses the AI generated animations in Odyssey and Valhalla, as these two games has many cutscenes where player have to choose different dialogues. The story trailer has such a great music, good transition and can easily make me hype. BUT THE GOD DAMN ANIMATION LOOKS HORRENDOUS AS IT WAS IN GTA SAN ANDREAS REMASTERED, WHERE AN OUTSOURCED, INEXPERIENCED SMALL STUDIO HAVE TO REMAKE A GAME FROM 2004, WHERE THEY HAVE TO REMAKE THE ANIMATION FROM SCRATCH, JUST TO LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THE ORIGINAL, EXCEPT IT’S LOOKS WAY WORST BECAUSE IT WAS REMASTERED WITH MODERNIZED GRAPHIC. Ubisoft is on top of the AAA studios with decades of experience and AC is their flagship franchise. How could the cutscenes get worse since Syndicate? I’m trying to understand that Ubisoft maybe wanted to be stingy, but this is too much. Sorry for a wall of texts, I was thinking of providing some extra details at first then got a bit carried. I’m a fan of older AC games and after been heavily disappointed by the shitstorm that Origins was. I’m really looking forward to this one and hopes that Ubisoft will actually give us a good, old AC experience for once.
I'm certain that the bird in Mirage works the way you describe. It's only for ID'ing objectives, it's actually like that in ACV as well. Traditional Eagle Vision is our close-range recon tool. Tool quick-use and older detection system are both huge. And yeah, in terms of animations, Ubisoft is typically always playing catch-up, if you can even call it that. It's crazy to think about it, like... Mirage is going to release in the same year as Final Fantasy XVI, whose presentation is so wildly above and beyond it, the two can't even be compared meaningfully.
@@LeoKRogue Couldn’t agree more. There are too many huge titles released this year…Hogwarts Legacy, RE4, Spider-Man 2, Starfield, Alan Wake 2, Zelda 2, PAYDAY 3 and Final Fantasy XVI. It felt like Mirage was the least hyped AAA game this year. Ubisoft is really falling behind and if they really wanna catch up, they’ll have to try harder with the quality of the game…or they’ll just put more time and effort on Codename Red, basically their Valhalla 2 in term of money making tools.
People literally never learn when hyping up games, I always remain positive but never get excited anymore until I'm playing the game and I like what I'm seeing. Told alot of people on the Internet about cyberpunk and got hate from everyone. I remember for the gameplay trailer people were saying its one of the best games of all time and it hadn't even come out yet!
It's hard to watch sometimes, for sure. I just don't want people to be hurt or let down, ultimately. Games being an interactive medium makes it even harder to tell than usual whether one will be a good experience, since you don't know until you press buttons yourself. This demo looks fine, but can't convey what it feels like to actually move through its world personally. Who knows, maybe some of the controls feel bad, or aspects of menus feel stiff and tiring, anything can happen.
@@LeoKRogue yeah 100%, the demo looks promising imo and Ubisoft are at least making some good decisions but we have no idea how the story will be or anything
Awesome video leo, as usual! I agree with basically everything in this video. It's cool to see that at least someone at ubi does care about the "classic" ac style. I always love what you have to say! Your one of the most reliable and unbiased AC youtuber out there. I'm excited for the stealth and level design. Maybe one day we will get that unity level of stealth - parkour - level design combo. Although I like the idea of Assassin Focus I'm still not in love with it since I don't really like any of the superpowers (well expect eagle vision lol) I like that it is difficult to get back and I think I will come to love it as I mix it in with tool uses. Oh yeah it does look fucking awesome tho. The guards blocking the door did have me smiling tho, classic reference! Lets just say I'm cautiously optimistic.
The stealth and level design are the two things that I believe I'll enjoy without a doubt. Everything else is questionable but has a chance to work out okay if it's done as well as their current limits will let 'em. Thank you for the kind words.
I too new what this was gonna be and totally agree with your assessment of the game . I do like the addition regarding the tool basim has . The level design is done well have fun and trying different tactics
"Fast forwarding memory to a more recent one" LOL okay you got me here I won't think twice about saying anything about the teleport chain assassinations that was too funny
Hey, just finish watching your vid. And I want to say thank you for all the thing that you have said in this this video, because I seen so many people hating on the game to the point that I think am the only one who looking forward to it. But it true that all the thing that you mentioning is concerning (parkour, combat etc.). I hope this game deliver!!
Great video, Leo, as always. 13:56 - well said! The number of conversations I've read on various Discords over the past few days where people are so viscerally **angry** at this new ability because its "magic", or "like Odyssey's rush assassination", or "like Dawn of Ragnarok" are surprising and disappointing. Some players seem to forget that the Animus is a simulation, and not always a perfect one at that (Altair couldn't swim, after all). The fact that we are exploring a simulation allows the devs some freedom for creativity in gameplay and storytelling so it's nice to see a creativity here - especially when it is linked to Basim's extreme skill as an Assassin. And if players don't like it...they don't have to use it :)
Thank you for watching and commenting. ^_^ I mentioned elsewhere, but I think the constant blurring-together of what's sci-fi and what's presented as "magic" has had a slight negative impact on the way players react to powerful, less-than-grounded abilities like these. For me, I appreciate that its sci-fi nature is open, honest, and overt. If anything I'd like it if there were a few more digital particles or floating text around it to push that AC1 vibe, but I know I'm probably not getting that :D
what i think they meant by saying "unity inspired parkour" was that there was gonna be free run up and free run down. we see basim vault over an object instead of just jump off it which could prove the existence of free run down. it could exist to add to the world design giving parkour its depth as it it just free run up but down
Excellent analysis Leo, always love to hear your thoughts. Stealth definitely looks interesting so far and I'm really glad it will be tool-based again. I stiil think that Assassin Focus looks weird though (love the sci-fi elements of the franchise btw) but as long as there are other methods for multikilling it doesn't really matter (it's also implemented very well mechanically wise imo, since it works pretty much like you predicted) Also on 10:20 Basim can blend assassinate that guy even though he's like 5 steps away from him. Since there will be no HP actions I assume he will just walk to him and stab him while remaining blended (so pretty much like 2-Syndicate but automatically)
Excellent analysis! I'm impressed by your ability to articulate everything so clearly and level-headedly, it's a joy to listen to your videos. The game looks pretty much how I expected it to be. I knew changing core mechanics of the game like parkour would be impossible in this game, given the circumstances. But the trailers show that they are genuinely trying their best with the tools and the time they have to work with. That said, one thing I was hoping for was the use of MoCap for facial animations in cutscenes like they did in Origins. So in that regard I'm going to be a little disappointed, even though I have to admit that it was probably unrealistic expectation all things considered.
"Devs have done well after inheriting a lot of problems INFLICTED onto the series by the previous games." - this is wonderfully summarised at the 2:57 mark. If at the end of the game, I have this conclusion, I shall be happy.
I loved the 'fast forwarding memory' explanation! I would like to think that the memory feels like teleportation because Basim is in a high adrenalin state and "in the zone" so to speak, resulting in micro-memory loss and translating through the animus like teleportation.
How did Basim throw the smoke bomb at the end? No ammo counter was shown before or after the smoke bomb, and no input prompt was shown either. Do you think there would be a dedicated smoke bomb button?
Jcers recommended I try moving to cancel out of my chain assassinations in Vallaha, which is something I do a lot. Should be applicable here since it's the same system. We can also see the stun meter deplete on that parry, something that was (rarely) possible in Vallaha, so counters are presumably earned in the same way, hopefully with more consistency and tighter level scaling
Very cool, I think that's relatively unknown. I didn't know about it, and approximately fifteen people who recently asked me about it also didn't, so hell yeah.
A thing I noticed that I don't think anyone has pointed out is that Basim's sword glows for a while after a counter kill. I'll assume it is a skill tree thing that buffs his melee for a bit so we can fight a few guards faster before more friends show up.
13:40 - I fully understand that they can explain the design of chain assassinations with the Animus, but it doesn't make it good. I think it's unrealistic and it looks a bit ridiculous. Especially because Basim covers large distances in an unreasonable amount of time. There's no way he'd be able to stealthily kill all these 3 guards with a hidden blade before they reacted. I'm really baffled by this design choice. Ghost of Tsushima had way better multi-assassinations. They had a cool slow mo effect and Jin would realistically move between the targets. Arkham Knight also did it better. Mirage seems to have taken Shadow of Mordor approach, which makes no sense at all. Teleportation is fine in SoM because it's a fantasy game and the skill itself is magical. But AC doesn't have magic. It's supposed to be a semi-realistic experience set in the real world. No amount of Animus excuses can explain away Basim teleporting between distant targets within 3 seconds. It's basically the reskinned version of that ridiculous skill from Odyssey. Now I wonder what will happen if all your targets are extremely close to each other. Imagine 3 guards standing in a little triangle talking to each other. Will Basim still teleport between them, even though they are all within one step from him? It's just weird. I would much rather see actual animations where Basim quickly moves between targets. He could even use the environment to do it! Leave Basim's ghost during the planning phase to show us what he'll do (this is a good use of the Animus interface) but then have the actual animations when he executes the kill! If the last target is below, don't teleport Basim! Just have him quickly jump on the balcony and air assassinate the guy! They could do what Splinter Cell Blacklist did with executions but just bigger and better. The system they showcased feels simply UNFINISHED. It's something I would expect to happen if devs had no time or resources to make proper animations. It definitely gives off "glorified DLC" vibes cuz I would expect something more impressive from a proper new AC game. Let me point out that AC games have had chain assassinations for 13 years now. Brotherhood introduced chain kills during combat and in every following game (until Unity) the character would just seamlessly step towards the next target and kill them. Every AC game had the Animus and yet none of them did this teleportation BS. Just imagine how weird chain kills in Brotherhood would feel if Ezio phased out of existence and instantly teleported to his next victim.
@@LeoKRogue I'm not pressed either cuz I lost interest in AC a long time ago. I kinda accepted that original AC died and the best we can get is some cheap imitation. But I'm still surprised they made such a bizarre design choice, especially after all this talk of "returning to the roots". I don't remember teleportation in the original games that established said roots.
As bland as the parkour has been in the more recent games, I still appreciate the fact that it still got you to point A to point B. Mirage having sped up a couple animations at least enhances that.
Movement and world are the 2 things that brought me to AC. I can sympathize with players who just want to hold w and space. But let the crazy people (me included) jump to their death only to grab onto a pole at the last moment (call it a leap of faith). Also, i definitely expected the polevault to make an appearance.
Man, I wish you were more popular, almost every video I see about assassin's creed mirage it's about loving everything Ubisoft show and hyping for everything and skipping the flaws or directly hating it all without any reason more than their own biased opinion. you're the balance, saying things as they are and talking about the game having all in consideration and being fair
It's such a weird thing, but I didn't know back and side ejects existed until RPG AC's were well established already. I know there were challenge tombs in ACII that encouraged it, but beyond that, the old games never found other ways to encourage elaborate movement. It was just an option. Revisiting the series knowing back and side ejects exist did make it more fun and made me wish that movement could come back in modern AC games, but eh again, at least Ubisoft has finally woken up to the fact that we've all been hungry for a return to form. Despite looking and feeling like RPG AC, Mirage is shaping up to be a good way to meld old and new together, even if a few key elements are sacrificed. We'll always have the old games for that counter based combat and the more elaborate parkour system. I will be cautiously optimistic for this one.
