#also OP I AGREE it's absolute madness to have replaced the lovely og map with a smaller one covered in unintelligible runes#but the illustrations are by Paolini himself so I'm assuming it was a point of pride to include them#SIGH
Even when I was a kid I thought Chris was, well, the kind of guy to sniff his own farts, and this map isn't helping to disuade that notion lol
Also fun fact: the runes on the Map of Woe are just the English letters replaced, but they don't match up with the English transcriptions of any real-life Norse runes, so here are some fun things written on the map:
Alagaesia = lYlblnhnl
Uru'baen (it's not written as Ilirea) = aFÄuliK
Ceunon = piaKLK
The Spine = ysi htnKi
etc.
I mean it doesn't matter because it's a fantasy book and the runes obviously have different letter correspondences (and in writing this comment I discovered a translation key in the back of my Kindle copy), but lmao
Originally published on Substack, 22nd November, 2023. Link!
Since this essay is 18k words, I've included the first section below the cut and a link to the Substack article.
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Heavy spoilers for The Inheritance Cycle and, of course, Murtagh. Grab some water, this is a long one.
INTRO
Since this is going to be about both the Cycle as a work and how my relation to it has shaped my thoughts and feelings and so this analysis, letâs start with the context of me.
Like many 2000s nerdy fantasy kids, The Inheritance Cycle was my favourite thing on the planet.
When I was nine and the movie just about to come out, my mum bought me Eragon. I finished it within a few days and read Eldest equally quickly. Brisingr was the first book I went to the shop to get on release day instead of having a parent pick it up for me, and Inheritance was when I discovered the concept of preordering. I finished it four days after release and was left with pretty mixed thoughts on the whole affair.
Not liking Inheritance felt bad. Amongst other things, I thought it was overly long, I didnât like that Eragon found the cache of dragon eggs that would allow him to effectively Ctrl+Z the Fall of the Riders, I didnât like how he was squared up to fight Galbatorix with a convenient stash of Eldunarya left next to said eggs so it became a battle of slugging it out, I thought Galbatorix was more lame than ever with his comically evil villainy and less than satisfying boss fight, and I was so, so frustrated at Eragon himself for being âŚÂ him. He was perfect â a perfect Rider, a master swordsman, a master magician, the celebrated son of a great man, and now the leader of the Varden, what with Nasuadaâs mid-book kidnapping, all at the tender age of sixteen or seventeen. He was so flawless that heâd become divorced from what made me originally like him; the last hundred pages of Inheritance were a trek and a half. Gak.
But, hey, The Inheritance Cycle was my favourite thing, so itâs fine. I buried my complaints and went on with my life âŚ
And now Murtagh has landed and I have finished it, and itâs unearthed all these half-finished thoughts from my tween and teen years that I want to put to bed. And weâre gonna do it with an analysis on Murtagh as a character over the course of the original series, and everything in this new book about him and Thorn.
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Originally published on Substack, 4th October, 2023. Link!
Since this essay is 10.5k words, I've included the first section below the cut and a link to the Substack article.
A special thanks to Ubisoft ANZ for not only supplying an early copy of Mirage for me to review, but for inviting me to the gameâs Sydney launch party this past Thursday. I had a brilliant time and adored meeting the amazing content creators, eating the delicious food, getting pushed outside because of fire alarm shenanigans, and having a ridiculously long 1-on-1 chat with Mirageâs narrative director, Sarah Beaulieu. Thanks for flying halfway across the planet to come and visit us!
INTRO
I have been simultaneously dreading and getting cautiously optimistic for this game for months now, but mostly Iâve been going out of my way not to think about it. My thought process was that when October 2023 came about, I wanted to go into Assassinâs Creed Mirage as neutrally as possible, because my relationship with Assassinâs Creed over the past few years has been turbulent to say the least. The first game I was around for the release of was Origins in 2017, for which I was monstrously hyped. Then when Odyssey was revealed at E3 in 2018, I crashed for I immediately hated it, decrying it along with hundreds of others online. When Valhalla came about in 2020, I simply did not care for it in the slightest. Both for Valhalla by itself, and for Assassinâs Creed as a brand.
