In an all-new trailer revealed today at Gamescom, Ubisoft gave us our first look—or, more accurately, our first listen—at the "full Arabic voiceover" that will be available in all editions of the upcoming Assassin's Creed Mirage.
Ubisoft actually announced that Mirage, which is set in 9th century Baghdad, will have an Arabic dub in September 2022, but this (as far as I know) is the first time we've heard it in action. It's not unprecedented—Assassin's Creed 2, for instance, features an Italian dub, and Assassin's Creed Unity can be played in French—but even so, it's great to see Ubisoft carrying on the tradition.
I can't speak to the quality of the Arabic translation but I can say that playing a game in the language of its setting—with subtitles, of course—can really be worth the effort for non-speakers, particularly in games with a strong focus on narrative. Playing the Metro games in Russian, for instance, really deepens the experience, to the point that we fired up a guide on how to switch languages when Metro Exodus launched.
The new Assassin's Creed game will follow the story of Basim Ibn Is'haq, who joins the Hidden Ones in order to eliminate the Order of the Ancients and break their power over the city of Baghdad. It takes place 300 years before the time of the original Assassin's Creed, and promises to be something of a throwback to that era in gameplay terms: Instead of the sprawling open worlds of more recent Assassin's Creed games, Mirage will be more densely packed and return the gameplay focus to stealth, parkour, and quiet murder.
Assassin's Creed Mirage is set to debut on October 5, and will be available for PC on the Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft Store. It will probably end up on Steam eventually too, but possibly not for a long while: It took two years for Assassin's Creed Valhalla to make the move.
