Assassin’s Creed Mirage is ditching the endless worlds of its predecessor, as Ubisoft estimates it will only take players an average of 30 hours to see everything it has to offer with its game length. This information comes via an interview French YouTuber Julien Chièze did with lead producer Fabian Salomon (translation via PCGamesN). Salomon doesn’t beat around the bush: Assassin’s Creed Mirage is shaping up to be a much shorter experience with a more condensed playtime than what fans got with titles like 2020’s Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and 2018’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
“Given that we do a lot of playtesting internally at Ubisoft, it’s part of our process, we really want to get as close as possible to the players, so we’ll say that the latest playtimes we’ve received average at around 20-23 hours,” Salomon said. “That can go up to 25-30 hours for the completionists, and we’ll say that those who will be rushing the game will be around 20 hours.”’
That’s a major change from the last few entries in the series. According to video game playtime estimation website HowLongToBeat, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey takes around 45 hours to reach its credits, with Valhalla taking even longer at around 60 hours – and that’s if you only do the story content. Those looking to check every box in those games could wind up spending hundreds of hours. Video games with drawn-out game length have elicited criticism through the last few years, so the shorter playtime for Assassin’s Creed Mirage might actually arrive as a welcome surprise.
However, it’s not a complete shock to see a trimmer entry in the series this time around. Ubisoft has marketed Assassin’s Creed Mirage as a back-to-basics outing that returns players to the franchise’s stealth roots. Pre-release material from Ubisoft has promised a narrative-driven experience that follows Basim, a “cunning street thief with nightmarish visions seeking answers and justice.”
Assassin’s Creed isn’t the first we’ve heard of Ubisoft’s efforts to deflate playtime; earlier this week, we learned that Star Wars Outlaws is also planned to be a shorter experience. Look forward to what Ubisoft can do with a 20-30-hour video game when Assassin’s Creed Mirage launches for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X | S on October 12, 2023.
