[SPOILERS] Story Interview with Sarah Beaulieu
Assassin's Creed Mirage

ATA Team, April 16th, 2024

Q: I believe that throughout the game and especially in its ending there are several dualities that are very interesting to look at like Basim and Nehal, Basim and the Jinni, Roshan and Mentor Rayhan, Basim and Roshan... and we’re going to go through all of them but I wanted to start from here, from Basim and Roshan and how they would clash on matters, which of course culminates in their disagreement, or should we say fight, towards the end of the game.

Did you always mean to make the clash between Basim and Roshan a centrepiece of the ending or did you mean to lay more seeds about this throughout the main story before the ending? What is it that you wanted to convey through their clash?

A: There are several key scenes that build the conflict between Basim and Roshan. The first is after the assassination of Al-Ghul, when Basim confides in Roshan about the jinni appearances. Roshan already saw that Basim was able to read the Memory Seal, and she definitively understands at that moment that Basim is special in some way. The next scene is in Karkh, when Basim asks Roshan what she felt the first time she killed a man. He is trying to figure out if what he felt, the jinni returning, is "normal." Roshan reminds him to focus on the mission.

Then, after the assassination of Ning, Basim is particularly troubled. Roshan asks him about it, and Basim evades the question because he knows Roshan will tell him the same thing as she always does: to leave the past behind. At this point, Basim is slowly realizing that Roshan won’t help him find answers. Finally, there is the scene where Basim must reach Qabiha, the Head of the Order. But Roshan hesitates to give him the feather... She has known for a while now that Basim is especially drawn to matters concerning the Isu. She fears that Basim's encounter with Qabiha will be decisive, which is why she follows Basim and kills Qabiha herself. Their confrontation after Qabiha's assassination is finally the moment when they speak openly.

But it's already too late; it is impossible for them to understand each other. Basim feels betrayed, and Roshan is determined to protect what is hidden behind Alamut. In parallel, the relationship between Nehal and Basim is built in the opposite way: Nehal constantly tells Basim that he needs to seek answers, while Roshan refuses to turn to the past. In some way, Roshan’s behaviour towards Basim, her inability to talk openly with him about his visions, brings Basim even closer to Nehal. Or should I say: Loki.

(A little exclusive anecdote: at the conception stage, in one of the early versions of the story, we were supposed to go find Roshan's son, called Adnan, who played a major role in the revelation of Loki’s presence at the end... This story is now buried in the Great Cemetery of Forgotten Tales.)


Q: So why is Roshan trying to avoid Basim to enter the Vault all costs? Did she know about Basim being a reborn Isu and how the Memory Disk worked or was she just worried or scared about how dangerous the Isu technology could be and the consequences it could have on people in general?

Roshan has evolved among the Hidden Ones, and she knows Isu technology is dangerous. Protecting what is beneath Alamut and preventing the Order from accessing it is part of her mission.

As mentioned earlier, she knows after Qabiha's assassination that the answers Basim is seeking are beneath Alamut. But for her, the Hidden Ones always come first: if Basim opens the "Pandora's box" beneath Alamut, the consequences could be devastating.
Of course, she also knows that she may lose Basim; even if she is unsure of what he truly is, she understands he is linked to the Isu in some way.

Therefore, finding the answers to his visions could change Basim forever. I guess she was right.

Q: Could you talk us through the duality of Roshan and Rayhan, how they perceive the Brotherhood, the Creed and the Isu technology and their use?
What were you planning to portray with Roshan’s and Rayhan’s approach with Basim and also the Order’s approach – what were they all trying to do with him and based on which beliefs?
What was the plan with Roshan’s ending, did you always have in mind for Roshan to leave the Brotherhood in Mirage and SO the Valhalla quest was born out of that or was it the other way around?

A: We already knew Roshan was leaving the Hidden Ones at the end of Mirage. Therefore, the quest in Valhalla was written with this information in mind. When Rayhan decides to let Basim enter the place beneath Alamut, he likely believes he can find something interesting there for himself.

