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Assassin’s Creed Mirage is five times shorter than Valhalla

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is going to be short. This is undoubtedly great news for those of us that look at the October 2023 videogame release schedule and start to sweat, with the stealth game coming in much shorter than previous RPG entries in the series. While we’re all excited about Assassin’s Creed Mirage itself, the exact timing of the Assassin’s Creed Mirage release date is in quite a busy period.
French videogame YouTuber Julien Chièze recently managed to sit down for an interview with Ubisoft lead producer Fabian Salomon, who talked all about Mirage’s city of Baghdad, protagonist Basim, and average internal playtimes for the game. Thank goodness Assassin’s Creed Mirage won’t be a 100-hour epic.
You can hear Salomon talk about Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s average run times below at the 17:04 mark, but as it’s in French, we at PCGamesN have transcribed and translated the quote for you.

“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 says. “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.”
Considering that the last game in the series, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, is about 60 hours long and 143 hours for completionists, with Odyssey racking up similar playtimes (according to HowLongToBeat), this is sure to be great news for many. This also means that, on average, you can fully complete Mirage almost five times in the same time it takes to beat Valhalla once.
This runtime may also stay the same after launch, as there are currently no Assassin’s Creed Mirage DLC plans from Ubisoft. While most AC games have launched with season passes and a handful of expansions over the years, Mirage may be bucking that trend, or at least at launch. Considering Mirage is a “narrative-driven experience,” that might explain the comparatively short runtime.
 
You title this as if it was a bad thing, Valhalla is so fucking bloated, I enjoyed the game but damn it overstayed its welcome by so many hours.

The original games were all about this length, it wasn’t until Origins and especially Odyssey and Valhalla where things started getting ridiculous.
 
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Fess

Member
I’m not a fan of Valhalla but I love Odyssey. Can’t say if this is good or bad yet. Shorter, narrative driven and more linear mostly makes it seem like it’s a one and done type of game that’ll last a week.
 

squidilix

Member
Ubisoft will be shocking when they see people completion story on favor of Mirage than Valhalla.

Perhaps a first step on this ridiculously way for too long game to beat and too long for their own good.
 

kevm3

Member
If they actually use this to make a more immersive experience, then great. Realistically, this will probably be a trend of giving us the same quality of content, but less of it.
 

Rudius

Member
I mostly care about the historical recreation of the map. I hope they make one recreating ancient Rome in the same detail as Paris in Unity. I would have liked a greater focus on Athens in Odyssey as well.
 

simpatico

Member
Valhalla length wouldn't have been a problem if the open world wasn't so damn barren. I don't mind epic length games, but I need something to do. Eventually all the travel became a chore because you realized that there was zero reason to stop and look around. There's absolutely nothing to find.
 
20-23 is perfect length. Valhalla main campaign was really really really long.

C’mon now. A more focused experience is actually worth more as it doesn’t waste your time.
That should be up to the player to decide for themselves. I don't like paying more for less.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Good. Too bloated isn't for me. AC peaked with the Ezio saga for me.

But AC as a whole.. for stealth they always felt unsatisfactory for me. The mechanics, AI, combat etc felt undercooked. It was more about the settings, atmosphere and the views.
 
Sounds like it's about the same length/content as black flag, which is the "biggest" of the classic games, so about half of odyssey(~40h) and less than half of valhalla (~50h); honestly was expecting it to be more like rogue which is the shortest one at ~8-10 hours.
 

ByWatterson

Member
This says way more about the bloat of Valhalla than anything else. That game was a total chore to play. Just insufferable.

And it didn't help that it had nearly no critical path story. Just side quest-style missions punctuated by quick main character beats, with a time ratio of 5:1.

It was the Destiny story delivery format in a single-player game. Bizzare.
 

brian0057

Banned
If they remove the teleportation, it'll be the greatest Assassin's Creed title ever made.
 
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