Assassin's Creed Mirage Reveals Mind-Blowing Animation from a Decade Ago

Highlights

Mirage takes Assassin's Creed back to its roots with a smaller map size and a focus on classic mechanics like stealth, parkour, and blending.

Basim in Assassin's Creed Mirage surprises fans by using a parkour animation from Unity in 2014, which they didn't anticipate as a callback.

The diving parkour move introduced by Arno in Unity fits perfectly in the dense city surroundings of Mirage's Baghdad, making it an appropriate and seamless addition to the game.

The protagonist of Assassin's Creed Mirage, Basim Ibn Ishaq, incorporates a parkour animation from the 2014 installment, Assassin's Creed Unity. Serving as Ubisoft's latest addition to the Assassin's Creed series, Mirage harkens back to the franchise's original essence by featuring a smaller map size and a greater emphasis on traditional Assassin's Creed aspects like stealth, parkour, and blending in with crowds. Acting as Ubisoft's response to fans who may have felt overwhelmed by the vast scope and scale of recent RPG-style titles such as Odyssey and Valhalla, Mirage aims to provide a refreshing experience.

Prior to the introduction of RPG mechanics in Assassin's Creed Origins in 2017, previous entries like Assassin's Creed Syndicate and Unity were situated in bustling cities during the Industrial Revolution in London and the French Revolution in Paris, respectively. Despite Unity's initial technical issues impacting its launch, subsequent patches have resolved these problems, and it is now revered as one of the more distinctive titles within the franchise.

The development of Assassin's Creed Mirage as DLC for Valhalla has resulted in Basim's movements during running and jumping resembling Eivor's animations. However, it came as a surprise when Basim executed a parkour move from Assassin's Creed Unity, a game released almost a decade ago. On Reddit, a user named JealousAd8831 shared a GIF showing Basim in Assassin's Creed Mirage performing the same diving parkour move introduced by Unity's protagonist Arno Dorian in 2014. The clip shows Basim diving off a rooftop corner with his arms and legs extended backward, similar to a belly flop. He then grabs onto a horizontal wooden post and swings up to grab another ledge.

It would be interesting to find out if these animations accumulate from one game to another over time, or if the inclusion of Arno's dive animation in Mirage was a deliberate reference to Arno and Assassin's Creed Unity. Some commenters on the post claim that this particular parkour move has appeared in every Assassin's Creed game since Unity, even in the RPG-focused entries where parkour is less frequent. Another commenter mentioned that the animation works best in environments with many ledges and bars to jump across. Since Mirage features the series' first substantial city environment since Syndicate, the move is more likely to be triggered as players spend more time parkouring in Mirage's Baghdad compared to the larger open-world RPG entries like Origins or Odyssey.

Ubisoft has multiple ongoing Assassin's Creed projects with codenames like Red and Hexe. It remains to be seen whether the new Assassins will have their own distinct running and parkour animations, or if elements from Eivor and Basim's movements will continue in the future. Additionally, Arno's diving animation might make a return in upcoming installments. As for Mirage, which has recently been released, fans will have to wait a little longer to receive updates on Ubisoft's exciting line-up of Assassin's Creed projects.

You can now experience Assassin's Creed Mirage on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.