One of the major pillars of Assassin’s Creed’s gameplay is parkour. Or at least it used to be before taking a bit of a back seat with Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. All three games feature huge open worlds where buildings are often far apart instead of the more condensed and intricate city settings the Assassin’s Creed series was known for, meaning freerunning from rooftop to rooftop isn’t a major part of those games. Assassin’s Creed Mirage seems to be a return to the series’ roots, featuring a city playground as its setting with parkour at the forefront.
But which system of parkour is it? Long-time Assassin’s Creed fans will tell you that the series has featured a variety of freerunning systems over the years. Each system is usually used in a few games with minor iterations before being tossed out for a completely new one. The core of the original game’s parkour system was used up to Revelations, for example, and Assassin’s Creed III introduced a new core system that was used in the franchise up to Rogue.
In Mirage’s case, it seems like this will be another jump, building a parkour system that–though it feels like what’s come before–is brand-new and distinct from the rest of the series. “The parkour system we have in Assassin’s Creed Mirage is really its own thing,” creative director Stéphane Boudon told GameSpot. “It has not been built to reproduce exactly a former system–it has been designed to reproduce a feeling, a nostalgia we wanted to share with our players.”