The games scarcely ever highlight the fact that ejects even exist, yeah. They're not "needed" in normal gameplay so the average player doesn't ever have to actually do them. They're only really required in a few tombs and then never again, but they do significantly improve the gameplay experience when you use them a lot.
I absolutely agree with everything you say. For me I had a very similar reaction to you. Everything shown in this demo is stuff I both expected and kind of wanted to see. Considering everything, what we got so far is totally reasonable, with respect to my expectations, which were exactly the same as yours, which you definitely also partly take credit for. Speaking of credit, your explanation/interpretation/very educated guess on how assassin focus works lore wise (don't know if that's confirmed in any capacity), and mimicing Animus Lady's voice is hugely appreciated. It's both a good way to remind you of being in the animus and somewhat tieing it into gameplay, and a smart work around for creating animations for kill chains that go beyond 2 kills. This part is a small bit of cope, that I think is reasonable to hope for with respect to the existing button inputs from the past three games, since it's likely, that controlls won't be changed a lot in that respect. Technically back ejects (from hang) did exist in the RPG trilogy. They were largely useless for gaining momentum or speed and had abysmal distance. My small hope is, that with the input, that already exists, maybe they have thought of increasing the range of back ejects and maybe even give it the ability to gain height back. Even if those are still highly dependend on context, needing something to eject to, for the action to be "legal", pair this together with the already quite promising world design, I think this small change, may do great things for movement, or at least push it in the right direction. In the mean time while I am distracting you with this way too long comment I sneaked my way into the brotherhood. Really looking forward to upcoming videos and discussions, for there is much wisdom in your words. And with much wisdom comes much grief and he who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow. I don't know where exactly I am going with that reference, but congrats on gaining my membership.
The world-design making more ejects than usual "valid" would be a massive quality-of-life change for me personally, but I don't know how realistic it is to hope for since the ejects in ACV don't really gain much height or distance. Even if we can use them to look cool, would they be very helpful for actual movement? I'm not sure... Still, I'm curious. Thank you for your support. ^_^
I always enjoy these types of videos from you. Your analysis is usually on point and you are well spoken. It's an excellent treat for me. I'm not a big fan of the rpg style ACs and at first, when I saw the trailer I felt a lot of disappointment and negativity, especially for movement, but the gameplay they showcased has definitely changed my mind a bit, I'd definitely watch a playthrough of it (unfortunately I don't have a good pc or console to play it myself). On another note, Basim looks crazy good, his outfit is really stylish and looks good in game. And some details in his animations like the way he sits on the rope were a nice touch.
I wouldn't actually say that side and back ejects are not here since it was present in valhalla so it is likely in here too...its just that the trailers wont show such complex action and that we have to discover such things once the game releases!
Ah, well I hope so. Ejects have technically been "present" in every game but starting from Syndicate and onward they've been entirely vestigial and useless
Everyone complaining about the teleportation assassinations do not know how the animus works, it annoys me a little that people are saying that that’s enough to put them off the game, yet it’s accurate to what the animus can do, (fast forward time, Rewind) and not too farfetched when it comes to assassins creed, I’ll deffo be using this ability during my playthrough
@@boiimcfacto2364 I said it’s canonically accurate to the animus, meaning it isn’t farfetched to see something like this in an assassins creed game, as Leo k said
@@LeoKRogue I suppose I will swallow my pride & just set little personal gameplay challenges with this one. I appreciate all your work on the AC games, thanks!
I was on the edge of my seat waiting for your thoughts ever since the gameplay video got released! I won't repeat what others said about your script-writing and speaking skill (which is superb!). I just wanna say that I can't wait watching you play it since Mirage won't be releasing on Steam sadly. Excellent video as always Leo! 🤯(Also thanks for always providing us with captions! I know it's a pain in the ass to add.
Thank you, thank you. ^_^ I'll do my best to play this game in a way that's fun to watch, when the time comes. As for the subtitles and captions, I'm sorry the ones on this video aren't as great as usual, I was in a big rush when I was adding them, but ones in future big videos should be fine again.
@@LeoKRogue Leo, just the fact that you are doing caption alone is very commendable. Never say sorry for something that is (most would say) optional. Keep doing what you do best! :D
Really enjoyed your breakdown. You just earned yourself a new subscriber 😊. Regarding your thoughts on climbing. I personally love if that is how it works, as I played all the older game. Having said that, the unfortunate reality is that there are going to be new, younger players who only know of “Tales of the Isu” (that’s how I refer to the Assassin’s Creed games post Syndicate) from the RPG games and not the og saga. These newer players are going to _hate_ that the climbing in Mirage will require forward thinking and planning, and are going to complain that the mechanic is unintuitive and boring, will compare it to, say, Link from BoTW/TotK and will say the game sucks. Ubisoft is going to see this feedback and the promptly remove the feature moving forward 🫠.
You think so? For me, I don't think it'll make a huge difference to them. Honestly, the base feel of climbing/parkour is similar enough to Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla that new players won't really feel too much in that regard. That's one of the things I wish they'd done more work on, actually, I miss having manual jumps, I miss having ejects, all of that. About the only major shift is no climbing smooth walls, but most of Mirage still has handholds accessible so I don't imagine we're getting any of that feedback.
As far as I'm aware, holding LS/L3 forward would always skip the chain assassination slow mo in Valhalla. I use that all the time. I expect the same thing in Mirage.
@@LeoKRogue I remember using it when Eivor is cloaked. After doing that quick stab animation, you normally wouldn't want to expose yourself by throwing a freakin axe in the next dude. So when you assassinate a guard and the slow mo kicks in, you can hold your movement key forward and it ends quickly. I used it a lot with aerial assassinations as well.
After I first played Origins and Odyssey I felt something was missing in movement and traversal, and for the longest time I couldn't put it into words. I thought I missed the mechanical aspects of parkour, but then I replayed ACI and ACII and I realized I only used the granular control of movements whenever the game prompted me to do so basically, so that couldn't be it. While playing Valhalla I realized it: the world is fucking empty. It's a barren wasteland devoid of any interesting opportunities for movement, and that goes for the big cities in the game world too. That's why I'm not disappointed about Mirage not having mechanical depth: the world design and the urban environment give me exactly what I want from AC, and if the movement options are a bit limited so be it, I'm good with that so long as I can feel like I'm some kind of stealth and parkour mastermind, prancing around on rooftops and planning my next kill. I do respect people wanting that mechanical depth back, though.
Mhm, you've come upon the same conclusion I mention which is that it's not one or the other, it's both. And of course, some players can be happy with more of one or more of the other, but world-design kind of has to come first.
@@LeoKRogue Exactly, as you said: drop Ezio in the middle of nowhere and see how well he fares. World design is absolutely crucial and while it does not make up for the shortcomings on a mechanical level it can still make it so that your experience is memorable. Mechanical depth without a playground that takes advantage of it is nothing. Having both would be ideal, but I mean...we've abundantly seen what Ubisoft thinks of Assassin's Creed at this point so I'll just count my blessings with Mirage being what it is. As I said, I'm pretty happy with what I've seen so far. If I can get just a few Assassin tombs (or any equivalent) I'll be on cloud nine.
I feel very much the same way, you have a real talent for verbalising your thoughts precisely (no wonder you enjoy stealth glass canons and precision based games haha). My biggest concern is with parkour too, I love the visuals and the aesthetic, love the stealth and tool based gameplay, but I don't understand why it's so hard to implement more reliable wall ejects and catch ledge mechanics. I've been playing Origins recently and I have managed to activate back and side ejects but only very rarely and unfortunately never to achieve further height, which seems to defeat the purpose and the reason it was so useful in the original four games. So the mechanics are there in the engine and have animations to work with straight away, all that's needed is to let us activate them more reliably and to tweak the pathing to let us gain height with them. I'm still holding out hope that they have already added them and the demo just didn't showcase them, or at the very least that we still have time for them to be added before release. It would add so much depth to movement and agency to the players instantly and I just don't understand how this keeps being overlooked.
Thanks, I appreciate that. ^_^ Yeah, you've basically noticed that in Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla -- and undoubtedly in Mirage too -- ejects don't gain height, and they can only be done to a valid target-object, in other words the game has to "agree" with you, and it's not like AC1-Rev for example wherein you can just input an eject and one will simply happen regardless of where you end up from it. I much, much preferred that level of player-freedom and accountability, but here we are. :/
The one thing I would like to change with the assassin focus is to shorten the range of the first kill, so that Basim isn't jumping like 10m or something ridiculous to get to the first target like he is in both the examples shown so far.
@@pkslush Exactly also janky ass fuck... the character literally freeze after the kiss awkwardly disappear in a single frame thne in a single frame appears next to a different enemy :D it's comically bad it would be a good skill for a spoof game...
I'm on the fence about this, because when I talk to myself logically about it I realize that movement-range is basically the only real parkour tech this game is going to give us, and there is no way I'm letting that go out of my skeletal, pale, bony hands.
the thing that I don't like is that when Basim air assassinate or ledge assassinate, they always move the camera instead of the players moving their analog to see from many point of view, or maybe they could just make another button like contextual camera in ac 2 for us too see the enemy getting air assassinated like we see the impact of jumping on somebody instead of weird angle where we cant see the person getting jumped , even in ac 2 sometimes high profile assassination have some good camera angle for us to see how Ezio stab the enemy in many various ways. But that is just my opinion, and great video Mentor!
I actually really hate that too, honestly. I've disliked it every single time and I wish I could just disable it. I don't need my camera to jail me on every action xD
Great video, on point and good vibes all over 😁 This seems promising and way more balanced than previous titles (since Black Flag). I have in some way been enjoying almost all AC titles, but I think this will be one of the games with most replayability. In regards to freerunning I don't think they'll bring it back in a large game, but possibly as a small sidegame with linear challenges to test the waters. I really enjoy your videos and look forward to the next time you emerge from the shadows.
You make a lot of fair point there, and honestly, your positive takes is very encouraging for me to give this game a try. Still, I as a superficial person who also see a worth of a game from the visual point of view, the characters graphics and animated movements during the game cutscene is left to be desired.
Great breakdown. I always felt that this game would ride or die on its stealth and the demo really impressed me there. There isn't much groundbreaking but this first I've seen such a wide variety of stealth approaches and tools at the player's disposal. A flaw in older games was that stealth felt radically different from game to game. Revelations, Black Flag, and Unity all came out in a 3 year span and yet the stealth gameplay couldn't be more different.