I had entered my jaded phase, for I had played two games in a row of a thing I had recently fallen out of love with, and it was a bitter thing to experience. On top of that, I had quietly resigned myself, as had many others in my circle of friends, to never getting back the Assassinâs Creed we liked, and instead we would get more games that built entire countries with 60 hour campaigns. For back then, Assassinâs Creed wasnât the only franchise Ubisoft was transforming. Post-Origins, their philosophy seemed to be to make everything bigger, better, and endless. A Unity within an Odyssey. I decided to cut my losses and squat on my âsectionâ of the franchise that I liked the most, which are the 18th century games, and thought that would be enough to content me and that I would move on and find new obsessions to take the place that had been occupied by Assassinâs Creed.
Burying my hopes and dreams for Assassinâs Creed in 2020. (Assassinâs Creed III, 2012 (Ubisoft))
Then mid-2020 happened. Ubisoftâs management were hit by claims of rampant bullying and sexual harassment that stretched all the way to the top of the company. Many high profile people were fired, but for this story, the two big names were Valhallaâs game director Ashraf Ismail, and Ubisoftâs CCO Serge HascoĂŤt. If you werenât around then, know it was a massive event. With HascoĂŤt in particular gone, there came some hope that these changes would not only turf out abusers and change the general company culture for the better (the results have been mixed to say the least), but be felt in the way Ubisoft made its games. But if their games were going to change, then weâd have to wait for a few years as development pipelines had the chance to catch up.
When Mirage was revealed in September 2022, that cynicism Odyssey and Valhalla had left me with still had me in its grip. I watched the cinematic trailer and kind of felt nothing. Later when I had time to reflect on my emotions it felt both freeing and really fucking terrible. I didnât care about this thing that had had me in some kind of death grip for six and a half years by then. I could watch this promise of a thing dangled before me and be fine in the thought that I had moved on. But that realisation of detachment felt bad. Because this franchise was the one that got me into video games beyond Nintendo party games in the first place. It was the thing that led me to meet wonderful people and open doors to opportunities like the Mentorâs Guild and Star Player programs, and having my work featured in For Honor not once, but twice.
But I didnât want to think about that either. I put Mirage to the back of my brain and went on with my life. Mirage would come out eventually, and if it looked good, Iâd play it.
And that was my headspace until about a week ago when I went to that launch party. Mirage is here, and boy do I have a lot to say about it.
Basim ibn Isâhaq, protagonist of Mirage. He has a nice face :) (Assassinâs Creed Mirage, 2023 (Ubisoft))
As a TL;DR review: Mirage is a solid AC game fans have been clamouring for for years. The gameplay loop is fun and engaging and fully committed to delivering the Assassin fantasy. The story likewise is good, but not great. It has memorable characters in Basim and Roshan and does reach some great dramatic moments, even if I found that its beats didnât land as fully as they wanted. I highly recommend it for fans of Classic Creed. For New Creed fans/players who are looking for adventures like Odyssey, this game might not be for you as it exchanges country-sized maps for a single, dense urban environment (and whilst the map outside of Baghdad is large, it is mostly empty like Originsâ desert regions), has done away with character dialogue choices and romances, banished the focus on magic and mythology, and leans fully into the stealthy Assassin fantasy rather than the build-based branches of Assassin, Warrior, or Ranger you could spec into as Kassandra or Alexios. However, if youâre after some open world action adventure, historical tourism, and/or look to murder a bunch of pixel people, thereâs a good chance youâll have fun :)
This review has been split into two parts â a non-spoiler review that goes over gameplay and my general feelings on the narrative without going into details, and a longer, spoiler filled review that will be less focused on gameplay mechanics and more on narrative. I have marked where the spoiler section starts in bold and with a large page break. Feel free to come back and read my analysis on the spoiler sections once you have finished the game, as I have loads to say about it.
