Right as Ubisoft is about the release the Valley of Memory update for Assassin’s Creed Mirage, the company has also revealed patch notes for the update that confirm a host of overall gameplay improvements made to the open-world title. The update will weigh in at 22.6 GB on PS5, 16.6 GB on PS4, 32.39 GB on Xbox Series X/S, 10.11 GB on Xbox One, and 28.15 GB on PC across Steam, Uplay and Epic Games Store.
While you can check out the full list of changes in the patch notes below, some of the highlights include the addition of the Engineer 2 skill tree, the ability to dodge a Shakiriyya attack after being parried, increased window of opportunity to perform kicks, improved trigger condition of ejects, and a variety of UI enhancements.
Along with this, the update is also bringing in two new difficulty options – Hardened Assassin and Ultimate Assassin. As you might expect, the new difficulty options will offer more challenging gameplay. Completing a permadeath run on these difficulty options will also earn players a new reward.
Ubisoft has described the Hardened Assassin difficulty as sitting between Assassin (Normal) and Master Assassin (Hard) in terms the challenge offered. While general gameplay difficulty will be around the same as Assassin, enemies will have higher defense. Ultimate Assassin, on the other hand, will be the new hardest difficulty option. Along with these, Assassin’s Creed Mirage is also getting a new Custom Difficulty preset that gives players more ways to fine tune their experience.
However, the star of the update is the story content being added as part of the Valley of Memory update. The new narrative is set before the events of the Assassin’s Creed Mirage finale, and takes protagonist Basin to the new region of AlUla. The story revolves around Basim learning that his long-lost father might be alive somewhere in the new region, with him setting off to find out more. The region features a host of new points of interest, from the old town of AlUla and the Musa Ibn Msayr fortress to the Valley of Stones and necropolis of Hegra.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and iOS. For more details, check out our review of the base game.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage title update 1.1.0 patch notes:
New Content:
- New Story Content: Valley of Memory
- New Region: AlUla
- New World Activities
Full Game Improvements:
- Animus Sequences (Replayable Missions Feature)
- New Difficulty Settings: Hardened Assassin and Ultimate Assassin
- Tier 3 Tool Upgrades
Parkour and Controls Improvements:
- Free Jump
- Back and Side Ejects
- “Modern” Control Preset
Additional Improvements & Additions
Gameplay
- Added a new skill to the skill tree: Engineer 2 which allows players to equip all tool lvl1 upgrades.
- Added an option to cancel the chain kill once started.
- Added new objects that can only be looted by pickpocketing in AlUla.
- Rebalanced the notoriety system to coincide with new difficulty settings.
- Tool aim assist will now correctly snap to the target’s weak points while behind an enemy. Now you have no excuses…
Combat
- Added an opportunity to dodge a Shakiriyya attack after being parried.
- Modified the Light Attack slash VFX to make the attacks feel more impactful.
- Improved the flinch animation on the NPCs during light attacks.
- Increased the window of opportunity to perform a kick.
- Disabled blend on parry success animation so it feels more responsive.
- Increased the size of the parry VFX.
Parkour
- Improved the trigger condition of the ejects.
- Modified the camera and added a VFX to improve the feeling of speed while sprinting.
UI
- Added a button on the world map to fast travel between Baghdad and AlUla once the AlUla questline starts.
- Updated the objective icons design and descriptions within the quest log to reinforce the differences between the types of objectives.
- Removed the skill point notification remaining on screen when there are available skill points to rely on the “new” notification from skill tab.
- Added an “upgradable tool” icon when a tool can be upgraded. Displayed next to the Bureau icons, on the map & compass for Banu Musa and the Workbench.
- Reduced the size of the Ubisoft Connect notifications.
- Added a new tutorial panel and Codex entry explaining Defense tactics in combat.
- Made various adjustments to improve the Horse mount camera.
List of Bug Fixes
Gameplay
- All claimed rewards are now linked to the player account save. For instance: any reward claimed in Permadeath will now be accessible to all the saves on the player’s account.
- Modified how to access permadeath: it can now only be initiated when starting a New Game+, rather than at any time.
- Prevented players from falling on a specific ledge in Baghdad.
UI
- Resolved an issue where the Options menu would be offset after talking with a merchant with text size set to Large.
- Fixed an issue where the “Assassin’s Creed Franchise” button would lead to a page stating that there is no content available.
- Numbers in some item descriptions are no longer split when the text is displayed as Large in Japanese language.
- Fixed the localization of “Basim Valhalla Costume” in Traditional Chinese.
Visuals & Graphics
- Addressed an issue where the world would look dimmer with almost no highlights after turning on HDR.
- Fixed an issue where the Desync screen on PS5 Pro would display broken visuals.
- The draped golden fabric of the Dhahabi Master Assassin Costume now moves freely like other costumes.
Stability
- Fixed rare issues that could create crashes.