Mhm, mhm, mhm. Funny, "not much groundbreaking" is basically what they said when they first revealed it. The interview with GameSpot literally says it will be nothing revolutionary, and I took that on board. www.gamespot.com/articles/assassins-creed-mirage-sounds-like-a-fantastic-return-to-the-roots-of-the-series/1100-6507322/
The parkour is very disappointing, but expected. However, I want to focus specifically on your point about social stealth and level design. I was hoping to see more from the demo, since the small snippet of blending doesn’t reveal much except that it works like AC2 (and that Basim might be able to blend with guards caught in smoke? Could be a bug). What I really wanted to see is if we can do any of the cool stuff like blend assassinations that made blend extremely valuable and interesting in the Ezio Trilogy. Furthermore, I wonder how the level design of social stealth in the open world will work: will guards more or less wander aimlessly with no consideration for hiding spots or blend groups, or will the open world rely on crowds like in Unity, or will there be a more layered integration of crowds, hiding spots, and factions like in Brotherhood. I’m interested to see more gameplay.
Yeah, we need to see more gameplay the likes of which can't really be expressed in a "general/variety-mechanics" demo like this. Social stealth is something that you can engage with for its own sake for minutes on end, there's no way they can properly exhibit that in this kind of grab-bag demonstration, I think. All those questions you brought up, I'm very curious of too, since the way guards path and the actions we can even do _from_ different kinds of blend are huge.
I think the level-design is great, to be honest with you. In some ways it's better than a lot of the series in terms of world-based decisions to make moment-to-moment. On that front they've really done fine, which I guess makes sense because it's all they've got here.
A small thing I like is the movement speed. Basim seems to move quite slowly on the ground, certainly compared to the previous few games, and is much quicker and more agile in parkour, even to the likes of Unity, making a clear distinction between silently and methodically moving through a crowd towards his target and sprinting across the rooftops when making his escape. This isn't something I would ever point out in any other game but this, I feel, lends itself perfectly to the assassin fantasy, which is the only thing I'm hoping this game provides tbh, If the game can make me want to say "Requiescat In Pace" when that hidden blade pierces my target's neck, then that fantasy will be met and I will be happy.
I hope that's something we can really feel as we play, for sure. On the note of speed and pacing, one thing I wanted to say but didn't in my video, is that stealth-kill animations resolve quite fast. When Basim stabs one of those first guards in the garden from behind, he kills him with basically AC1-Rev/Unity animation-speed. One quick stab and then he's gone. I hope we see more of that energy.
@@m3rl1on The whole game is ripped from here and there this is a padding game since ubisoft's stocks are failing so if they rpg shits are that good why the stocks are low and since the beginnig the trailers of mirage the bling fans put up their stocks again....
One thing I can tell about Mirage, that I haven't felt in a good number of entries, is the dev team give a shit about those old games and the players desire for the Assassin fantasy. In more recent entires, we've been given the tools of an assassin, but the tools play second fiddle to Viking and Spartan fantasy, and don't make any sense for those player characters.
I feel the same, yeah. Granted, talk is cheap and it's easy for people to say whatever they please during those dev-diaries but it's emotionally assuring anyway and is at least reflected in the atmosphere of the world.
I really want to see how ejects work in this game. Baghdad looks awesome as a playground and would love to Jackie Chan my way through some vertical corners :) thanx for doing the work, Leo 🤘🏽
@@LeoKRogue There are some walls in Unity that join in a weird concave U-V type of shape which makes for some really cool free-running lines. Tested with diagonal wall run from bottom left to upper right, then directional right and parkour down (180 spin), into a side eject onto a window ledge. It looked like Arno ran up the wall, 180 spun at the apex then kicked off a the corner into a ledge. I certainly fluked it, but I also intended to do it. Such an odd feeling of nuance and control that are so missed in the recent combat rpg games. I’ve recently gone from Unity through to Origins to get the platinum trophies for PS, and I really felt the focus shift from parkour to combat. Arno felt like a serpent thru 3D space, the more recent assassins feel like charging bulls :)
Nice to hear your thoughts on this, and I agree. I, too, will most likely enjoy this game for what is. 13:38 That's exactly what I was thinking. It's plainly animus Sci-Fi that's always been in AC.
It could've been; but I think it's also fine for Splinter Cell to be Splinter Cell, and for Assassin's Creed to be Assassin's Creed. Of all the minor things I have issues with, this is not one of them.
It would be really cool if the "kick back" option after the counter attack will allow to stugger enemies that are hitted by the falling guy, giving you more room to breath during fights. Still I agree, the game at this point, besides some early misconceptions, is what It aims to be, and if what we saw is a genuine sneak peak into the whole game and not misleading edited stuff, Bordeaux did a great job at capturing AC feelings with the few bones Valhalla's engine allow to and I am looking forward to It... the story trailer also hooked me up on the story, a thing I didn't expected It would
I'm pleasantly surprised (slightly) by the gameplay I saw. I basically forced my hopes down into the gutter so I couldn't be disappointed, but the stealth here actually looks pretty fun. My only worry is that they seem to be prioritising escape over combat but with a movement system so simple I don't see how you could keep that fresh and fun for a whole playthrough.
Same concern I've got, yeah. If Escape is basically something we're forced to engage with, trying to make it interesting and give it some texture is a must.
Personally still holding out for some mechanical parkour complexity. The pathing they used in the video didn’t really call for any ejects, though the climbing puzzle from the viewpoint you pointed out in a different video looked like it had an opportunity for a back eject at least. Not a guarantee, but not an impossibility yet. Even if we do get some probably won’t be much. Another thing I wanted to point out is how Basim does a swing forward on a post that looks like it could also be walked on to transition to a turn or rope slide ( 4:43 ). Could mean that there’s something analogous to free run up/down even if that just means let go of the run button for a second so you climb instead of swing.
I think that's fine. If at this point you're still willing to invest some hope in more movement-complexity, that's probably okay as long as you know the risk you're taking with your emotions. :P Would be interesting if the swing you mention at 4:43 does have that element of choice, it's a little hard to make out just from the footage for now.
I very much despise the eagle and the Assassin Focus. If we had Low/High profile I'd enjoy the parkour. But everything else, from the world to the stealth, the Assassin Fantasy, I reckon I'll thoroughly enjoy this one. P.S. I appreciate the effort they put in tho, at least we're getting a real AC game. Great video man!
My problem with this gameplay reveal is that it doesn't live up to the previous AC gameplay reveals . Like AC2 reveal was the Carlo assassination mission ( the one with the Da Vinchi flying machine) , AC Brotherhood was the epic attack on Monteriggioni, AC 3 was hunting and stuff like that . Unity had a blackbox mission shown to us . The most hyped up feature of Mirage ( in the way I see it) are the investigations and a black box missions. Was it really so hard to show us at least one ? I will cringe so hard if the investigation tab is the list of cultists from odyssey
Yeah, unfortunately AC gameplay reveals have been bad and boring for years now. The last one that I felt was good was Unity, and that one wasn't entirely honest either, so. I was just glad to see certain features I want back and was satisfied with that.
@@LeoKRogue Agree . I've already accepted that the animations aren't going to be the best. Right now i just want to do assassin stuff in the gorgeous city of Baghdad. Stuff like blending with the crowd , bench kills , tools , black box missions , etc . And i think the game will succeed in this department.
![Leo K [Rogue]](http://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AIdro_lU2XPRnoiDY_KR9FankuYDSJC2utR6y9iK6BreeHJD_PA=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)
![How To FIX the Current Parkour System | Assassin's Creed [Leo Talks]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/doT5QaHOQr0/mqdefault.jpg)
![How To FIX the Current Parkour System | Assassin's Creed [Leo Talks]](/img/tr.png)
![[Leo Talks] AC Unity | A Shattered, Beautiful Game](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nNDjcukuVns/mqdefault.jpg)
I pretty much agree
I expected what was shown after following the game for so long. It looks to be a good middle ground game that both sides of the fanbase could enjoy. I hope they keep leaning in this direction, I'd like to see them go back to advanced movement systems again with the next titles.
That's my exact thought, yeah. Assassin's Creed without advanced movement is just missing something, a core part of its essence. As much as I think I'll enjoy this game, I'm never going to stop wanting to be able to fling myself around however I wish.
They need to slowly add it cuz for unity it was a custom made engine I believe
agreed
Well, it doesn't look like something RPG players would enjoy much, because it doesn't really have RPG elements beyond maybe some light crafting like in AC4. So this game is made specifically for the fans of the linear AC experience and I have yet to find people who prefer Origins-style gameplay over some of the previous titles (be it AC1, Ezio Trilogy, Kenway saga or Unity) among these non-RPG AC fans.
With that in mind, I hope this game is not just a one-off cash grab but a serious direction shift where they do "one for us, one for them", cycling between a more classic-inspired release and their big RPG games. And if that's the case, I hope they'll eventually expand this very limiting engine with some of the awesome features lost to previous games.
@@bloodymares codename red will likely be another RPG game but if we want Ubisoft to go in this direction we need to focus on the positive rather than the negative. Sure the parkour will likely be worse than the non-RPG games but it is still a move in the right direction with the limited resources this team has. People point out the game’s flaws because they expect this to be a full return to form when this team was given very limited resources to pull this off, this game basically is like if you had Halo ODST in how it went from a dlc to a full game because it was a completely opposite direction from the game it is based off with Fallout New Vegas’ development, which Obsidian was given few resources and had a very small team and a very tight development time. If Ubi were to delay this game for a year or more sure they could change the animations and maybe make parkour even better but Ubi wants to test the market now and it can’t have much longer in-between releases. Also for what we’re getting from what I see, $40 is more than a fair price considering Ubisoft could’ve just made it $70 like they’re doing for their other mainline games. If we show that we are glad and want this direction to continue and Ubisoft sees that this is just as if not more profitable than the RPG direction then I’d say give them 3-4 years and we’ll see that shift in direction. That’s how long it took for them to respond to the backlash Unity received as everyone back then said the AC formula was stale, and Ubi made the series essentially into a cookie cutter Witcher clone as they thought that would innovate enough for the old fans while also bringing in new ones. This may not be the game we were completely hoping for it’s the game we need right now as fans of the series.
I absolutely love the vocabulary and wordplay you use in your scripts, it feels like you're able to articulate EXACTLY how you (and indirectly many others) feel about the goings on of AC.
Thank you. It's really hard to find the words to express what I want to say, sometimes. I know there are probably a few people who don't always understand what I'm saying, and I don't always have the time to define every term I'm using, but if I'm a little more imprecise I also won't be able to convey what I'm trying to, so I have to make a sacrifice somewhere.
Exactly all he speaks if facts
@@emmaelstad341facts
@@marcosa1961Exactly. Also, I learned so much about game design and similar topics from Leo's videos ever the years, that's why one watches a YT video on a topic that's interesting to them, to learn and know more, creators like that are gold.
He does Very well at articulated his point. 😊
We need more popular TH-camrs who think like you. I respect the hell out of you keeping a level head about everything. Looking forward to your vids when the game comes out 😁
Thanks so much. There are definitely some really good creators to listen to about this topic, and I've found new things to think about every time I hear one out.
That's unlikely to happen because people love to listen to youtubers either completely trash a property or shower it with love and praise. There are exceptions though.
@@ziwuri I don't doubt it. It's only wishful thinking
unlike lazerzz
@@ziwuriNot really, it's more just everyone doesn't want to support the company anymore.
They've gotten greedy to the point of ruining a franchise, and if you actually look at what's happening internally in the company it's disgusting (extreme amounts of SH) etc.
