A lavishly designed world and a barebones gameplay experience with a focus on stealth and assassinations doesn’t save an overall so-so game.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage lives up to its name in every way.

The last few Assassin’s Creed games have toned down the assassination portion a bit. Yes, a lot of people got killed, but they were killed by Kratos’ ruthlessness, not by Ezio’s or Altair’s cleverness. AC Mirage represents a return to the roots of Ubisoft’s series, with a focus on stealth, avoiding detection, and the abilities that support these activities. It’s also a mirage, offering the illusion of a compelling story and complex stealth-action combat, then dissolving into a generic experience with technical annoyances, superficial combat, and an easy-to-ignore story.

In Mirage, you play Basim ibn Ishaq, a street thief who falls into the world of Assassins, known in the game as “Hidden,” and their eternal enemies, the Templars or Elder Knights. One of the first fun aspects of Mirage is Basim’s incredible parkour skills. In the city of Baghdad, no building is a threat to Basim as he gets from one point to another. Basim can jump, climb, or slide over nearly everything in his path.

I also liked how the game absolutely refuses to compromise on authenticity for English speakers. As you walk through 9th century Baghdad, all NPC dialogue is in Arabic, but there are no subtitles. When Basim speaks to people, the dialogue is sprinkled with translated Arabic words and expressions. While I can’t comment on the accuracy of the language used or the culture depicted (I’ll share some thoughts from those who can), I love when games include cultural elements that don’t suit me. They’re for everyone, and this game was clearly designed with respect for the Arabic language and culture.

I was hoping Mirage would give me the overly bloated experience of the “go anywhere, do anything” mandate found in games like Origins, Valhalla, and Odyssey, i.e. Assassin’s Creed. In my opinion, some of these new games are similar to the collectible games of my youth, with thin and barely coherent plots spread across vast environments with seemingly endless collectibles and points of interest that simply require watching. Fulfilling the incessant desire to fill your brain with things to check off your checklist. Not the most attractive deal at $60.

Mirage has rewarded that hope. Yes, there is still a huge map full of things to do, see, and collect, but it’s not too overwhelming and the activities you can do add to the central theme of the game. In Mirage, the things you can do aren’t just for fun. They feel like they actually support the idea that you are part of a secret assassin squad whose purpose is to protect the innocent and punish the evildoers.

There are contracts you can take in the game. At first, I thought I could just ignore them because I had to write a review and I was limited on time (which is why I couldn’t finish the game and it only took me 10-11 hours total, whereas the main story is about 12-15 hours of gameplay as specified). However, I did try it and found it really fun. I liked that there were a variety of missions to suit different play styles. These focus on combat, stealth, or a combination of both, and each has certain optional requirements that make them more difficult to complete.

My favorite mission was to steal from a bathhouse, but as an extra reward you had to complete the mission without killing anyone. Killing people is very easy (and fun!) in this game. If you hide in the bushes and whistle, the guards will swarm you like rats looking for a piper, grab you, stab you, and hide you. To complete this mission and get the extra goodies, I had to be a bit more sophisticated and whistle to lure the guards away from the door so I could sneak through instead of just kill them. I had to think more like a real assassin.

I also really liked how Basim’s different skills and abilities worked together. I didn’t use my pet bird Enkidu much at first. I never thought I’d need him to, other than to tell me where all the guards were. But once I figured out how to use it, it became indispensable. What’s really great about AC Mirage is how it emphasizes the fact that being an assassin also means being a detective who has to use all of his training and tools to get the job done.

One of my missions was to escort a gossipy bard to a safe location to protect him from a powerful lord and his hired minions. I was frustrated when my quest marker disappeared as I approached, leaving me to explore the area unguided for the mission. Just when I was about to give up, I realized I needed to call Enkidu and use his eagle-like vision to scan the area. I didn’t realize that the big golden circle that sometimes appears in the interface when summoned is essentially a beacon that shows the way. The smaller the circle, the closer you are to your goal. This discovery showed me how thoughtful Ubisoft’s approach to making this game closer to the Assassin’s Creed of old is. I felt like a real assassin, relying on cunning and special tools instead of sheer brute force.

