After months and months of leaks and rumours, Ubisoft has finally confirmed that Assassin’s Creed Mirage is going to be the next Assassin’s Creed game with a swanky new cinematic trailer and insight into how this release is going to return to the series’ roots. Now, we already know that the Mirage trailer has secrets hidden in plain sight, but we need to talk a little bit more about the very final scene in the trailer – the one where Basim assassinates the Order of the Ancients member. Why do we need to talk about this? Well, when it comes to the supernaturally ghoulish djinn at the end, we think there’s more than meets the eye.
Firstly, we think it makes sense to explain how we know this unusual creature is indeed a djinn – and what a djinn actually is. It’s not exactly something that’s common knowledge in the west, even if they are referenced in popular television shows like The Witcher and Ms Marvel.
Djinn are neutral spirits that are believed to influence humankind in both Pre-Islamic Arabian religions and Islam. They are often depicted as near-invisible creatures, but they can take the form of animals and humans when they need to. Interestingly, despite their ethereal nature, they are not seen as beings above humankind – despite the Pre-Islamic worshipping of them. The Quran condemns this, in fact, treating the djinn as beings level with humankind.
However, this has done little to stop them rising to prominence in religious texts and folklore. Here, they fulfil various roles including that of a guardian angel, a genie, or sometimes a malevolent spirit. For example, in the Middle Eastern folk tale Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, two djinn encourage the young thief to get the lamp in the first place.
But, how do we know this creature is supposedly a djinn? Well, during a developer trailer breakdown, narrative director Sarah Beaulieu confirms that the creature we see at the end of the Assassin’s Creed Mirage cinematic trailer is a djinn. She also goes on to say that “this creature is going to be an important part of Basim’s evolution” and “present in every memory corridor” at the “moment when Basim kills a target” – just like in the cinematic trailer.
We know this is all quite straightforward stuff, but Beaulieu goes on to mention that this particular djinn “has its secrets” that players will discover throughout the storylines present in Assassin’s Creed Mirage – and this has led us to believe that this djinn could very-well be Loki from Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Basim we meet throughout the narrative is already very-much assimilated with Loki. In fact, you could argue that – by the end of the story – there isn’t too much of Basim left. He’s a soul that has undergone aeons of trauma and he’s quick-tempered and vindictive.
Of course, we don’t know for certain that Basim isn’t going to be quick-tempered or vindictive in Assassin’s Creed Mirage, but there are moments in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla where he shows genuine compassion and a respect that Loki simply does not. In addition to this, we know that Loki’s manifestation in Basim’s mind wasn’t from his birth. Rather, Basim suffered from increasing manic episodes as Loki’s consciousness fought to fully establish itself – and that’s what we think these nightmarish visions of djinn are.
We believe that the djinn Basim encounters when he assassinates a target is actually Loki forcing his way into Basim’s mind at these moments of vulnerability. Throughout Assassin’s Creed Mirage, we could very well see this ghoulish creature transform into the Loki we know and (maybe) love from Eivor’s visions of Asgard and the Isu in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.
So could Assassin’s Creed Mirage tell us the entire story of Basim’s decline and submission to Loki? We can’t say anything for sure, but everything is pointing that way.