I just wanted to say thank you for coming at the game with the most unbiased and unemotional response I’ve seen so far. It’s a really fresh perspective!
Thanks, I'm doing my best. ^_^
While I'm not sold with how they handle the parkour mechanics, I love the fact that they did try to re-create the complex parkour environment.
The stealth is clearly a big improve over the RPG games, that's for sure. Collapsable objects, Cherry bombs and Poison mines may create lots of opportunities for creative stealth kills.
I'm really right there with you on the various stealth verbs we're getting here. My only hope is that the general flow of stealth feels as good as they want us to believe, and that nothing is egregiously broken.
Yeah I can see myself using trap mines for guards that patrol for example. Like even if you could potentially just use a throwing knife, there is situations when you only can get in close enough when they would see you first. So you could set a trap in a moment you couldn't get quite to them but they also wouldn't see you.
thank you for the comment on the aesthetics of assassin focus, so many people bitch about it when we had a magical apple that controls people's minds, we had arno magically instantly morph into an npc as a disguise, but this is where they draw the line apparently
You're welcome! I really wanted to express how I feel about it since anything that pushes the Present Day or Animus layer is part of why I love this universe.
The runaway expectations section really describes the community perfectly. I love AC but the community’s toxicity makes it hard to share that love…
As for my own feelings on the game, it’s exactly what I expected and I’m excited for it!
There's gotta be people who can relate to that or feel a little called out, but that was literally me, over and over and over, for years. I'm not above that myself, but I'm definitely more grounded and cautious in my approach these years. I've been misled and had expectation whiplash way too many times, and it's a horrible feeling I tried to help people avoid, but there's only so much I can do.
@@LeoKRogue I’ve been there too brother. I’ve just learned over time to not project my hopes and dreams, and look at these games more objectively…
Toxicity is just American for having different opinions than me.
You've essentially explained what this smaller team at Ubisoft meant when they said "back to the roots". Your emphasis on the environment/world design and opportunities and with the 'dropping ezio in valhalla' example was great! Watching the gameplay for the first time I could not see anything but those original AC aesthetics/elements from the earlier games. Working with the system they have, I can totally see this game being the homage to AC 1 that they claimed. I do think fans can get too caught up in their constructed expectations of game but thanks for bringing it back to reality. Great video!
You're welcome, I'm glad I could bring out something of value. I definitely don't place full blame on players who expected more though, to some extent Ubisoft's messaging around this game kept itself vague and was kind of unclear about what their intentions were or what they could realistically deliver. I imagine if a lot of classic fans were told up-front, hey, movement is going to be _very similar_ to Valhalla, they'd probably feel less led-on. Blackboxes/Assassinations being freeform again is kind of huge for me though. I think if you're an AC fan or someone who enjoyed Unity, there's no way you don't like that.
Man, I feel like I learn something almost every time I watch one of your videos. This video sums up why you're my favorite person on here that talks about AC: you care about the series, think it through and have nuanced takes, don't get all clickbaity, and actually know what makes them work as games and how they can be better. I also like that you don't JUST do AC, you have a variety of stuff.
I'm a little bummed about how parkour looks, but it's an improvement for sure. One thing I didn't like is that the ledge takedown moves the camera, but I don't like it when the game takes away camera control outside cutscenes. What I love though is the stealth focus, and that the smoke bomb is red. That's just cool. Sorry for writing an essay, I got excited 😅
I appreciate your comment! Yeah, I also am not a fan of how ledge-assassinates just yank our camera away, I would love to be able to disable that, heh. Air Assassinates basically jail you the same way in ACV, in this game they look a _bit_ less annoying in that regard. (I definitely get clickbaity sometimes, though. :P)
I hope high-profile ledge assassinations are back, they let you move with momentum while also assasinating a target and simultaneously the body doesn't drop down, which you don't want in certain specific situations :v also they wouldn't take away the camera control, since the player is in movement lol
I had no right to be this excited to see you finally talk about this walkthrough, scared the cat outta my cat
Aw, please be careful with your furry friends. v_v
I've been a fan of yours ever since those advanced tips on Unity. Love your analysis here, you always find such great ways to convey your thoughts in a way that makes perfect sense. Hope all is well with you!
Oh, I didn't expect u here. Btw could u tell me what do u think about "fast forwarding memory" explanation?
@@plagidoktor5812 what he means is back in ac1 after completing something the animus will say fast forwarding to a more recent one. They used it as a Type of fast forward, pause, play, and rewind. So my guess is in mirage for assassins focus the animus will glitch and fast forward to the assassinations
@@xottic.brotherhood and why do u assume that I don't know about it? I played AC1 and i understand what Leo is reffering to. Im just asking MasterAssassin about his thoughts on this kind of an explanation
Hey, thanks so much MasterAssassin! I appreciate you lots.
I swear you are and will be to me the best well spoken and thought-true youtuber that analyzed this with realistic expectation while still being true to your self and is why i really appreciate you as a youtuber.
Noted: Thank you LeoK you are one of thef ew that actually understand the literally basic AC lore explanation of how Assassin focus work.
Thank you, Kazuto. I'm glad I get the chance to share my thoughts with people who want to listen to them. ^_^
Few? Literally anyone who played Batman Arkham Knight would understand how this feature plays. I'm more impressed by the fact that he accurately predicted the limitations of Assassin Focus.
@@nnnnmhughuuhhjiijj9457 I don't think they were referencing how the mechanic works. They mentioned the lore explanation, that being the Animus Basim's memories are being re-lived through just can't render Basim moving at such sudden and fast speeds, which is why it represents it as teleporting.
@@venatorprinceps Okay, the lore behind it.
I'm glad you're talking up how Assassin Focus looks visually, I've seen people complain that it looks too 'mythological' or 'fantastical' when it's very clearly an homage to the sci-fi roots of the franchise; we are in a synthetic mind-box that is replaying memories, and that box has limitations. It's just that we've gone so long without actually seeing those limitations that people will simply assume it's fantasy nonsense, when in reality the Animus is struggling to render what's going on for Basim's immense speed, likely due to his status as reincarnated Isu or something.
I've been looking forward to your video discussing the gameplay, and I'm glad to agree with you on basically everything. Still holding out hope for more advanced movement options, but if we don't get them then it won't be a surprise either.
Appreciate your understanding. ^_^ I love Present Day and the Animus layer deeply, so this is charming for me, for sure.
About the only thing I envision in terms of potential parkour juice is that the density of environments has a small chance to make more attempted ejects register as "valid" despite the action's refusal to activate due to its short range in the Layla Saga.
Your video and mine are definitely complementary, haha. Yours was the optimistic but nuanced breakdown of the good with brief, fair acknowledgement of the bad, while mine briefly touches on the good and has a bit of an emotional lament of the bad 😅 Great video, Leo. Agree with basically everything.
Thank you, man. I really can't disagree with the criticisms too much either, I mean everyone basically knows I Want More and have for years, but since there's no way we're getting it, I'm just kinda like "It Is What It Is v_v"
@@LeoKRogue for sure; that’s really understandable and I feel the same way regarding the game itself. I have no doubt that I would enjoy Mirage in the event that I play it someday, even with parkour being awful (I mean, I was really enjoying _Valhalla_ until that patch completely ruined stealth, so Mirage is a big step up from that😅). It’s more so the advertising that I felt I needed to address, because they’ve kind of been speaking like Mirage’s parkour is a modern take on AC1-Rev parkour and I simply could not let that go unchallenged 😆
Both of you have great points...Maybe I'm dead inside cuz seeing the parkour for me was like. "It can always get worse." Never say Never, Anime rules.
Both of your videos are incredible, easily two best takes on the newest reveals about Mirage.
@@jcersHard disagree on them saying parkour stating that it was gonna be something like Ac1-Rev. It's been stated a few times that the parkour was just gonna be a more "advanced" version of origins parkour.
Thank you for not hate-mongering on this game.
Obviously, the parkour is disappointing. But the stealth looks really fun, and it is clear they are at least trying.
I hope no one actually reads this but if they sold me the ability to free-eject for five dollars I would genuinely buy that shit instantly. I'm hungry. x_x (The stealth does look very fun, I think I'll be able to put together some cool things.)
@@LeoKRogue Pfft... I'd buy it if it were $20! You're not crazy.
Honestly I was expecting the worse and didn’t believe a word of anything they were saying. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by what we got to see, this is the way the rpg games should have gone while improving parkour not taking away from it. Parkour still looks stiff and not much control, but looks better then valhallas janky movement. So I will likely support this and hope for more ac games like this moving forward.
That was basically my approach to the entire marketing cycle, yeah, haha
Like, there's no way I was believing anything completely until I saw it with my own eyes, I've been promised the world before by Ubi's PR too.
To be fair on the issue of stiff-looking parkour - it would PROBABLY be far more time-consuming for the devs to try and make Valhalla's parkour system un-"stiff" than it would be to just leave it as it is (maybe with some minor tweaks) and instead design a map with the limitations (the parkour system) already has in mind.
This could be entirely wrong, though, as I'm not a developer at Ubisoft. I'm just some random on the internet.
i really can’t express how much i agree with you on the first part of video. the saddest part is that i know the exact feeling that hyped person is going through and i really don’t want anymore people to keep getting disappointed. AC gotta be really one the biggest missed potential in gaming. such a shame
Great video. Have always liked hearing your perspective on AC mechanics and techniques
Thank you!
Really appreciate that you did your best to keep everyone's expectations in check. After grounding myself after the initial hype, I'm really happy with what I saw and pretty much agree with everything you said here.
On another note, I am playing Ghost of Tsushima for the first time, and I have been missing out for so long. Very excited to dive into your Ghost vids soon ^_^
Ghost of Tsushima is soooooo goooooodd maaaann, enjoy it!
Really love how you articulate your views and reasons. Also probably the most balanced take I've seen on the game. Obviously this game isnt offering us everything we want from an authentic AC experience, but we can certainly appreciate the effort being put in from the individual devs themselves. Honestly surprising to see this game even come out with the direction they've been going in recently. I just hope this isn't a one-off and they keep releasing titles like this in the future with hopefully more "back to the roots" things. Great video btw! Loved it.
Thank you so much. I think we will see more of these smaller, or more "classic-aligned" experiences over the years, judging by their stated intent for their publishing strategy in this article;
www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-wants-to-make-more-focused-games-rather-than-have-one-game-do-everything
Bro your videos are so good and well thought out, ur super underrated imo. Keep up the work man!
Thanks man, just having fun with it. ^_^
I'm actually kind of impressed. The stealth looks pretty good, and I think it's a step in the right direction. But like you said in one of your previous videos, AC has two massively different fanbases that they have to please. The different modes idea is something I have thought about for a lot of other games, but I think, given the circumstances, this may have been the best possible outcome.
Definitely, yeah, especially considering their new approach to building out different games for different playerbases:
www.ign.com/articles/ubisoft-wants-to-make-more-focused-games-rather-than-have-one-game-do-everything
@@LeoKRogue That's really promising. There seems to be many steps in the right direction, but using the advice of a wise man, best not to get too excited.