But while I did get the feeling of being a real assassin, technical issues significantly diminished my enjoyment of the game. I experienced frequent crashes while playing on my Series S. I’m not sure if this is a symptom of the pre-release version of the game or something else, but the game crashed at least once or twice per play session. This, combined with the fact that the game doesn’t allow you to manually save during a mission, severely stalled my progress as the game simply stopped working.

The dungeon design is interesting, but in a bad way. The core of Mirage’s gameplay is entering restricted areas to find information, items, or people. These areas are full of doors that are locked from the inside, so you must go to the other side and open them. Opening doors should be a reward for successful exploration, similar to Bloodborne and other Soulslike games: if you can survive a harrowing exploration experience, you’ll have a shortcut that will make your future journeys easier. But while playing the game, I would often find myself unable to find my way to the other side, or opening doors that led to nowhere or nothing at all.

The first big dungeon of the game, the prison, was the hardest to figure out where to go. I went everywhere, killed almost all the guards, but kept running in circles thinking, “How on earth do I get into the depths of this prison?” When I found a door I could open, I thought to myself, “How the hell do I get in here?” My successful infiltration should have been rewarded, only to realize that this door opened right behind an impassable gate, similar to a hotel door with an adjoining room. I was pissed. All that spinning and circling was for naught.

The NPC AI is odd and inconsistent in a bad way as well. Early on in the game, you’re introduced to baskets around towns from which you can get things like crafting materials and items you can sell for cash. There was nothing to suggest that such stealing was a bad thing, like a big red icon appearing when you actually tried to steal from someone or steal from a chest. So when I came across baskets and pots, of course I grabbed some. Imagine my surprise when the guards suddenly started brandishing swords. Perhaps I misunderstood the act from the start and it should always be a punishable offense, but I have picked it up from the basket many times in front of the guards and when the guards got aggressive it was always a gamble.

Another instance of NPC AI going out of control occurred in a prison. After I saved a target it followed me everywhere…until it couldn’t anymore. I could still hear him giving instructions as if he was right behind me, but he was a few rooms away and just standing there. At one point during the quest I was harassed by a guard and it sucked because a saving sword could mean the difference between life and death. I had to put up a fight with him because I couldn’t get him to move beyond a certain point even though he was following me before. Also enemies are just stupid and often get stuck in geometry or in an infinite loop where they have to go up and down ladders to chase me. Enemies are a minor inconvenience, easily thwarted by ankle-high grass or hitting the assassin button anywhere on the plane of existence rather than avoiding a dangerous and significant threat.

Wait, forget what I said because this actually makes your job as an assassin easier.

The combat isn’t all that great either. Maybe this is a victim of Assassin’s Creed’s stripped-down, back-to-basics style, but the combat isn’t interestingly complex. Guards are dealt with after a few hits, and while the game emphasizes that larger enemies need to be taken out from behind, every time I got into combat with an enemy I just surrounded them endlessly. Circling around while whittling down an enemy’s health just doesn’t look fun to me, and it wasn’t fun to play either.

I’m not a fan of Assassin’s Creed. I’ve previously delved into the Ezio trilogy and Assassin’s Creed: Freedom’s Cry. (There’s no reason in the world that this DLC spinoff is one of the few games where you can kill slavers. Get a grip, video game industry.) But while I don’t have an intimate knowledge of the last 15 years, looking back at Assassin’s Creed history, I think I’d enjoy anything with a solid story.

It’s not Mirage.

I’m sure people who enjoyed other AC stories will like this one too, and Shohreh Aghdashloo as Basim’s assassin leader Roshan was a delight to my ears, but there was nothing about this story or its characters that made me want to know more. Basim is a typical “everyman forced to stand up” protagonist, and the overall plot of “we are righteous assassins hiding in the shadows to defeat a centuries-old evil conspiracy” was the Assassin’s Creed of stories at this point. What’s more, I simply skipped the cutscenes because I could understand the plot well enough without them.

Mirage had its fun elements, but I wish I could say more about the game. I wish there was a moment that broke that “perfect subtlety” and made me stand up and lean forward. Frustrating technical issues aside, it’s not a bad game. It’s nothing special. You go to a place, do something, and then fall into a conspicuously placed hay bale, and this repeats ad infinitum. Mirage is exactly what it sounds like: the promise of a far-flung, sparkling good time quickly dissolves into the reality of a decidedly mediocre experience.