Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the latest entry in the long-running franchise by Ubisoft. It’s slated to launch for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC on 5 October 2023. Recently, we were lucky enough to be given the opportunity to visit Ubisoft Singapore (which was involved in the development of the game) and interview Assassin’s Creed Mirage lead quest designer Meng Yim Chee.

This interview has been edited for clarity. You can head on over here for our full review of Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set in 9th-century Baghdad during an Islamic Golden Age. What about the setting has inspired your work the most in designing the quests?

Meng Yim Chee: So, one thing is that we are paying homage to the previous Assassin’s Creed games because this is also the 15th anniversary of the franchise. Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set in Baghdad, which is kind of similar to the global region that Assassin’s Creed 1 was set in. In terms of inspiration, it’s actually very fascinating to me because for example, Abbasiyah district is like a district for scholars and wisdom and intelligent people.

And we know that there was the House Of Wisdom, which was a really huge library back then, comparable to something like the Library Of Alexandria in Egypt, but unfortunately, the Mongols came and burned it all down. Personally, I really like reading all these histories and trying to bring them to life and allow players to see them in a more visual form. Sometimes, you know, books just don’t do them justice.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage will only be around 20-plus hours long, which makes it the shortest AC game in years. How has that smaller and more focused scale influenced how you design the quests in the game?

Meng Yim Chee: So, for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, we wanted to tell a narrative action-adventure game and also, Basim is not a new character because he was already in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. But what happened in his past, we don’t know that so that’s why we wanted to tell the story of how he became from a street thief to a master assassin and his progress with the Hidden Ones and trying to uncover his nightmarish visions. So, with that, so that we are able to use those plot points into our game and provide players with the best possible narrative experience, but there are also other things you can do in the game, such as the side quests that can tell you more about life back then.

Because you know, not just Muslims lived around there, Zoroastrians, Christians, Jews lived there as well. So, through these side quests, you’re able to experience what life was like back then through their eyes. We also have the Assassin Bureau, that you can go over and get contracts from the Hidden Ones, to do various things like maybe they need you to acquire something or assassinate a target. All of these things come together and help us form the game that is Assassin’s Creed Mirage.

How many black box assassination missions will be in Assassin’s Creed Mirage and what can we expect from them?

Meng Yim Chee: I’m not able to comment on the exact numbers but on the Singapore side, we are developing three (3) main quest arcs that end up in the black box missions and the Forty Thieves DLC side quest.

There are no longer levels in the game. Can you explain how the new progression system works?

Meng Yim Chee: You are correct to say that Assassin’s Creed Mirage doesn’t have that traditional RPG progression system where numbers make up things, so for us, we have a very focused skill tree that players can choose from and decide what their playstyle is going to be like. And because Basim is a master assassin, he has access to all these tools that the Ubisoft Singapore team helped develop, such as the throwing knives, the blowdarts, the mines, and the noisemakers. All these tools can actually be upgraded as well depending on how you want to handle a situation. Using all of this aids us in how we want to tell our narrative action-adventure story from Basim’s past to present-time.

What can you tell us about the new Investigations mechanic?

Meng Yim Chee: The very interesting thing about Assassin’s Creed Mirage is that we have that Investigations board, which if you have played previous titles, it’s like the quest log but it’s very different. In this Investigations board, the player knows as much as Basim does, so during your playthrough, you have to go to a location and uncover the clues with Basim and the player knows what’s going to happen and how it contributes to the main quest arc that they are currently following or the Order target they are following.

And another interesting about that as well is that you could be eavesdropping on somebody or hearing somebody doing some kind of conversation and you can suddenly find a clue. So, we want to give players agency and to look out for these opportunities as they are playing the game.

Throughout this game’s development, what would you say has been the favourite thing you’ve worked on or the work you’re most proud of?

Meng Yim Chee: I did work quite heavily on the Abbasiyah quest arc so I have a very deep connection to it. And there’s also me wanting us to show the House of Wisdom, because it’s something that doesn’t exist anymore. And also, it’s not really a good thing but because it doesn’t exist anymore and references are kind of hard, so we worked with historical and cultural experts to figure out what’s the best feel, what it could have possibly looked like or existed like back then, so we were able to put our own spin on it so you can discover many mysteries in the halls of the libraries and make your own wisdom discoveries while you’re playing through the game.