Listen, I don’t blame you for asking when exactly Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes place. With a franchise as massive and convoluted as Ubisoft’s monolithic open-world series, it’s becoming more and more difficult to pin down a specific timeline, a fact that even the publisher has acknowledged since it released several books to clarify when exactly all the games are set in relation to one another. Mirage serves as an interesting reference point though as it’s in the first entry in the so-called “modern” Assassin‘s Creed games to potentially link up with the “classic” installments, namely the very first entry in the series which released all the way back in 2007. Without that in mind, let’s try to establish Mirage‘s place both in the fictional and real-world timeline, given that Assassin’s Creed has always gone out of its way to include some kind of connection to a futuristic device called the Animus. Seriously, who actually cares for it a this point? It’s always been the worst part of the lore; why are we even bothering with it?
Oh, and before I get into the weeds, I want to just set the record straight that I’m only taking the video games in the series into consideration when it comes to the timeline. There is an abundance of novels, comic books, and even that awful film that could complicate things, so for the purposes of this article, those don’t count.
When Does Assassin’s Creed Mirage Take Place on the Series Timeline
While Assassin’s Creed has in the last few years made a point of going further back in history than much of the earlier releases, Mirage doesn’t necessarily follow that tradition. Within the context of the franchise, this game takes place after Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Origins. While that could be simple enough, matters are made a little more complex when one realizes that the protagonist of Mirage, Basim Ibn Ishaq, has actually already appeared in an Assassin’s Creed, having played an important role in 2020’s Valhalla. In that game, he was already an established warrior, meaning that Mirage is set before Valhalla, since it will chronicle Basim’s rise from a street thief and urchin to a proficient assassin and champion of truth. He formally begins his training as an Assassin in 852, approximately three years before Eivor Varinsdottir is adopted by King Styrbjorn Sigvaldisson following the death of their parents. Mirage will also tie back into Origins since Basim is a quest to track down the Hidden Ones, the name of the titular order before they universally took up the mantle of Assassins.
Related: Assassin’s Creed Mirage Is One of the Best Ubisoft Games I’ve Played in Years
Thus, it stands to reason that Valhalla is set immediately after, or potentially during, the events of Mirage. It’s followed by the very first Assassin’s Creed, the one that starred Altair Ibn-La’Ahad, which takes place around 300 years after the Viking adventure, making Mirage one of the earliest entries on the franchise’s timeline.
When Does Assassin’s Creed Mirage Take Place in Real-World History
As for when Assassin’s Creed Mirage takes place in terms of our real-world history (the one that doesn’t include alien gods and various mythological creatures), Basim’s adventure is set in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, in 861 which many historians describe as one of the city’s most prosperous periods. Art, culture, and literature were produced in abundance despite the rising tension of the anarchy of Samarra, a time that saw several military factions vying for power by manipulating four religious leaders, known as caliphs, who rose to power through violence and bloodshed.
In Mirage, the city of Baghdad is split into four separate districts, namely Round City, Karkh, Abassiyah, and Harbiyah. Ubisoft has also confirmed that players will visit Alamut, the fortress headquarters of the Hidden Ones, which also appeared in Assassin’s Creed when it was controlled by the villainous Al Mualim and eventually liberated by Altair.
As for how Assassin’s Creed Mirage will implement the Animus and the current-day threat of Abstergo, that remains to be seen. Ubisoft has confirmed that “Animus Glitches” are making a return in the latest game, a return to one of the franchise’s oldest tropes established all the way back in 2007. It’s unknown whether these have been included purely for flavor or if they indicate the inclusion of the Animus as a framing device since some have speculated that Mirage may simply be told from the perspective of Basim at the time. Every other modern AC game has included the memory-hopping machine in some form or another, so I doubt we’d be so lucky as to have finally left it behind.
If you’re looking for more on the game, check out our hands-on preview of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, which we thought was a lot of fun.
