The rumored Assassin's Creed Mirage game will reportedly scrap the player's ability to choose their character's gender.

A new leak highlighted on Twitter by journalist Jason Schreier detailed various aspects of the unannounced title, including its setting, release window and changes to its protagonist system. According to the disclosure, Assassin's Creed Mirage will feature a single playable character named Basim, who first appeared in Assassin's Creed: Valhalla as a rival to protagonist Eivor. The game will place him in the starring role, follow his exploits as a child thief, and will not offer players a choice in the gender of the protagonist.

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The leak also revealed other Assassin's Creed Mirage details and indicated that the Mirage is the new title for the game previously reported as Assassin's Creed Rift. The game will take place in Iraq in the late 9th century and supposedly offer players multiple cities to explore, including Baghdad and Samarra. Ubisoft is looking to bring the franchise back to its roots and emulate the gameplay of the original Assassin's Creed game released in 2007 by stripping out many RPG elements like dialogue choice and character leveling systems. It will also reinstate the classic Eagle Vision mechanic, a signature technique of the Brotherhood of Assassins that has seen several different iterations over the years.

Moreover, Ubisoft has numerous other Assassin's Creed games in the works, with rumors cropping up regularly about their ongoing development. The company is apparently gearing up for a remake of the first Assassin's Creed game in the coming years and will reuse many of Assassin's Creed Mirage's assets to create it. However, before the remake, the company plans to release the long-awaited Assassin's Creed Infinity: a live service game that will act as a platform for future titles and could introduce settings like Japan, Russia and Maya-era Mesoamerica. Assassin's Creed Infinity will reportedly focus on delivering several smaller campaigns instead of the series' usual sprawling singular narratives. Ubisoft is also said to have canceled a spin-off title known as Assassin's Creed Titans before its official reveal for unknown reasons.

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Ubisoft first introduced female player characters in 2014's London-centered Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, and gamers have been able to play as a female assassin in every series iteration since. Early criticism of the company's efforts branded their inclusion of female leads as half-hearted and an afterthought, particularly in Syndicate, which resulted in more fleshed-out protagonists appearing in later games. The most recent entry in the franchise, Assassin's Creed: Valhalla, went even further than its predecessors and featured a single protagonist whose gender players could choose following a time jump.

Development of Assassin's Creed Mirage is currently underway at Ubisoft and will reportedly debut in Spring 2023, though the company has offered no official release date nor confirmation of its name.

Source: Twitter