Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise is synonymous with DLCs and expansions. And, who can blame them? A majority of the premium post-launch content for each installment has been huge movers. Besides, how else do you sell pricier editions of each entry than by promising a couple of expansions? However, in an ironic twist, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, which is said to have evolved from a DLC planned for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, isn’t going to have any post-launch content.
A radical departure from the company’s usual MO and from industry trends, Creative Director, Stéphane Boudon, confirmed the decision to forgo any post-launch content for Assassin’s Creed: Mirage.
If nothing else, this latest iteration of the long-running franchise harks back to the early days of the series even more with its attempt to deliver a more compact and self-contained adventure.
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Assassin’s Creed: Mirage, while considered a ‘smaller form’ game within the franchise, is said to be on par with titles such as Unity and Syndicate. On the other hand, Mirage’s predecessor, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, released in 2020, threatened to set a terrible precedent by featuring more post-launch content than any other in the series. Boudon’s recent statement during a Reddit AMA, however, guarantees that this isn’t happening. Instead, Ubisoft is returning the Assassin’s Creed franchise to its roots, with a focus on crafting a more concise and self-contained experience.
It’s a decision that, to some, might seem a retrograde step, given the ballooning costs of video game development and the potential to squeeze more profit off each outing with continual updates and additional content.
But, this is a welcome change for the company, as a whole. After sullying its reputation for the past decade with supposedly quick cash grabs, Ubisoft can endear itself more toward audiences. Besides, the “no-DLC” stance is an ongoing trend with a lot of AAA games these days. 2021’s Game of the Year winner, It Takes Two, and one of the runner-ups, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, didn’t have post-launch content. Last year’s GOTY frontrunner, God of War: Ragnarok, and its predecessor, God of War, were developed as self-contained stories as well. Finally, until recently, Square Enix didn’t intend to release more content for Final Fantasy 16 – it’s just that the game sold too well and too fast that it felt like it was doing fans a disserving for not checking if it left some stones unturned.
Another way of looking at this decision is that Mirage could be a reaction to industry fatigue over long-standing practices. While the studio’s silence on post-launch content might merely be a “for now” scenario, it could equally be a strategic move away from the contentious microtransactions model, which has often faced criticism from players.
It’s possible that, despite onboarding more talent to work on the Assassin’s Creed franchise earlier this year as part of its move to go all-in on the games, Ubisoft doesn’t want to stretch itself too thin across multiplayer projects. By “cutting” support for Assassin’s Creed: Mirage as soon as it’s out on the market, the majority of the development team can move on to help out other studios with other ongoing projects, specifically, Codenames “Red” and Hexe”, which are reportedly set in Japan and horror-themed, respectively.
In any case, it remains to be seen if Ubisoft will change its mind once it sees the number for Mirage, which, no doubt, will be high given its relatively lower price point and the hype surrounding its release.
Nonetheless, there’s an undeniable sense of nostalgia and appeal to the idea of a self-contained gaming experience, akin to the early days of the franchise and the broader gaming world. By launching a smaller, focused Assassin’s Creed game, Ubisoft might be attempting to capture this sense of nostalgia while testing the waters. Thus, it could be an industry experiment, a standalone oddity, or the start of a new trend. Only time will tell.
Hopefully, Ubisoft is focusing on quality instead of quantity, instead of just wanting to push out Mirage as soon as possible.
We’ll find out more about Assassin’s Creed Mirage once it hits the store shelves on October 12.