We have always seen Rayhan as a shady character with questionable intentions. Regarding the Order of the Ancients, their motivation remains the same: to retrieve knowledge from the First Civilization. Finding an Isu reincarnated like Basim is invaluable to them, just as discovering hundreds of Memory Seals beneath Alamut. Who knows what Qabiha could have done with Basim if she had survived Roshan?

Q: Let’s talk about the Isu Vault in Alamut. What was its purpose in-lore, and why did you choose to make this vault underneath Alamut a prison and not something else like a lab or a different type of facility?

When I pondered how Basim would regain the memory of his past life, the jinni already existed in the script. It was always meant to represent a trauma, something that had happened in Loki’s life, preventing Basim from remembering it; akin to what is known as “dissociative amnesia”.

I recall that Loki's torture being the trauma came up during a discussion with Darby McDevitt, who was present for a few weeks on the production as a consultant and helping hand after the passing of our friend and colleague Russell Lees, who was the first lead writer on Mirage in Montreal.
If Basim's trauma was indeed the torture Loki had endured in prison, then why not use this mysterious place beneath Alamut, about which we knew nothing in the lore except that Altaïr had found Memory Seals there? Memory Seals were also already present in Mirage’s story - the prologue has hardly changed in structure since the beginning of conception.

So what if this place beneath Alamut was, in reality, an Isu prison: the one where Loki had been tortured for so long? I then imagined that the Memory Seals of this prison contained memories of prisoners, including those of Loki. And after entering the place, Basim would discover his cell and the entire memory of this traumatic event.

On a side note, I like to imagine that Altaïr has probably erased some important Isu memories by recording his own on the Memory Seals he found...


Q: Another member of our team, Sorrosyss, she noticed the stark comparison of having one of the most famous fortresses of the Assassins and Hidden Ones, the literal bastions of freedom, built over the remnants of an ancient prison. Was it intentional to have this strong comparison? What was the message here?

The Hidden Ones originally built Alamut to protect this place, this Isu "Pandora's box," from the Order of the Ancients. That's how I envisioned it. I really like this metaphor of Sorrosyss!


Q: The Vault had already been mentioned back in 2011 in the transmedia surrounding AC Revelations. What approach did you take in trying to make a good use of some dated lore that fans would have surely remembered, while also spinning it into something new like the concept of an Isu prison? And also, in more tangible terms, what was the purpose of the Memory Disks within the Isu prison, in your mind?

The Assassin's Creed lore is quite extensive, and we wanted to make sure we did not create any inconsistencies so I applied a concept that I learned during my transmedia studies, something we call "additive comprehension", which is a term from a game designer called Neil Young. It's a concept I particularly like. It involves gathering elements of lore scattered across one medium – for example, a video game – and using them in another medium – for example, a movie – to offer a new understanding of the whole lore. In this example, the revised understanding of the lore can only work with people who have both played the game and seen the movie.

It’s a form of reward: the more you see content on the lore, the more you understand how everything is linked. The community is engaged, exchanges theories and creates their own logical connections between narrative elements. Which is exactly what you do with Access The Animus!

Concerning the Memory Seals in the prison, they are equivalent to the videos recorded during a police interrogation, except that in this case, they allow for recording everything that happens inside the cells.


Q: The Memory Disks - At the start of the game we see Basim obtaining a Memory disk, but after his escape Roshan takes it, then somehow, Fazil from the House of Wisdom is seemingly wielding one to use in the Al Ruh machine, and then at the end Nehal.. or... Basim seems to have gotten back his Memory Disk from the start of the game, or maybe it’s another one... so I was just wondering, were there other, bigger plans surrounding the Memory Disks in the game, which had to be toned down or cut because of the reality of production?

The Memory Seal Basim finds at the caliph’s palace, and the one Fazil got, are both from the Isu prison. But they have nothing to do with Loki. But the one Nehal shows Basim in his cell, that's obviously Loki’s Seal, which hasn’t moved from this prison since he escaped. Basim witnesses Loki’s memory at this moment and this triggers the “mental space” sequence.