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Mirageâs story trailer: analysing the narrative
Originally posted here. This is part of a series of posts/essays Iâm importing over from Reddit to Tumblr, because I like them and I want to sort them so they donât get lost in my general comment history.
General housecleaning preamble:
This was written in the 24 hours after the drop of Mirageâs story trailer on 12 June, 2023, in response to a whole lot of crap posted specifically on the subreddit and Twitter about âthe story wonât be good because itâs just pandering to the old fansâ. Which I donât believe. Iâve used my narrative analysis skills to break down the trailer and have a stab at what might happen, and the TL;DR of this is, I think weâre in good hands. The impression Iâm getting on the story from this two minute trailer is that we might be in for the best AC story in a good long while.
But I also want to emphasise a couple of things.
Firstly, all of this is just a guess as to whatâs in store based on the information solely given in the trailer. At the point of writing this, I hadnât seen any other information released by Ubi (and I honestly still havenât paid much attention to it). So although my attitude towards Mirageâs story is pretty positive based off the trailer, it doesnât guarantee that the final product will actually be good, because as weâve known for years, Ubi are masters at the marketing game. Secondly, as was pointed out in one of the comments I recieved on the post, this breakdown doesnât take into account acting and delivery a whole bunch. So even if my story guesses are solid and turn out to be in the right direction, if not nailing it on the head, the presentation of said drama can be ruined thorugh things like AI cutscenes, poor voice direction, etc., which the previous RPG titles are notorious for. Because I approached this breakdown as a novelist where you donât need to worry about this stuff lol
And now, onto the post.
At first I was going to only talk about Mirage's story trailer and why itâs promising, actually, but then it spiralled into a big thing about ACâs narratives as a whole: An Analysis (Reddit post, 13 June, 2023)
Hi. Maybe youâll remember me from hit posts like Assassinâs Creed isn't about Order vs. Chaos, or that one time I wrote a 165k book about Connor and Arno vs. Shay. Point is, I write a lot about Assassinâs Creed and its narrative, and Iâm here to write more about it now that we have more information on Mirageâs story and why I think, despite so much negativity towards it, weâre going to be just fine, actually, and how we could be in for the most interesting Creed-story in a decade.
Buckle up, this is a long âun.
For years, we, as an online community across multiple platforms, have been talking about how âAC isnât AC anymoreâ, and one of the topics that gets brought up repeatedly is the story. The narrative isnât as good anymore; I want them to talk about the philosophy of the Creed just like they did in AC1; I want interesting characters who are themselves instead of these âchoose your own adventureâ RPG games; etc. And it looks like, with the new drop of Mirageâs story trailer, we have what has been asked for.
Yet sadly, but unsurprisingly, Iâve seen many complaints across social media following the trailer drop saying that what we have been presented on the narrative is crap. Itâs nostalgia bait. Itâs just trying to trick us again. To which I say, âHuh?â
Look, I get it. I get that many people have been so burnt by the series that this response is akin to an automatic reflex to protect yourself from disappointment. I get the cynicism people are feeling because the last gameâs marketing was focused on âreturning to the rootsâ and it did not meet expectations. I get it because people want to go to the timeline where we have a game that is a direct improvement on Unity, or pulls more from Ghost of Tsushima. I get it. I have been there. I understand. Iâm here to try and assure you that we seem to be in good hands for the story, at least.
Iâm not going to talk about the gameplay (aside: Assassin Focus is frigginâ sick, nor is it a magic teleport Ă la Odyssey), or the graphics, or world design, or anything else. Iâm going to leave that to people who are smarter than me in those areas, but narrative is what Iâm smart in. So, letâs have a look together.
Weâre going to be talking spoilers from here on out, but getting into detail about endgame Valhalla spoilers in relation to Mirage, which I will mark if you would like to remain unspoiled for that. Also, weâre going to be doing a lot of groundwork first before getting into the actual analysis of the trailer, because I need it to properly talk about the trailer in the context of the wider franchise. Thanks for your patience. I promise that, if not interesting, itâll be worthwhile (high-five to fellow narrative nerds).
