Assassin’s Creed Mirage stars Basim, a character players got well acquainted with in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla but (spoilers) only get to play as for a very brief amount of time once all the action has wrapped up. That brief control of the character hinted to many that he’d be a protagonist in whatever the next Assassin’s Creed experience, and while those suspicions were true, Ubisoft could’ve gone with any sort of new character similar to how Kassandra led Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Eivor led Valhalla. So, why pick Basim for the next game instead of starting with a totally new character?
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During a preview of Assassin’s Creed Mirage, ComicBook spoke to Sarah Beaulieu, the narrative director for the game to learn more about Ubisoft’s goals for this version of Basim that’s voiced by actor Lee Majdoub. Beaulieu said players only got to see pieces of Basim’s character in Mirage with hints as to what happened in his past early on when he became one of the Hidden Ones, and Mirage is meant to explore those gaps.
Why Basim?
“In Valhalla, without saying anything, he was a very complex character,” Beaulieu said. “And we knew that something bad happened to him. We didn’t know what, and we wanted to fill the blanks.
The narrative director continued to say she’s drawn to character who aren’t quite good nor bad but are instead defined by “very, very strong failures” of which Basim has many.
“He’s trying to do the right things, but it’s not always that easy,” she said.
Beaulieu also referenced some of the other characters players will meet in Mirage and how we’ll see them mold Basim into something moving towards the version of him seen in Valhalla.
“One of the main themes of the game is really about freedom, which is something called to the Assassins Creed franchise,” she said. “And Basim has a view on freedom, but he’s always challenged by both Roshan from the hidden ones and Nehal, his best friend. And Ali has another view on freedom. All these characters around Basim, they build the character of Basim slowly, and they mold the character, and they bring him slowly to his fate. That’s why he was so interesting and why we wanted to dig more into these characters specifically.”
Valhalla Basim vs. Mirage Basim
“What I like to say that it’s a very different personality, the Basim in Valhalla and the Basim in Mirage,” Beaulieu said. “The Basim in Mirage, he’s 17 years old. I think we did a great job on seeing him evolving as an assassin, as a Hidden One.”
Beaulieu continued to praise Lee’s voice he gave to Basim in Mirage. The actor known recently for his roles in the Sonic the Hedgehog films as Agent Stone did not voice the character in Valhalla, but he took over the role in Mirage.
“And it starts with the voice,” she said. “Lee did an amazing job on that matter because he started with a very young Basim who is slowly evolving towards his fate. You’ll see what happens. The voice is evolving as he grow up. It’s a few years happening in the game, and you see him evolving that way.”
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Assassin’s Creed Mirage was previewed during a hands-on event with travel expenses paid for by Ubisoft.