I could be entirely missing the mark on the materials, but 135 steel ingots feels like a lot for just tools and more personal stuff like armour or weapons. I think it's possible those materials may be to invest in the bureaus Basim was tasked with setting up, and I certainly hope it is as well--even though Valhalla had base-building and raiding missions (the sense of community I got when strolling through the village I helped build was about the only thing I actually liked about the game) I miss the days of Brotherhood when we actually had fellow Assassins to command and send on missions without us. It really made the Assassins feel like an actual shadowy organization that existed for centuries rather than the patchwork groups we've been shown in the games that followed.
That actually makes SO much more sense, yes. While Ubi might just be working with ridiculous numbers it's more reasonable that these are meant to be construction materials. Good mind.
Could also be tool crafting. If they do that though hopefully they don’t let you do it out in the middle of a fortress
The pressure to make crucial decisions is why I think I would enjoy this game. In the AC Series, the most rewarding moments to me were, when you did a mission and the way and path you CHOSE to do it worked smoothly. Now the best example for this is the assassination of Marie Levesque in AC Unity. Love that mission. It just hit that perfect sweetspot for me. You cannot go in headlessly. In Unity that is almost certain death or at least failure. And there is alot of guards, so it's not like it doesn't matter where you go as long as you go stealthy. But it is also easy enough to not have you try 5-6 times before finding a route that you probabaly still wouldn't be able to repeat.
Also the replay value of well designed black box missions is just really high because you can try and figure out multiple approaches.
That's what appeals to me as well, and has for a long time. It's why it's a little deflating for me that Mirage won't have mission replay or quest replay of any kind. If it has manual saves we can drop before a mission, that's probably fine but it's never going to be as comfy and repeatable for the sake of developing interesting strats the way Unity's replayable memories were.
As for Hoarders, that's probably my favorite Assassination in all of AC Unity as well. This is my best run of it I've ever done, and still one of my most popular stealth videos to date. I still get props on the ending today xD th-cam.com/video/909Zc-9VG7k/w-d-xo.html
Yeah same problem with AC2. Sometimes you finish a mission but it didn't go as smooth as you wanted, and you just want to try something else. Yeah I know that one, love it.
Great great video!! I 100% agree with basically every point you said, except for parkour, I'm still quite sad about the parkour, kinda like Jcers' vid. And also thaaank yooouuu for explaining the futuristic sci fi aesthetic choice with multi-kill. I feel like so many people aren't seeing the Animus stylistic choice there!
I'm sad too as I said. It's definitely not what I want it to be, I've just limited my pain by keeping my hope very very low this whole time.
@@LeoKRogue Yea smart play, unfortunately I can't get my mind to 'detach', but I will try
Bro I’ve been waiting for you to upload for so long 😂
I was like I’d love to see Leo’s thoughts on this :)
Also that get better soon killed me 💀
I hope they're everything you imagined.
@@LeoKRogue yeah! When I heard assassin focus is gonna refill by the player engaging in more stealthy actions I was like, Leo’s gonna be so happy rn 😂
I was never expecting a revamped parkour system, just something smoother and more satisfying than the last few entries, and that’s exactly what we got. I think it looks great, it’s reasonably priced and definitely on my list of anticipated games for this year. Can’t remember the last time I was actually excited for an AC game
Time will tell if it really is all that much smoother, a lot of players have pointed out (with video examples) that Basim still has that long "delay" between landing on an object and moving to the next one. If there's one thing I hope they touch up, it's that. Overall, seems like it'll be a fun game, though.
I absolutely love the Kylar Stern name drop. I haven't come across too many Night Angel fans so it was really nice to hear it from you!
I'm so glad! I'm reading Night Angel Nemesis nowadays since it just came out and it's so cool.
@@LeoKRogue I haven't had a chance to read it yet. As good as the first books?
I am so glad you said something about the Assassin's Focus ability. I have seen tons of people hate in it because it's "magic" and I couldn't believe that they were ignoring that it is basically an feature of the Animus. Thank you for keeping a level head, I enjoy watching your content immensely because you make sure to look at things from every angle! You're the best!
Thanks so much, cheers!
He's teleporting man. In an otherwise grounded world, him pulling out a move like that is pretty jarring. And it's a major game mechanic too. That's why some people are bothered by it
@@RandomPerson-uq8oe I am of the opinion that the fancy powers assassin's use encourage some suspension of disbelief I suppose
@@elyahmartin4839 fair
Nah, it's a bullshit excuse. Ubisoft is just too lazy to actually put in effort and make a cool animation like in Arkham Knight or Ghost of Tsushima, which they clearly drew inspiration from. They've proven time and time again that they are a company interested in cutting corners as much as humanly possible and squeezing as much profit as possible out of their half-baked projects.
Yup, thats the detailed analysis so far. I did not know about the smoke bomb on quick use and quick drop so that was cool. I'm feel okay with Assassin Focus, as it feels like Animus Magic than... magic and it is as OP as disguise in Unity. Can't wait to see more choreography shots with this :D
I am really hoping people like myself, Treviso, Lang etc can do something interesting with this game as far as exhibition/showcase videos are concerned. There's no mission replay so that already hurts it a little, but general gameplay seems conducive.
I never used Disguise in Unity for that reason. I want to play an assassin and work within the assassins limitations. Using the animus to hack the simulation and make it easier for you kinda cheapens the experience for me personally. If the PC can’t do it, I don’t want to be able to do it. But the assassin focus is pretty cool
@@LeoKRogue So there are black box assassinations but no replay? Makes no sense to me
@@Hoppelite it’s fair. I use it since the game offers me to and it doesn’t punish me for it. I like to test the limits the same way an animus user would. But in this case it’s not an animus hack/boost like assassin cache, community sense. I wonder if there are conditions to setup the assassin focus. Can I just select the target and then use the remaining for the ones on top? Because that’s sort of an exploit I would use to “manipulate” the animus that’s well within bounds. I tend to play trickster builds mostly so this is appealing 😅 but I get where you are coming from as well. It feels hacky but it’s a tool that the game provides that maximizes my play through.
@@DarT-dk6gsHopefully they add new game plus in a update
completely agree! i'm also a bit sad the parkour is this simple. wished it was allot more like ac1 or unity, but whatever. maybe engine limits or they didn't have enough time to completely change up the movement. but i love that it's stealth focused again and i love the tools we are able to obtain. can't wait.
Movement with no real player-side mechanics will be my biggest dislike in this entire game, without a doubt, I'm sure.
@@LeoKRogue yeah same goes for me.
amazing video as always brother
Thank you
Another great video, Leo. One of the few people on this platform who truly understand what an Assassin's Creed game should be, very well expressed and said!
Thanks so much WOKSTA, I'm glad for your words.
Focus being inherently skill-based is amazing. If you are more lethal, you will get more charge. Speed and lethality are encouraged more than ever. No more sitting in a bush planning your stealth sequence for an hour.
Yes. I genuinely love that, it makes sense mechanically and narratively. The Animus needs data from kills to extrapolate and fast-forward through a short kill-sequence, so you have to feed it that information by killing guards yourself. Neat idea.
Been a while since I've caught up with your videos and this was a pretty chill analysis
Thank you, glad you enjoyed.
I don’t appreciate the straw man of “if you don’t like Assassin’s Creed’s sci-fi elements…” in response to be people being upset about the presentation of the chain takedown.
Whether it’s the pieces of Eden or the nature of the animus, most fans appreciate these parts of the games, but superpowers have never been a part of the franchise besides a fun dlc for AC3 and Odyssey/Valhalla.
I already mentioned on another video that if it was presented better, such as a smoke bomb that clouds the players vision or the fear multi-takedown from Arkham knight then people would have no issue with it.
In regards to the rest of the video I actually completely agree, there’s plenty of hints for AC fans to be cautiously optimistic.
Okay lol.
@@LeoKRogue cute.
More details I noticed in the gameplay walkthrough video:
- The assassination animations is a mixture of Valhalla and Unity. In the gameplay trailer, you can clearly see two high profile assassination animations ported from Valhalla and in the gameplay walkthrough you can see two new low profile assassination animations heavily inspired by Unity (leg kicking and mouth covering one to be specific, and both are zoomed in while the animation occurs, just like in Unity). Though, I wish they re-added the crouch assassination from Syndicate.
- Eagle vision makes a return (for real, this time. Not just the Animus Scan-thing from Origins and Odyssey that Ubisoft renamed in Valhalla then called it a day). Still don’t get the point of the bird mechanic that they added since Origins as a replacement of the traditional Eagle vision. If I were the one to design this mechanic, I would’ve make the bird “the identification tool” to identify which one is your real target (it’s basically how Eagle vision in Revelations works). That would definitely create an extrinsic motivation for people to actually use the eagle mechanic IMO, while also keeping the classic Eagle vision, just to scan your surroundings.
- Quick throw button finally makes a return, I think? You can see it when Basim throws down a smoke bomb, but the camera sightly zoomed in when he does that. So I assume that the quick throw button will be mapped with the aim button, press LT/L2/RMB will be a quick throw and holding down will be aiming. Though I’m still not sure about this. I hope that the ability to have two separated quick use button, one for ranged weapons and one for throwables from Unity makes a return one day…
Edit: apparently you’ll have to hold down the aiming button and press the assigned button to quick throw those specific tools.
- The old detection system and SSI is back and I think this one is the closest to Unity, where in stealth, there will be three layers of detection: sus, but still don’t care (white), sus and start looking for you (yellow) and alert (red), where in Origins - Valhalla is a more of traditional detection system (if the white bar is almost full, the guard will come and check for you, but if he sees you, you’ll have a split of a second to take that guard down, in slow-motion). Personally, I prefer the old detection system, as it was more consistent and friendlier to player that is not good at stealth. I wish they added the last-know position from Unity and Syndicate as well. Speaking of SSI, I hate the fact that it was removed in Origins. When I played that game for the first time I was confused about my current status. I ran and hide from the guards, the music calmed down but I still not sure if they’re still looking for me. Here you can see the blipping yellow dot above the detection meter, I assume this means that you’re vanished but guards still looking for you. That’s looked good already.
- The Assassin focus ability is clearly inspired by mark and execute from Splinter Cell. I believe the reason why it’s looked like Basim was teleporting is not because of the Animus, it’s because the studio is too lazy or Ubisoft doesn’t want to put more budget into the studio just for this, otherwise we would’ve seen some badass multiple takedown animations just like the one we had in Arkham Knight and Ghost of Tsushima.
- Another thing that I wished they’d show more is the combat. I know that Mirage will be heavily focused on stealth and Basim is a glass-cannon. The reason why I don’t play RPG games is because enemies with level. I’m fine to fight bosses with loads of health in action games, but in Origins, a lot of times I have to stab a normal guards ten times until he died. That’s immersion breaking and it doesn’t work in Assassin’s Creed, where many assassins you played in each games usually strike an enemy three or four times, then finish them off with a killing blow. Each hit is swift, but powerful, where in RPG trilogy each hit depends on your level, the damage of your weapon and the health pool of the enemy, which a lot of times leaves a huge gap in-between. In the walkthrough video, I saw what I assumed to be rank indicator above guard’s head, and I hope it won’t make a huge difference when fighting them head-on.
