Ubisoft has announced that Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be updated in December with a patch that introduces a new game plus mode — and the first ever permadeath mode in the Assassin’s Creed series.
“We hear you,” the publisher said via the official Assassin’s Creed account on X (formerly Twitter). “New Game + mode for Assassin’s Creed Mirage will be available in a free update this December. And for the expert Assassins, along with NG+ will come an optional permadeath mode also available across all difficulties! More details to come soon.”
Mirage has won praise for its focused, contained tribute to the series’ stealthy, action-adventure roots, as opposed to the sprawling role-playing epics of latter Assassin’s Creed games. But with this new design approach comes a shorter runtime, so it’s not surprising that players are already clamoring for a new game plus mode to extend their adventures with Basim at his most refined and powerful. (Mirage was released on Oct. 5.) And Assassin’s Creed games have featured new game plus modes before.
The introduction of a permadeath option is an interesting new wrinkle, however. Ubisoft is clearly thinking about ways to extend the lifespan of its games beyond just padding out their content, and permadeath would seem like an excellent fit for Mirage’s technical stealth gameplay.
Permadeath is also often highly successful as a way to give a game a new lease of life by raising the stakes and making every moment that much more exciting and consequential, as I discovered recently when I tried the unlikely but brilliant pairing that is World of Warcraft Classic’s permadeath Hardcore mode.
Will Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s design respond as well to the introduction of gaming’s harshest ruleset? With the update due next month, we won’t have to wait long to find out.