Okay!
First, weâll go briefly back to the beginning of the series and so the game that started this giant love affair. AC1, and the Creed. I want to start here because the heart of the trailer is about Basimâs relationship to the Creed (which for now, weâll just say is complex, further supported by what we know about him from Valhalla), and it also touches on what we the audience want and expect from explorations of the Creed, and why those expectations might not be the best approach to story.
Thereâs a gorgeous article I often point people towards regarding audience reception to Star Wars, written by the incredibly empathetic and smart Film Crit Hulk. The Beautiful, Ugly, and Possessive Hearts of Star Wars. Though I highly recommend reading this article, the reason Iâm bringing it up now is that, in summary, it makes a deeply resonating point: we care so much for the things we love because of the way they spoke to us when we first fell in love with them. For Star Wars, it got many of us as children. Watching A New Hope for the first time might have imparted your love for Luke as a heroic Jedi Knight with his lightsabre, or the overwhelming arc of good vs. evil in the Rebels vs. the Empire, or it might be for the resonate message of hope, etc. Hulk calls this âthe Coreâ, and the idea behind this is, itâs what drives the love for Star Wars in each individual. Itâs the thing that captured your imagination about it above all else, and when that âCoreâ is challenged or damaged, then it makes people furious. Itâs why there was such split reactions towards The Last Jedi. Itâs why weâre currently in a Renaissance for the Prequel Trilogy, and why Iâm expecting in ten years to see a similar resurgence of love for the Sequel Trilogy. And something similar has happened with Assassinâs Creed. We all love it for different reasons, be it its roots in historical adventure fiction, its particular flavour of a hyper-competent killer (and the and/or nature of sneak vs. battle master, which is more commonly divided by the fandom into stealth vs. combat), its gameplay functions (âclassicâ vs. RPG) ⌠you see where this is going. We all have our own âCoreâ for AC, and Ubisoft has not been able to reconcile what I call the âclassic Coreâ fans and the âRPG Coreâ fans.
Why are we talking about this again? Oh yeah, we were talking about the Creed in AC1 and how that relates to Mirage.
AC1âs focus on the Creed is praised by some to be thought provoking and driving AltaĂŻrâs development, which is all true, but I feel many people get wrong as to why this works as it does, and ignore that for many, it did not work. See all the jokes about making AltaĂŻr spin in circles in Al Mualimâs office as theyâre waiting for him to shut up. So, in the second last bit of introduction for this essay, I want to briefly discuss character vs. plot writing.
Plot writing is where the story is being driven forward by the demands of plot. âOh no! We have to stop the bomb from blowing the city up, and every action we shall be taking shall be focused on doing that!â The Avengers movies are good examples of this.
Character writing is when the decisions made by the characters are driving the plot. âJane is hiding secrets from me, and so Iâll react in response to that.â This results in more drama-driven stories; stories about characters doing things because of other characters. This is stuff like Arcane (especially Arcane; my God that show is built like a Swiss clock) and House of the Dragon.
Then you have media which is a mix of both. Things like Into the Spiderverse (another Swiss clock uunf) is a mix. Miles and Peter have to go to Alchemax to steal the information on how to shut down the collider (a plot driven need, because Miles, trying to master his spider powers, has accidentally broken the USB that 1610 Peter Parker acquired to shut down the collider), but the heist goes horribly wrong because Miles is trying to help 616B Peter with Kingpinâs unexpected arrival but, again, doesnât know how to use his powers (a character driven development).
There is not one formula that is better than the other. Different story techniques are different tools, much like how youâre not going to use a saw to hammer nails into wood. And weâve had both kinds of writing in Assassinâs Creed before that work really well! AC2 is primarily plot-driven, Unity is primarily character driven, and AC3 is a mix of both. But Mirageâs story trailer is tickling all the right areas in my brain for a character story. Weâve established that the main conflict is within Basimâs relationship to the Creed, how it demands his unflinching loyalty to the hierarchy of the Brotherhood and yet preaches freedom at the same time.