- Still sad that the diagonal wall climb, side drop, spinning drop or some of Unity’s parkour animations/mechanics won’t be returned. I’m sure that these mechanics will add so much depth and fluidity to the current parkour system we have. They’ve already chosen the city that’s suitable for parkour, but didn’t refine the current parkour mechanics? What a missed opportunity. Oh, I assumed that the manual jump button won’t be return either. It’s sucks as you said, but at least Baghdad’s urbanized, dense city structures will make us appreciate the current parkour system a bit more, who knows?
- Finally, the facial animation and cutscenes. Oh god…THEY ARE TERRIBLE. I had a hope when the leak said that there will be no dialogue choices, so I assumed that all cutscenes will be pre-rendered, no more awkward AI generated cutscenes! Oh god, I have no idea. Seriously, I don’t know what they’re thinking. Watch Dogs Legion uses traditional pre-rendered cutscenes, maybe Far Cry 6 as well. So I assume that they specifically uses the AI generated animations in Odyssey and Valhalla, as these two games has many cutscenes where player have to choose different dialogues. The story trailer has such a great music, good transition and can easily make me hype. BUT THE GOD DAMN ANIMATION LOOKS HORRENDOUS AS IT WAS IN GTA SAN ANDREAS REMASTERED, WHERE AN OUTSOURCED, INEXPERIENCED SMALL STUDIO HAVE TO REMAKE A GAME FROM 2004, WHERE THEY HAVE TO REMAKE THE ANIMATION FROM SCRATCH, JUST TO LOOK EXACTLY LIKE THE ORIGINAL, EXCEPT IT’S LOOKS WAY WORST BECAUSE IT WAS REMASTERED WITH MODERNIZED GRAPHIC. Ubisoft is on top of the AAA studios with decades of experience and AC is their flagship franchise. How could the cutscenes get worse since Syndicate? I’m trying to understand that Ubisoft maybe wanted to be stingy, but this is too much.
Sorry for a wall of texts, I was thinking of providing some extra details at first then got a bit carried. I’m a fan of older AC games and after been heavily disappointed by the shitstorm that Origins was. I’m really looking forward to this one and hopes that Ubisoft will actually give us a good, old AC experience for once.
I'm certain that the bird in Mirage works the way you describe. It's only for ID'ing objectives, it's actually like that in ACV as well. Traditional Eagle Vision is our close-range recon tool. Tool quick-use and older detection system are both huge. And yeah, in terms of animations, Ubisoft is typically always playing catch-up, if you can even call it that. It's crazy to think about it, like... Mirage is going to release in the same year as Final Fantasy XVI, whose presentation is so wildly above and beyond it, the two can't even be compared meaningfully.
@@LeoKRogue Couldn’t agree more. There are too many huge titles released this year…Hogwarts Legacy, RE4, Spider-Man 2, Starfield, Alan Wake 2, Zelda 2, PAYDAY 3 and Final Fantasy XVI. It felt like Mirage was the least hyped AAA game this year. Ubisoft is really falling behind and if they really wanna catch up, they’ll have to try harder with the quality of the game…or they’ll just put more time and effort on Codename Red, basically their Valhalla 2 in term of money making tools.
People literally never learn when hyping up games, I always remain positive but never get excited anymore until I'm playing the game and I like what I'm seeing. Told alot of people on the Internet about cyberpunk and got hate from everyone. I remember for the gameplay trailer people were saying its one of the best games of all time and it hadn't even come out yet!
It's hard to watch sometimes, for sure. I just don't want people to be hurt or let down, ultimately. Games being an interactive medium makes it even harder to tell than usual whether one will be a good experience, since you don't know until you press buttons yourself. This demo looks fine, but can't convey what it feels like to actually move through its world personally. Who knows, maybe some of the controls feel bad, or aspects of menus feel stiff and tiring, anything can happen.
@@LeoKRogue yeah 100%, the demo looks promising imo and Ubisoft are at least making some good decisions but we have no idea how the story will be or anything
Awesome video leo, as usual! I agree with basically everything in this video. It's cool to see that at least someone at ubi does care about the "classic" ac style. I always love what you have to say! Your one of the most reliable and unbiased AC youtuber out there. I'm excited for the stealth and level design. Maybe one day we will get that unity level of stealth - parkour - level design combo. Although I like the idea of Assassin Focus I'm still not in love with it since I don't really like any of the superpowers (well expect eagle vision lol) I like that it is difficult to get back and I think I will come to love it as I mix it in with tool uses. Oh yeah it does look fucking awesome tho. The guards blocking the door did have me smiling tho, classic reference! Lets just say I'm cautiously optimistic.
The stealth and level design are the two things that I believe I'll enjoy without a doubt. Everything else is questionable but has a chance to work out okay if it's done as well as their current limits will let 'em. Thank you for the kind words.
Honey wake up, new Leo K video!
I too new what this was gonna be and totally agree with your assessment of the game . I do like the addition regarding the tool basim has . The level design is done well have fun and trying different tactics
"Fast forwarding memory to a more recent one" LOL okay you got me here I won't think twice about saying anything about the teleport chain assassinations that was too funny
Bless. >:)
Hey, just finish watching your vid. And I want to say thank you for all the thing that you have said in this this video, because I seen so many people hating on the game to the point that I think am the only one who looking forward to it. But it true that all the thing that you mentioning is concerning (parkour, combat etc.). I hope this game deliver!!
Thanks. ^_^
Great video, Leo, as always. 13:56 - well said! The number of conversations I've read on various Discords over the past few days where people are so viscerally **angry** at this new ability because its "magic", or "like Odyssey's rush assassination", or "like Dawn of Ragnarok" are surprising and disappointing. Some players seem to forget that the Animus is a simulation, and not always a perfect one at that (Altair couldn't swim, after all). The fact that we are exploring a simulation allows the devs some freedom for creativity in gameplay and storytelling so it's nice to see a creativity here - especially when it is linked to Basim's extreme skill as an Assassin. And if players don't like it...they don't have to use it :)
This actually more stealth rpg ish. Kinda nostalgic since It reminded of Shinobi 2 and kamiwaza way of thief.
Thank you for watching and commenting. ^_^
I mentioned elsewhere, but I think the constant blurring-together of what's sci-fi and what's presented as "magic" has had a slight negative impact on the way players react to powerful, less-than-grounded abilities like these. For me, I appreciate that its sci-fi nature is open, honest, and overt. If anything I'd like it if there were a few more digital particles or floating text around it to push that AC1 vibe, but I know I'm probably not getting that :D
what i think they meant by saying "unity inspired parkour" was that there was gonna be free run up and free run down. we see basim vault over an object instead of just jump off it which could prove the existence of free run down. it could exist to add to the world design giving parkour its depth as it it just free run up but down
You think so? I don't know, I mean, Kassandra and Eivor both have that exact vault in the few places that let you do it in ACOd/ACV.
Excellent analysis Leo, always love to hear your thoughts. Stealth definitely looks interesting so far and I'm really glad it will be tool-based again.
I stiil think that Assassin Focus looks weird though (love the sci-fi elements of the franchise btw) but as long as there are other methods for multikilling it doesn't really matter (it's also implemented very well mechanically wise imo, since it works pretty much like you predicted)
Also on 10:20 Basim can blend assassinate that guy even though he's like 5 steps away from him. Since there will be no HP actions I assume he will just walk to him and stab him while remaining blended (so pretty much like 2-Syndicate but automatically)
Excellent analysis! I'm impressed by your ability to articulate everything so clearly and level-headedly, it's a joy to listen to your videos.
The game looks pretty much how I expected it to be. I knew changing core mechanics of the game like parkour would be impossible in this game, given the circumstances. But the trailers show that they are genuinely trying their best with the tools and the time they have to work with.
That said, one thing I was hoping for was the use of MoCap for facial animations in cutscenes like they did in Origins. So in that regard I'm going to be a little disappointed, even though I have to admit that it was probably unrealistic expectation all things considered.
I agree with you on the cutscenes, honestly. Faces, models and animations in general are a little weird here. Sigh xD
"Devs have done well after inheriting a lot of problems INFLICTED onto the series by the previous games." - this is wonderfully summarised at the 2:57 mark.
If at the end of the game, I have this conclusion, I shall be happy.
Heh, thanks.
I loved the 'fast forwarding memory' explanation! I would like to think that the memory feels like teleportation because Basim is in a high adrenalin state and "in the zone" so to speak, resulting in micro-memory loss and translating through the animus like teleportation.
just being honest, that sounds dumb
Fast forwarding memory is like skipping ads. Nothing more to it XD
@@llama6394i agree
So the official explanation is that the animus is trying to keep up with Basim. Close enough 😅
Best gameplay analysis so far, good job.
I appreciate that, thank you.
How did Basim throw the smoke bomb at the end? No ammo counter was shown before or after the smoke bomb, and no input prompt was shown either. Do you think there would be a dedicated smoke bomb button?
There's a quick fire/ swap option. You can see it when opening the tool wheel.
He assigned it to Quickslot. You can set any item as a Quickshot in this game.
“Second coming of creed”
I know you had fun writing this
I absolutely did. xD
Phenomenal video, just like all the others you made. Appreciate your content!
Thank you.
Jcers recommended I try moving to cancel out of my chain assassinations in Vallaha, which is something I do a lot. Should be applicable here since it's the same system. We can also see the stun meter deplete on that parry, something that was (rarely) possible in Vallaha, so counters are presumably earned in the same way, hopefully with more consistency and tighter level scaling
Is there levels?
Very cool, I think that's relatively unknown. I didn't know about it, and approximately fifteen people who recently asked me about it also didn't, so hell yeah.
@@llama6394 Yes, but I'm expecting them to be more comparable to Unity. Maybe 5-10 so the scaling doesn't get too obnoxious
A thing I noticed that I don't think anyone has pointed out is that Basim's sword glows for a while after a counter kill. I'll assume it is a skill tree thing that buffs his melee for a bit so we can fight a few guards faster before more friends show up.
Ooooh that's intriguing, good eye!
Interesting.
I hope there’s an option to reduce HUD elements for maximum immersion!
Same.
I took Laz up on his recommendation to check your channel and I have loved the last 2 videos, both in substance and delivery!
Thanks!
13:40 - I fully understand that they can explain the design of chain assassinations with the Animus, but it doesn't make it good. I think it's unrealistic and it looks a bit ridiculous. Especially because Basim covers large distances in an unreasonable amount of time. There's no way he'd be able to stealthily kill all these 3 guards with a hidden blade before they reacted. I'm really baffled by this design choice. Ghost of Tsushima had way better multi-assassinations. They had a cool slow mo effect and Jin would realistically move between the targets. Arkham Knight also did it better. Mirage seems to have taken Shadow of Mordor approach, which makes no sense at all. Teleportation is fine in SoM because it's a fantasy game and the skill itself is magical. But AC doesn't have magic. It's supposed to be a semi-realistic experience set in the real world. No amount of Animus excuses can explain away Basim teleporting between distant targets within 3 seconds. It's basically the reskinned version of that ridiculous skill from Odyssey.
