Historical Realism Review: Assassin's Creed Mirage

Assassin's Creed Mirage touts a "return to the roots" – but in their treatment of the history, they've done something very different than prior games. How realistic is this depiction of medieval Baghdad? Let's see!

Special thanks to our friend @Ludohistory for having me on his Mirage livestreams, for our many conversations about the game, and for looking through this video's script.

Note on Ali Ibn Muhammad & the Zanj Rebellion:
I'm aware that Fuladh has two voice lines in the Sharqiyah bureau about Ali and the Zanj if you specifically ask him for more information, but that's a very flimsy way to handle that and as far as I'm concerned it fully does not count. The Abbasiyah and Karkh plotlines weave much cleaner historical narratives without omitting essential details like "What is the Zanj Rebellion".

Cited interview clippings:

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

[samuelflynn]

We all know you would never die on a hill but a strategically placed and historically relevant arched bridge.

[FuzzyStripetail]

After getting my degree from the House of Wisdom, I can now boast "Who's your Baghdad-dy now?" to anyone who didn't earn their degree from the House of Wisdom.

[theanimeunderworld]

Domes, domes galore and more for sweet Blue

[nourriadh]

As someone born and living in Baghdad, the game was a breath of fresh air! I loved seeing my culture presented in such a well-studied way. Also some structures from the Abbasid Caliphate still stand today like the Mustasiria school, although it's a little later than the time period presented in the game.

[Oscar_Lasco]

Treating the Zanj rebellion as some secondary background thing is like playing in 1st century B.C. Rome and having someone say "Hey, here's a job for a guy called Spartacus, . Just a dude you know, some kind of rebel."

[danidm]

"I'll be overly nice to the older games by ignoring them completely" is a level of shade I didn't expect from this video, but I appreciate.

[odd-eyes]

"Now I have to go back to being in shock that I actually like this game"
-Blue and the entirety of the AC fanbase

[edo.creative]

As someone who speaks hebrew, it was insane to suddenly hear it in the chatter while roaming the city.

It was even better when i realized they had the same voice actress talking to herself

[lizabee]

I first fell in love with Islamic architecture and art when I studied the Moorish architecture of Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain for an art history class. I was absolutely floored by the mathematical and artistic intricacies of that building.
Mirage giving me the opportunity to see so many of these pieces of art rendered in such high quality makes me positively giddy.

[Sootielove]

Every time I've tried to research medieval cultures in the middle east, I found nothing but fetishised orientalism or complete nonsense. Even if Mirage isn't perfect, it really means a lot to have a game actually trying to show off an idea of what Baghdad might have been like without just being sexy bellydancers and evil muslims

[qahari]

As a devout Muslim who is obsessed with the first 4 centuries of Islamic history, this game was my fever dream.
The fact my boy Al-Jahiz (who low-key discovered natural selection years ahead of time) got a shout out.
My only sadness is not getting to see Imam Ahmad ibn hanbal 🥲

[foulplayer]

Hey Blue, would you consider doing a video on the history of museums? You love history and architecture, so why not highlight humanity's earliest effort to preserve and present history to the general populace.
For instance, you could talk about the Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum, the world's earliest museum, dating from c. 530 BC and devoted to Mesopotamian antiquities. Or you could discuss the Capitoline Museum in Rome. You'd have a lot of options and famous buildings to explore.

[berrie-nice-to-meet-you]

6:50 hold up, mentioning the Zanj rebellion reminds me of my favorite historical anecdote that I hope is in the game. During the Zanj rebellion, in the city of Baghdad, a serial killer was found with the bodies of several young women strangled in his house. They whipped him hundreds of times, but this didn't kill him, so they killed him by crushing his testicles with a log. I'm not making this up, I can give you a citation from al-Tabari. Please tell me that the serial killer is a mission in this game

[HistoryMonarch]

The enthusiasm and care the developers in Ubisoft Bordeaux had made me want to buy it especially with Muslims talking about in detail about the representation.

I mean I know about the flaws but I understand because of what they had to deal with, basically working with smaller time and working with Valhalla assets too

[raguelelnaqum]

Another criticism that I'd point out is very integral the fact that most of the important Zanj characters were either Mesosemetic phenotype or Afro-Arabic, when not only was Eastern Africa far less interposed with Persiac, Indian & Arabic settlement during this period (outside of the coasts), when teh Zanj, who were very much predecessors to groups like the Habshi/Siddhi & Afro-Iraqi, were primarily taken from Nilotic, Pagan Kushitic, Kalenjin, South African, and Far East Cong-River Basin (Ugandan, Rwandan, etc) peoplegroups, with minority malgasy population also interspaced with them (mainly because most Malgasy groups at the time were collaborating with the Zanzibari slave network). These are peoples represent of some of the darkest phenotypes in Africa & most of them instead resemble modern Afro-Iraqi, who have had nearly a millennium of genetic drift & intermixing to look the way they do.

[stefanlamb]

To me, the crowning glory of Creed was the irl rebuilding of Notre Dame from game footage after the fire. That to me is the ultimate flex and should be the goal of these games every time... bringing museums to life, exploring architecture (by literally crawling all over it). Goofy conspiracy plotlines are secondary to experiencing the historical world.

[LaZodiac]

I've heard nothing but praise for the historical realism in this game, and how even if it's not always accurate, it's got love and care put into it. And that's good.

I also saw people commenting on that one guy who says he steals shoes from the Mosque and acting with bewilderment at this deranged behavior.

[Neptune]

A few weeks ago I had a very lifelike dream where there was a E3-esc presentation, where a guy from Ubisoft announced that after the lackluster reception of Mirage, Ubisoft had decided to change course. He explained how for the next 4 years *minimum*, there would be no new AC games, instead they would be releasing remakes of the first 4 games. And at the same time, in the background, they would begin work on the next proper AC games in the form of a planned trilogy titled AC Empire, set during the rise of the Roman empire, and would see the player travel across the mediterranean in a full length story reminiscent of the Ezio saga... I woke up and was legitimately distraught that it was just a dream.

[TheWatcher]

FINALLY...! The *one* Assassin's Creed: Mirage review that I've been waiting for before I decide whether or not to play the game!

[billywarren]

It’s great to see the amount of research they put in for this game, the effort it must have taken to even get a grasp on pre-sack Baghdad layout must have been insane.