I think people focus so specifically on âwe want a good game talking about the philosophy of the Creedâ because that goes back to their âCoreâ. It made me think, it made me care about AltaĂŻr as a character, it made me invested in what was going on in the story. And this is great! But you also have to recognise that if you talk about just philosophy, it has the danger of steering straight into almost unwatchable/unretainable territory. Think of the scene in the second Matrix movie where Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus go to talk to the Merovingian at the restaurant. Most of that conversation was all about philosophy (causality, for those who would like the reminder), and most people found it boring to watch and didnât remember most of it even directly after it was done. When you rewatch the scene, or you write out the dialogue and take time to analyse it, itâs really interesting! Itâs thought provoking! But itâs not a good watching experience. What most people came away with from that scene was, âDid he just give that woman an orgasm via spiking her cake?â So how do you fix this? You dramatise it. And the AC1 team were successfully able to dramatise the philosophy in AC1 that it captured enough peopleâs imaginations to go on and spawn the other philosophical parts of AC later. Ezioâs actions in Revelations. Haythamâs conflict with Connor in AC3. Shayâs torn loyalties between duty and what is morally right in Rogue. The conflict between Arno and Germain (once you get through the ⌠lack of presented information) in Unity.
You can argue that the philosophy about the Creed has eaten itself to nothing in the last few games. That thereâs nothing left to tell after fifteen years of the same damn thing. But I disagree.
The way to make the philosophy interesting isnât to discuss the Creed as a concept of itself, which I see a lot of these requests asking for. Weâd have wrung ourselves dry of that years ago if we did that. So, how do you fix that? How do you make it interesting whilst continuing to make a video game that is financially successful? You make it about character relationships to the Creed. On a narrative level, those possibilities are endless.
And Basimâs faceted relationship to the Creed looks to be shaping up as character and philosophy coming to mix. Which leads us finally to the last bit of groundwork to get into before the trailer stuff: Basim himself.
Valhalla spoilers below.
When weâre first introduced to Basim, all seems well on the surface. Heâs a powerful figure in the Brotherhood, both as an experienced killer, a worldly traveller, and a teacher. Yet thereâs something off about him; maybe itâs the lingering camera shots where heâs just standing a bit too off-puttingly. For someone so high up in the Brotherhood, he too seems awfully callous about Eivor having the Orderâs secrets whilst not being a member, an attitude directly contrasted to Hytham who objects to Eivorâs schooling after just having met her. Basimâs also very closed about why he and Hytham have come to Norway. Basim talks big about how theyâve come to hunt down members of the Order of Ancients, but thereâs certainly a sense heâs hiding information. That his friendship with Sigurd isnât all that it seems, and that thereâs a deeper arrangement going on that we are unaware of.
That arrangement, of course, being that Basim tries to help Sigurd unlock his godhood. Again, thereâs a sense that Basim is hiding something. Why would he do this? And Eivor pushes back on it, but sheâs helpless as she watches Basim and Sigurd go down the path of madness together, putting not just themselves at risk, but the clan, too.
At the end of the game, the truth comes out. Basim was using Sigurd to get to Odin, who he did not realise was reborn as Eivor until the climax. Why? Basim is the reincarnation of another Norse god, Loki, blood brother to Odin. And Odin imprisoned Lokiâs son Fenrir for fear of prophecy. Now Loki-become-Basim wants revenge.
Basim in Valhalla is a man who has gone beyond being tied to the Creed and will only have it in his mouth and wear it as it suits him. He is unshackled, so to speak. He is his own agent, and weâve had to take the entire game to notice that that was what was off about him when we first met. And one of the questions we should get answers to in Mirage was how he became the way he is.
End Valhalla spoilers.
Mirage takes us back twenty years before the start of Valhalla to a younger Basim. A street thief who is suffering from hallucinations and nightmares of a âdjinnâ that he alone endures. On a surface pass of this, I think it looks great. The trailer has a clear narrative throughline of Basim being saved by the Hidden Ones and joining them, but soon finding out that what was sweet at first bite, a promise of freedom, has turned somewhat sour. Basim is made by other characters throughout the trailer to question both his place in the Brotherhood, what theyâre doing, and what he is, a question that cannot leave him alone as he continues to be haunted by his visions.