Now I wonder what will happen if all your targets are extremely close to each other. Imagine 3 guards standing in a little triangle talking to each other. Will Basim still teleport between them, even though they are all within one step from him? It's just weird. I would much rather see actual animations where Basim quickly moves between targets. He could even use the environment to do it! Leave Basim's ghost during the planning phase to show us what he'll do (this is a good use of the Animus interface) but then have the actual animations when he executes the kill! If the last target is below, don't teleport Basim! Just have him quickly jump on the balcony and air assassinate the guy! They could do what Splinter Cell Blacklist did with executions but just bigger and better.
The system they showcased feels simply UNFINISHED. It's something I would expect to happen if devs had no time or resources to make proper animations. It definitely gives off "glorified DLC" vibes cuz I would expect something more impressive from a proper new AC game.
Let me point out that AC games have had chain assassinations for 13 years now. Brotherhood introduced chain kills during combat and in every following game (until Unity) the character would just seamlessly step towards the next target and kill them. Every AC game had the Animus and yet none of them did this teleportation BS. Just imagine how weird chain kills in Brotherhood would feel if Ezio phased out of existence and instantly teleported to his next victim.
I see. I'm just not that pressed about it, if I'm honest with you. ^_^
@@LeoKRogue I'm not pressed either cuz I lost interest in AC a long time ago. I kinda accepted that original AC died and the best we can get is some cheap imitation. But I'm still surprised they made such a bizarre design choice, especially after all this talk of "returning to the roots". I don't remember teleportation in the original games that established said roots.
As bland as the parkour has been in the more recent games, I still appreciate the fact that it still got you to point A to point B. Mirage having sped up a couple animations at least enhances that.
Movement and world are the 2 things that brought me to AC. I can sympathize with players who just want to hold w and space. But let the crazy people (me included) jump to their death only to grab onto a pole at the last moment (call it a leap of faith). Also, i definitely expected the polevault to make an appearance.
Yes, I neeeeeed thaaattt
Man, I wish you were more popular, almost every video I see about assassin's creed mirage it's about loving everything Ubisoft show and hyping for everything and skipping the flaws or directly hating it all without any reason more than their own biased opinion. you're the balance, saying things as they are and talking about the game having all in consideration and being fair
I appreciate that a lot, thank you. ^_^
It's such a weird thing, but I didn't know back and side ejects existed until RPG AC's were well established already. I know there were challenge tombs in ACII that encouraged it, but beyond that, the old games never found other ways to encourage elaborate movement. It was just an option.
Revisiting the series knowing back and side ejects exist did make it more fun and made me wish that movement could come back in modern AC games, but eh again, at least Ubisoft has finally woken up to the fact that we've all been hungry for a return to form.
Despite looking and feeling like RPG AC, Mirage is shaping up to be a good way to meld old and new together, even if a few key elements are sacrificed. We'll always have the old games for that counter based combat and the more elaborate parkour system. I will be cautiously optimistic for this one.
The games scarcely ever highlight the fact that ejects even exist, yeah. They're not "needed" in normal gameplay so the average player doesn't ever have to actually do them. They're only really required in a few tombs and then never again, but they do significantly improve the gameplay experience when you use them a lot.
13:54 my favourite part 😂 I agree completely!
I absolutely agree with everything you say.
For me I had a very similar reaction to you. Everything shown in this demo is stuff I both expected and kind of wanted to see. Considering everything, what we got so far is totally reasonable, with respect to my expectations, which were exactly the same as yours, which you definitely also partly take credit for.
Speaking of credit, your explanation/interpretation/very educated guess on how assassin focus works lore wise (don't know if that's confirmed in any capacity), and mimicing Animus Lady's voice is hugely appreciated. It's both a good way to remind you of being in the animus and somewhat tieing it into gameplay, and a smart work around for creating animations for kill chains that go beyond 2 kills.
This part is a small bit of cope, that I think is reasonable to hope for with respect to the existing button inputs from the past three games, since it's likely, that controlls won't be changed a lot in that respect. Technically back ejects (from hang) did exist in the RPG trilogy. They were largely useless for gaining momentum or speed and had abysmal distance. My small hope is, that with the input, that already exists, maybe they have thought of increasing the range of back ejects and maybe even give it the ability to gain height back. Even if those are still highly dependend on context, needing something to eject to, for the action to be "legal", pair this together with the already quite promising world design, I think this small change, may do great things for movement, or at least push it in the right direction.
In the mean time while I am distracting you with this way too long comment I sneaked my way into the brotherhood. Really looking forward to upcoming videos and discussions, for there is much wisdom in your words. And with much wisdom comes much grief and he who increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.
I don't know where exactly I am going with that reference, but congrats on gaining my membership.
The world-design making more ejects than usual "valid" would be a massive quality-of-life change for me personally, but I don't know how realistic it is to hope for since the ejects in ACV don't really gain much height or distance. Even if we can use them to look cool, would they be very helpful for actual movement? I'm not sure... Still, I'm curious.
Thank you for your support. ^_^
I always enjoy these types of videos from you. Your analysis is usually on point and you are well spoken. It's an excellent treat for me. I'm not a big fan of the rpg style ACs and at first, when I saw the trailer I felt a lot of disappointment and negativity, especially for movement, but the gameplay they showcased has definitely changed my mind a bit, I'd definitely watch a playthrough of it (unfortunately I don't have a good pc or console to play it myself). On another note, Basim looks crazy good, his outfit is really stylish and looks good in game. And some details in his animations like the way he sits on the rope were a nice touch.
Thank you for hanging out and giving me a listen. :)
I wouldn't actually say that side and back ejects are not here since it was present in valhalla so it is likely in here too...its just that the trailers wont show such complex action and that we have to discover such things once the game releases!
Ah, well I hope so. Ejects have technically been "present" in every game but starting from Syndicate and onward they've been entirely vestigial and useless
Brilliant video as ever!
was waiting for your vod ❤
Everyone complaining about the teleportation assassinations do not know how the animus works, it annoys me a little that people are saying that that’s enough to put them off the game, yet it’s accurate to what the animus can do, (fast forward time, Rewind) and not too farfetched when it comes to assassins creed, I’ll deffo be using this ability during my playthrough
??????????
Bro really said teleportation is a canonical Assassin ability 🤣
@@boiimcfacto2364 I said it’s canonically accurate to the animus, meaning it isn’t farfetched to see something like this in an assassins creed game, as Leo k said
You set the standard for playing these games for me with the advanced movement mechanics
I'm so glad. Unfortunately, there shall be no such mechanics this time, it seems. x_x
@@LeoKRogue I suppose I will swallow my pride & just set little personal gameplay challenges with this one. I appreciate all your work on the AC games, thanks!
W video u might be my new favourite AC TH-camr😎
love ur vids. love stealth. looking promising
Love your videos so very in depth bro
I was on the edge of my seat waiting for your thoughts ever since the gameplay video got released! I won't repeat what others said about your script-writing and speaking skill (which is superb!). I just wanna say that I can't wait watching you play it since Mirage won't be releasing on Steam sadly.
Excellent video as always Leo! 🤯(Also thanks for always providing us with captions! I know it's a pain in the ass to add.
Thank you, thank you. ^_^ I'll do my best to play this game in a way that's fun to watch, when the time comes. As for the subtitles and captions, I'm sorry the ones on this video aren't as great as usual, I was in a big rush when I was adding them, but ones in future big videos should be fine again.
@@LeoKRogue Leo, just the fact that you are doing caption alone is very commendable. Never say sorry for something that is (most would say) optional. Keep doing what you do best! :D
another great analysis, people like you are rare these days thx a lot.
Thank you.
You always have a good perspective, the game is actually good.
Thank you. As for whether the game will be good, no one really knows, right? We have to play it and find out, anything can still go wrong, heh.
Really enjoyed your breakdown.
You just earned yourself a new subscriber 😊.
Regarding your thoughts on climbing.
I personally love if that is how it works, as I played all the older game.
Having said that, the unfortunate reality is that there are going to be new, younger players who only know of “Tales of the Isu” (that’s how I refer to the Assassin’s Creed games post Syndicate) from the RPG games and not the og saga.
These newer players are going to _hate_ that the climbing in Mirage will require forward thinking and planning, and are going to complain that the mechanic is unintuitive and boring, will compare it to, say, Link from BoTW/TotK and will say the game sucks.
Ubisoft is going to see this feedback and the promptly remove the feature moving forward 🫠.
You think so? For me, I don't think it'll make a huge difference to them. Honestly, the base feel of climbing/parkour is similar enough to Origins/Odyssey/Valhalla that new players won't really feel too much in that regard. That's one of the things I wish they'd done more work on, actually, I miss having manual jumps, I miss having ejects, all of that. About the only major shift is no climbing smooth walls, but most of Mirage still has handholds accessible so I don't imagine we're getting any of that feedback.
As far as I'm aware, holding LS/L3 forward would always skip the chain assassination slow mo in Valhalla. I use that all the time. I expect the same thing in Mirage.
I hope it can be disable. It makes ppl relying on it.
Very interesting, you may have taught me something new.
@@LeoKRogue I remember using it when Eivor is cloaked. After doing that quick stab animation, you normally wouldn't want to expose yourself by throwing a freakin axe in the next dude. So when you assassinate a guard and the slow mo kicks in, you can hold your movement key forward and it ends quickly. I used it a lot with aerial assassinations as well.
After I first played Origins and Odyssey I felt something was missing in movement and traversal, and for the longest time I couldn't put it into words. I thought I missed the mechanical aspects of parkour, but then I replayed ACI and ACII and I realized I only used the granular control of movements whenever the game prompted me to do so basically, so that couldn't be it. While playing Valhalla I realized it: the world is fucking empty. It's a barren wasteland devoid of any interesting opportunities for movement, and that goes for the big cities in the game world too. That's why I'm not disappointed about Mirage not having mechanical depth: the world design and the urban environment give me exactly what I want from AC, and if the movement options are a bit limited so be it, I'm good with that so long as I can feel like I'm some kind of stealth and parkour mastermind, prancing around on rooftops and planning my next kill.
I do respect people wanting that mechanical depth back, though.
Mhm, you've come upon the same conclusion I mention which is that it's not one or the other, it's both. And of course, some players can be happy with more of one or more of the other, but world-design kind of has to come first.
@@LeoKRogue Exactly, as you said: drop Ezio in the middle of nowhere and see how well he fares. World design is absolutely crucial and while it does not make up for the shortcomings on a mechanical level it can still make it so that your experience is memorable. Mechanical depth without a playground that takes advantage of it is nothing. Having both would be ideal, but I mean...we've abundantly seen what Ubisoft thinks of Assassin's Creed at this point so I'll just count my blessings with Mirage being what it is. As I said, I'm pretty happy with what I've seen so far. If I can get just a few Assassin tombs (or any equivalent) I'll be on cloud nine.
I feel very much the same way, you have a real talent for verbalising your thoughts precisely (no wonder you enjoy stealth glass canons and precision based games haha). My biggest concern is with parkour too, I love the visuals and the aesthetic, love the stealth and tool based gameplay, but I don't understand why it's so hard to implement more reliable wall ejects and catch ledge mechanics.
