Assassin’s Creed Mirage is five times shorter than Valhalla

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is going to be short. This is undoubtedly great news for those of us that look at the October 2023 videogame release schedule and start to sweat, with the stealth game coming in much shorter than previous RPG entries in the series. While we’re all excited about Assassin’s Creed Mirage itself, the exact timing of the Assassin’s Creed Mirage release date is in quite a busy period.

French videogame YouTuber Julien Chièze recently managed to sit down for an interview with Ubisoft lead producer Fabian Salomon, who talked all about Mirage’s city of Baghdad, protagonist Basim, and average internal playtimes for the game. Thank goodness Assassin’s Creed Mirage won’t be a 100-hour epic.

You can hear Salomon talk about Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s average run times below at the 17:04 mark, but as it’s in French, we at PCGamesN have transcribed and translated the quote for you.

“Given that we do a lot of playtesting internally at Ubisoft, it’s part of our process, we really want to get as close as possible to the players, so we’ll say that the latest playtimes we’ve received average at around 20-23 hours,” Salomon says. “That can go up to 25-30 hours for the completionists, and we’ll say that those who will be rushing the game will be around 20 hours.”

Considering that the last game in the series, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, is about 60 hours long and 143 hours for completionists, with Odyssey racking up similar playtimes (according to HowLongToBeat), this is sure to be great news for many. This also means that, on average, you can fully complete Mirage almost five times in the same time it takes to beat Valhalla once.

While I love a really long game as much as the next person, not everything has to be a gargantuan undertaking and the only piece of media you can spend time with for months. Around about 20-30 hours for Assassin’s Creed Mirage sounds really comfortable right now, especially considering how there’s also Lords of the Fallen, Alan Wake 2, Total War: Pharaoh, and a whole lot more in October.

This runtime may also stay the same after launch, as there are currently no Assassin’s Creed Mirage DLC plans from Ubisoft. While most AC games have launched with season passes and a handful of expansions over the years, Mirage may be bucking that trend, or at least at launch. Considering Mirage is a “narrative-driven experience,” that might explain the comparatively short runtime.

If you want something with a longer runtime though, our breakdown of the very best RPG games on PC is sure to satiate your needs, while many of the best story games are a lot, lot shorter.