This throughline is fascinating to look at. You have a strong premise and strong conflict, and you can start to piece together the shape of what the story is going to be about. You know how I said before the trailer gives me a strong impression that this will be a character-driven narrative? Letâs dive into that. And weâll talk about the Creed at the same time.
What I think looks strong narratively about this is you should be able to play Mirage without knowing how Basimâs story goes in Valhalla (there is another marked section of Valhalla spoilers later, but otherwise Iâll only be talking about the content of the trailer). This is because the narrative looks contained. Weâre not introduced to Basim as a âyou already know who this is because itâs a prequel!â character, but instead as a new character. He is a street thief, and he sucks at it because heâs just been caught by two guards and is about to be punished by them. But then! Shock and surprise! Basim is saved by a powerful warrior. She grabs him and tells him to follow her, we have to go! Basim has no choice but to do so as she clears an escape route without trouble. She leads him up to a leap of faith spot and gracefully jumps.
Basim, on the other hand, is clumsy and doesnât know how to do a leap of faith. Off he falls into the river below. I actually went âOuch!â upon watching the trailer for the first time because he lands in the water on his back. Painful! And not only does it lead into a classic shot of a person being swallowed by black waters, but itâs so perfect an illustration of a character who isnât competent in the world they're about to enter, and, of course, what that world will turn them into soon.
It can also be symbolically read as death and rebirth.
After Basim has been dragged out of the water, we then cut to a campfire and have talk of the feather ritual. I was kind of shocked to see people reacting negatively to the inclusion of this. The most common criticism Iâve seen of this scene (this isnât including the AI animated cutscenes or what have you) is that itâs nostalgia bait! Itâs one of those pieces of marketing that is trying to trick you into buying this game! I think this take is the culmination of Internet-flavoured cynicism. Maybe these critics are right and marketing is part of the reason why this scene was included in the trailer, but narratively, this scene is excellent because it starts to put down the base of where Basimâs psychology starts. After Basim, obviously by himself, has been rescued by Roshan, this cut establishes camaraderie between members of the Brotherhood. A sense of community and belonging, which is something that Basim is painfully lacking. But the other thing it does is offers Basim purpose. If he can join this Brotherhood with its close connections and rituals, and if it gives him the power to save other powerless people like Roshan saved him (not only from death, but from a life of oppression and/or scratching by), then it is an opportunity to find himself, to be part of something greater.
Because the âjobâ of the first part of this trailer is to mythologise the Hidden Ones in Basimâs eyes and show his radicalisation to the Creed. Itâs getting him to care so much about this that he pledges himself to the Hidden Ones and to put him in a position where, once he emerges from the bubble that is Alamut, the world starts chafing against his ideals when it doesnât offer the simple existence presented at Alamut.
Radicalisation to the cause is actually what a lot of the other Assassin stories have been about. Itâs AltaĂŻrâs story, itâs Ezio's, itâs Edwardâs. Arno suffers consequences for not being radicalised to the cause (expulsion from the Brotherhood for one). And for the reverse, Shayâs story is about his slow conversion from an Assassin, to a wayward lone wolf, to a Templar. Itâs about why should these people take up these causes and devote their lives to something that wonât be remembered in the history books, and why they choose to become one of endless, lashing waves throwing themselves against the breakwall.
And Basimâs radicalisation is further cemented in the trailer by Roshan directing him to strike down the Order of Ancients. âThe Order has held dominion over man and their empires for centuries,â she says as she hands Basim a feather. Go forth and kill.