I've been playing Origins recently and I have managed to activate back and side ejects but only very rarely and unfortunately never to achieve further height, which seems to defeat the purpose and the reason it was so useful in the original four games. So the mechanics are there in the engine and have animations to work with straight away, all that's needed is to let us activate them more reliably and to tweak the pathing to let us gain height with them.
I'm still holding out hope that they have already added them and the demo just didn't showcase them, or at the very least that we still have time for them to be added before release. It would add so much depth to movement and agency to the players instantly and I just don't understand how this keeps being overlooked.
Thanks, I appreciate that. ^_^
Yeah, you've basically noticed that in Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla -- and undoubtedly in Mirage too -- ejects don't gain height, and they can only be done to a valid target-object, in other words the game has to "agree" with you, and it's not like AC1-Rev for example wherein you can just input an eject and one will simply happen regardless of where you end up from it. I much, much preferred that level of player-freedom and accountability, but here we are. :/
Been waiting for this all day
Thank you.
The one thing I would like to change with the assassin focus is to shorten the range of the first kill, so that Basim isn't jumping like 10m or something ridiculous to get to the first target like he is in both the examples shown so far.
it honestly almost doesn't look like he's even jumping, just teleporting
@@pkslush Exactly also janky ass fuck... the character literally freeze after the kiss awkwardly disappear in a single frame thne in a single frame appears next to a different enemy :D it's comically bad it would be a good skill for a spoof game...
I'm on the fence about this, because when I talk to myself logically about it I realize that movement-range is basically the only real parkour tech this game is going to give us, and there is no way I'm letting that go out of my skeletal, pale, bony hands.
the thing that I don't like is that when Basim air assassinate or ledge assassinate, they always move the camera instead of the players moving their analog to see from many point of view, or maybe they could just make another button like contextual camera in ac 2 for us too see the enemy getting air assassinated like we see the impact of jumping on somebody instead of weird angle where we cant see the person getting jumped , even in ac 2 sometimes high profile assassination have some good camera angle for us to see how Ezio stab the enemy in many various ways. But that is just my opinion, and great video Mentor!
I actually really hate that too, honestly. I've disliked it every single time and I wish I could just disable it. I don't need my camera to jail me on every action xD
@@LeoKRogue Mentor, what do you think about assassin recruit system?, should they bring it back for newcoming games or not?
Great video, on point and good vibes all over 😁
This seems promising and way more balanced than previous titles (since Black Flag).
I have in some way been enjoying almost all AC titles, but I think this will be one of the games with most replayability.
In regards to freerunning I don't think they'll bring it back in a large game, but possibly as a small sidegame with linear challenges to test the waters.
I really enjoy your videos and look forward to the next time you emerge from the shadows.
Thank you, thank you. ^_^
You make a lot of fair point there, and honestly, your positive takes is very encouraging for me to give this game a try.
Still, I as a superficial person who also see a worth of a game from the visual point of view, the characters graphics and animated movements during the game cutscene is left to be desired.
They do for sure, Ubisoft are not the publisher I would look to for visual fidelity in gaming, been that way for a long time.
Great breakdown. I always felt that this game would ride or die on its stealth and the demo really impressed me there. There isn't much groundbreaking but this first I've seen such a wide variety of stealth approaches and tools at the player's disposal. A flaw in older games was that stealth felt radically different from game to game. Revelations, Black Flag, and Unity all came out in a 3 year span and yet the stealth gameplay couldn't be more different.
Mhm, mhm, mhm. Funny, "not much groundbreaking" is basically what they said when they first revealed it. The interview with GameSpot literally says it will be nothing revolutionary, and I took that on board.
www.gamespot.com/articles/assassins-creed-mirage-sounds-like-a-fantastic-return-to-the-roots-of-the-series/1100-6507322/
The parkour is very disappointing, but expected. However, I want to focus specifically on your point about social stealth and level design. I was hoping to see more from the demo, since the small snippet of blending doesn’t reveal much except that it works like AC2 (and that Basim might be able to blend with guards caught in smoke? Could be a bug). What I really wanted to see is if we can do any of the cool stuff like blend assassinations that made blend extremely valuable and interesting in the Ezio Trilogy. Furthermore, I wonder how the level design of social stealth in the open world will work: will guards more or less wander aimlessly with no consideration for hiding spots or blend groups, or will the open world rely on crowds like in Unity, or will there be a more layered integration of crowds, hiding spots, and factions like in Brotherhood. I’m interested to see more gameplay.
Yeah, we need to see more gameplay the likes of which can't really be expressed in a "general/variety-mechanics" demo like this. Social stealth is something that you can engage with for its own sake for minutes on end, there's no way they can properly exhibit that in this kind of grab-bag demonstration, I think. All those questions you brought up, I'm very curious of too, since the way guards path and the actions we can even do _from_ different kinds of blend are huge.
Been waiting for this video for a loooong time :)
I think the level-design is great, to be honest with you. In some ways it's better than a lot of the series in terms of world-based decisions to make moment-to-moment. On that front they've really done fine, which I guess makes sense because it's all they've got here.
A small thing I like is the movement speed. Basim seems to move quite slowly on the ground, certainly compared to the previous few games, and is much quicker and more agile in parkour, even to the likes of Unity, making a clear distinction between silently and methodically moving through a crowd towards his target and sprinting across the rooftops when making his escape. This isn't something I would ever point out in any other game but this, I feel, lends itself perfectly to the assassin fantasy, which is the only thing I'm hoping this game provides tbh, If the game can make me want to say "Requiescat In Pace" when that hidden blade pierces my target's neck, then that fantasy will be met and I will be happy.
He was jogging most of the time in the demo. Probably why he seemed slow to most people..
I hope that's something we can really feel as we play, for sure. On the note of speed and pacing, one thing I wanted to say but didn't in my video, is that stealth-kill animations resolve quite fast. When Basim stabs one of those first guards in the garden from behind, he kills him with basically AC1-Rev/Unity animation-speed. One quick stab and then he's gone. I hope we see more of that energy.
@@LeoKRogue i think that garden assassination is ripped straight out of Unity's low-profile assassination
@@m3rl1on The whole game is ripped from here and there this is a padding game since ubisoft's stocks are failing so if they rpg shits are that good why the stocks are low and since the beginnig the trailers of mirage the bling fans put up their stocks again....
One thing I can tell about Mirage, that I haven't felt in a good number of entries, is the dev team give a shit about those old games and the players desire for the Assassin fantasy. In more recent entires, we've been given the tools of an assassin, but the tools play second fiddle to Viking and Spartan fantasy, and don't make any sense for those player characters.
I feel the same, yeah. Granted, talk is cheap and it's easy for people to say whatever they please during those dev-diaries but it's emotionally assuring anyway and is at least reflected in the atmosphere of the world.
I really want to see how ejects work in this game. Baghdad looks awesome as a playground and would love to Jackie Chan my way through some vertical corners :) thanx for doing the work, Leo 🤘🏽
I really want to see if ejects are present at all, honestly. :P
@@LeoKRogue There are some walls in Unity that join in a weird concave U-V type of shape which makes for some really cool free-running lines. Tested with diagonal wall run from bottom left to upper right, then directional right and parkour down (180 spin), into a side eject onto a window ledge. It looked like Arno ran up the wall, 180 spun at the apex then kicked off a the corner into a ledge.
I certainly fluked it, but I also intended to do it. Such an odd feeling of nuance and control that are so missed in the recent combat rpg games.
I’ve recently gone from Unity through to Origins to get the platinum trophies for PS, and I really felt the focus shift from parkour to combat.
Arno felt like a serpent thru 3D space, the more recent assassins feel like charging bulls :)
Nice to hear your thoughts on this, and I agree. I, too, will most likely enjoy this game for what is.
13:38 That's exactly what I was thinking. It's plainly animus Sci-Fi that's always been in AC.
That chain kill could have been like the one in blacklist, with special animation ! Pretty sure everyone would have loved it
It could've been; but I think it's also fine for Splinter Cell to be Splinter Cell, and for Assassin's Creed to be Assassin's Creed. Of all the minor things I have issues with, this is not one of them.
I always appreciate your level of analysis
It would be really cool if the "kick back" option after the counter attack will allow to stugger enemies that are hitted by the falling guy, giving you more room to breath during fights. Still I agree, the game at this point, besides some early misconceptions, is what It aims to be, and if what we saw is a genuine sneak peak into the whole game and not misleading edited stuff, Bordeaux did a great job at capturing AC feelings with the few bones Valhalla's engine allow to and I am looking forward to It... the story trailer also hooked me up on the story, a thing I didn't expected It would
I'm pleasantly surprised (slightly) by the gameplay I saw. I basically forced my hopes down into the gutter so I couldn't be disappointed, but the stealth here actually looks pretty fun. My only worry is that they seem to be prioritising escape over combat but with a movement system so simple I don't see how you could keep that fresh and fun for a whole playthrough.
Same concern I've got, yeah. If Escape is basically something we're forced to engage with, trying to make it interesting and give it some texture is a must.
Personally still holding out for some mechanical parkour complexity. The pathing they used in the video didn’t really call for any ejects, though the climbing puzzle from the viewpoint you pointed out in a different video looked like it had an opportunity for a back eject at least. Not a guarantee, but not an impossibility yet. Even if we do get some probably won’t be much.
Another thing I wanted to point out is how Basim does a swing forward on a post that looks like it could also be walked on to transition to a turn or rope slide ( 4:43 ). Could mean that there’s something analogous to free run up/down even if that just means let go of the run button for a second so you climb instead of swing.
I think that's fine. If at this point you're still willing to invest some hope in more movement-complexity, that's probably okay as long as you know the risk you're taking with your emotions. :P
Would be interesting if the swing you mention at 4:43 does have that element of choice, it's a little hard to make out just from the footage for now.
At the end of the gameplay basim is sprinting.I wonder why didn't have him sprint through the whole gameplay.Maybe to show off the environment?
I would assume it's for that reason, yeah.
I very much despise the eagle and the Assassin Focus. If we had Low/High profile I'd enjoy the parkour. But everything else, from the world to the stealth, the Assassin Fantasy, I reckon I'll thoroughly enjoy this one.
P.S. I appreciate the effort they put in tho, at least we're getting a real AC game. Great video man!
Thanks! I think the eagle was really boring in past games but the fact that some areas will deny it now is something I enjoy.
My problem with this gameplay reveal is that it doesn't live up to the previous AC gameplay reveals . Like AC2 reveal was the Carlo assassination mission ( the one with the Da Vinchi flying machine) , AC Brotherhood was the epic attack on Monteriggioni, AC 3 was hunting and stuff like that . Unity had a blackbox mission shown to us . The most hyped up feature of Mirage ( in the way I see it) are the investigations and a black box missions. Was it really so hard to show us at least one ? I will cringe so hard if the investigation tab is the list of cultists from odyssey
Yeah, unfortunately AC gameplay reveals have been bad and boring for years now. The last one that I felt was good was Unity, and that one wasn't entirely honest either, so. I was just glad to see certain features I want back and was satisfied with that.
@@LeoKRogue Agree . I've already accepted that the animations aren't going to be the best. Right now i just want to do assassin stuff in the gorgeous city of Baghdad. Stuff like blending with the crowd , bench kills , tools , black box missions , etc . And i think the game will succeed in this department.