The Next Assassin’s Creed Game Won’t Take Forever to Finish

Assassin’s Creed games have gotten bloated in recent years. Very bloated. It started with Assassin’s Creed Origins, which according to HowLongToBeat, takes about 85 hours to 100%. That number shot up with Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which takes 143 hours, and the latest game in the series, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, taking the same time — before any of the post-launch DLC.

It wasn’t always this way though. The first game in the series only took 15 hours to finish, and only 31 hours to 100%. Its sequel was only a little bit more than that, and even AC3 and 4 only crept up into the 60-ish hour mark. Thankfully, it seems like the next game in the series will be somewhat of a return to roots, with a completion time that won’t take up the next 3 years of your life.

Ubisoft lead producer Fabian Saloman told French YouTuber Julien Chièze in an interview that Assassin’s Creed Mirage won’t be as bloated as recent games in the series, and that players should expect to finish the game in as little as 25 hours.

“We’ve done a lot of playtesting as a large part of the process of making the game,” Saloman said, as translated by GLHF, “According to our latest data we have found that the majority of players spent around 23 or 25 hours playing on average something like that. We expect players to take about 25 to 30 hours if they are a completionist.”

Mirage being a shorter game like earlier games in the series seems to line up with other facts around the game — it very much seems like a return to the series roots. Gone are the RPG upgrade systems found in recent games, and the big focus on combat. Instead, Mirage will offer players a stripped back experience, focused on stealth with a select set of tools that make both stealth and avoiding combat much easier.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on October 12, 2023.