Something that Iâve always wanted to see in an AC game is a characterâs reaction to the first time they kill someone. From the top of my head, there are two times weâve seen this talked about in the franchise, and one of them I donât really count. The first is Shayâs reactions to killing his Templar targets at the beginning of Rogue. He isnât happy about it, and itâs the first crack set that ends up with his defection. But this is the one I donât count because Shayâs issue isnât so much with the act of killing, but with the why behind the killing. The second time is in the novelisation of AC2, when Ezio kills the city guards who come to arrest him just after heâs claimed his fatherâs arms and armour. Ezio is completely shell shocked when this happens. Heâs just killed someone. Oh my God, heâs killed someone. That has an impact. Taking a life is no small thing, and I would like to see the weight of that addressed for once in this franchise. And I do wonder, given the theme of this trailer, if weâll finally have this. I hope so, because it seems that itâll tie perfectly to Basimâs arc.
Because the arc is heading in a direction that only Rogue has really touched on. That being the crash from the high. What happens when youâre no longer a believer? What happens when you look back down the path of your life and reflect on the things that youâve done ⌠and youâre not sure of it?
What if youâve got buyerâs remorse for this Creed?
You want AC philosophy? Well, here you go.
The trailer then cuts to a voiceover that introduces the main character conflict on the Brotherhoodâs side. âSwallow your questions. Serve without complaint,â a woman says. Her name is Nehal, and sheâs Basimâs childhood street rate friend. As such, theyâre close to each other. Nehalâs talking about his relationship with Roshan and seems to be ranting to him about how Roshan treats him. Maybe Basim has been venting his frustrations about his teacher to her, and this woman is trying to help him. But there are two main points here that are important â Basim is having second thoughts about the Brotherhood, heâs frustrated with them (itâs unclear at this point if he has brought this frustrations up with Roshan yet), and secondly, his relationship with Nehal is important. Theyâre in each otherâs corners, and it might feed more conflict into Basim and Roshan.
The trailer then goes further into establishing the conflict between Basim and the Hidden Ones. âEverything you do serves the Hidden Ones. That is a strange kind of freedom.â This is said by another important character, Ali. There is tension there. Basim is obviously having doubts about his role in the Brotherhood, and itâs not helped by other people feeding into it.
This conflict of interest is further hammered on with the rawest line in the trailer. âYou are not the first to walk the shadows broken. Pour your pain into the Brotherhood.â On this note: Acting! I love Basimâs expression. Honestly, he has lots of good micro-expressions in this trailer, and I adore it. In this shot-reverse-shot, you have this deep anger and frustration in him thatâs barely being held back. And this frustration is so compelling because it screams to me that Basim is trying to communicate with his teacher, perhaps by telling her about the djinn, perhaps by sharing his doubts with her about things that have happened either in the plot or his street rat backstory, but heâs being rebuffed. He is not finding help here. He is still alone. Thatâs going to pour more fuel onto the fire for certain. Because the other emotion I read in his body language here is this painful acknowledgement that he is not going to get the help, nor the understanding from Roshan that he needs. Because pour your pain into the Brotherhood sounds an awful lot like a deflection after she and Basim have had a fight about personal torments plaguing him.
And the tragic thing is: this is good advice for a lot of people who come to the Hidden Ones. They are made up of people who have been hurt by the imbalances of society, and that is a rage you can direct back towards helpful sources. But itâs not good advice for Basim, much like Yoda saying to Anakin, âJust turn off your emotions lol,â was terrible advice.
Oooh the dramaâs cooking.
Almost to the end of the trailer!
âWe are messengers of justice, and not the final judges.â Iâm going to have to think more on this, as Iâm not sure how it relates to the trailerâs narrative throughline here right now, but I shall think on it. For now, I would say this is a calming line, a way to cool the heat the rest of the trailer has built up between Basim and the Brotherhood. We talked about radicalisation before, and this might be here to remind Basim that he needs to sit and calm down a moment before doing something stupid heâll regret. What that might be, Iâm not sure, but it might be taking action against the Brotherhood. Just a little treason.
And finally, to round this out, we come to the djinn. My God Iâm so excited to see what happens with this, Ubi donât let me down.
I talked before how I donât think this is a Rogue situation where this questioning of the Creed is coming from Basim having moral thoughts about killing people. I think it comes from his conflict with the djinn. âHe knows not what he is.â
The djinn is so interesting. I want to take a stab in the dark here about what the djinnâs narrative purpose here is as a devil on the shoulder, but I think it ties into Basimâs relationship with the Brotherhood. Basim is haunted by this terrifying shadow demon only he can see, and Iâm sure if someone as powerful and confident as Roshan and the Hidden Ones came into your life talking about freedom, Basim might see it as a chance to finally escape this horrible thing in his head. To get away from the nightmares that he, tragically, has no chance of escaping. And the Creed canât help him with that.
Valhalla spoilers once again.
In fact, the Hidden Oneâs work might only make the problem worse because it has been established in Valhalla that the consciousness of the reincarnated Precursors are brought about when their previous lives and their current lives come closer to each other. This was why Tyr awakened in Sigurd when Fulke cut off his arm. This is why Odin started to awaken in Eivor the more she stepped into a leadership role. And this same pattern starts awakening in Basimâs life earlier than Eivor and Sigurdâs did. Because Basim is a thief, he is a rogue, and as he becomes a Hidden One, he becomes a killer, all of which feeds into the bursting dam that is Lokiâs life.
In light of this, Iâm expecting that the problem of the djinn will only become worse the further we go on in the game, that weâll be seeing it more and more until Basim is so far pulled down by it he might go to it to try and escape (âHe in his madness prays for storms, and dreams that storms will bring him peace.â). Because it might end up being Roshan who is the final straw on the camelâs back. Not through any fault of her own, but because her leadership, her existence as Mentor, caps the concept of âfreedomâ the Hidden Ones represent. Basim can never be truly free if Roshan is there. Just like Loki could never truly be free until Odin was gone (remember from earlier, Basim is challenged by Ali asking about his âstrange kind of freedom���. Freedom seems to be a massive theme of this story).
Mirage has been described by its devs as âa story of tragedy and madnessâ. What better way to do that than this?
End Valhalla spoilers.
âHave you not wondered at your nature?â I like how this cuts into the menacing shadowed-face shot as Basim rises, a hooded killer. Good silhouetting with the beaked hood as well! Woo! And if youâre not yet convinced about Basimâs wavering on the Creed, how much the djinn will be affecting his arc and his choices, the trailer song, How Villains Are Made by Madalen Duke, is practically screaming this theme aloud. Just look at the lyrics!
And thatâs what Iâve got to say about the trailer, about ACâs narrative direction as a whole, and, for the first time in years, why I think weâve got some good reasons to get excited about an AC story. It seems character driven, full of juicy, interpersonal conflict, and is the story of a young man who goes from a scrawny dude getting his arse kicked, to a powerful Hidden One, to someone whoâs had the light beaten out of them by life, his fracturing mind, and deeply tragic circumstance. Some other bonus things from the trailer I would like to know about:
0:57, the silhouettes behind Basim in the White Room. Who are they? Also, the White Rooms once again looking awesome.
2:00, thereâs a guy who comes out from behind the pulpit speaker. He seems to be Basimâs target here, as Basim only engages the hidden blade once this guy comes into view. I wonder if heâs an important target.
2:07, Basim and Nehal seem to be fleeing from Ali. Is this part of the story's conflict? Or is it only trailer editing?
2:09, a merchant looking guy backhands street thief Basim. This might be a representation of the âinciting incidentâ that landed Basim in his position at the beginning of the trailer. Note that how Roshan saves him in the announcement trailer vs. the story trailer take place in different locations. Same thing might be here for Basim stealing from others. (The roomâs blue and orange lighting too is gorgeous.) I think that we see the djinn directly after this might be the first djinn cutscene in the game, based on Basimâs outfit.
The other thing that gives me hope that we could get this great story too is the game length. The devs have said the narrative will be about 15-20 hours, which is a fantastic length of time to explore a drama like is being promised in the trailer.
And, on top of that, if itâs relatively fun to play? Iâm game.
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