Fun fact: There was an early draft of the story where I wanted each member of the Order to keep a Memory Seal. Basim would get each Seal back after killing them, and, similar to Revelations, he would use them to directly enter a memory, allowing the player to embody someone new.

Q: Let’s talk about Basim’s duality with the Jinni – I believe there are two ways to look at the Jinni based on the ending – it is the representation of the Isu Jailer that interacted with Loki during his imprisonment... but I also feel like it’s a representation of Loki’s trauma, of what he felt when he was imprisoned and tortured. Is that a good way to look at it or was the Jinni meant to represent something or someone else entirely?

Indeed, the jinni is a representation of the trauma born from Loki’s torture in prison. That was the intention from the beginning.

The jinni comes from a very personal experience. I went through a difficult period a few years ago, which resulted in experiencing sleep paralysis almost every morning. While researching the phenomenon, I read that for some religious people, sleep paralysis was believed to be a jinni coming at night to possess the sleeper. For this reason, when I wondered how to materialize Basim's trauma, the figure of the jinni appeared very quickly, because the jinni is something Basim would have believed in.

The jinni is the physical manifestation of distress, the remnant of a memory that Basim cannot comprehend, and which he tries to suppress. The scars that never quite heal, the inability to move forward after a difficult event, the search for new bearings— these are situations that most humans are familiar with. I thought it was something that would resonate with players.


Q: What about the Jailer? One of the hot topics amidst the discussions by the community is the identity of the jailer that tortures Basim during his incarceration within the Isu prison. Could you help clarifying who he is? (Is it the same in both of the Isu hologram scenes?)

I’d rather leave the identity of the jailor open to interpretations!


Q: The sequence about Loki’s imprisonment in this vault also got me to wonder about when that takes place during the continuity in the Isu timeline. Did you have a specific time in mind as for when this happened compared to the events of Loki’s and Odin’s life and the extended Isu lore that we know about?

In Norse mythology, Loki's imprisonment and torture occur after the murder of Baldr, one of Odin's sons. Therefore, this takes place before Ragnarök. There are lots of parallels between the Norse mythology and Assassin’s Creed mythology.

On a side note, you may have noticed there is a red light flickering in Loki's cell during the cinematic in the cell. This light also appears in Basim’s “mental space” and is particularly visible in the last in-game sequence. This was meant to represent the alarm light that sounded the day Loki escaped from the prison.

Q: One of the big twists of the story concerned Nehal, who is revealed to be a personification of the memories and essence of the Isu Loki, which is a revelation that kind of relies on the player having played Valhalla to appreciate and understand fully. Was this always a tough moment to try and address having in mind both new and longtime fans – or at least fans that played Valhalla? Or was the Isu- related part of the ending always more oriented towards fans that had at least played Valhalla? Also, while we are at it, was there ever any plan to include the original voice actor for Loki (Carlo Rota) into the story, or perhaps just at the end?

From the beginning, with Stéphane Boudon (creative director), we knew that we wanted to make the story approachable to everyone. That's actually the reason why, for example, Loki's name is never pronounced. Even if you don't know the story of Valhalla, you understand that Basim had a previous life, during which he was tortured, and that Nehal is the embodiment of this personality that Basim does not yet have the capacity to embrace and understand. For a new player, it's understandable. As for others, it comes back to the “additive comprehension” I mentioned earlier: certain elements of Valhalla or Isu lore in general can be reinterpreted with some new information in Mirage.

Regarding Carlo Rota’s voice, his voice is very deep, very mature, and didn’t suit the younger Basim of Mirage. It was obvious to us that we needed to work with another actor. In addition, we paid attention to pronunciations and accents to increase immersivity and authenticity. The fact that Lee Majdoub speaks Arabic fluently really added to the character. He did a fantastic job and I loved working with him.


Q: What drew you to design the influence of Loki’s memories on Basim this way compared to how Odin’s influence on Eivor was portrayed in Valhalla, with him being relegated mostly in the memory corridor / killroom scenes of Valhalla? Were there other ways you had considered to represent Loki’s influence on Basim?

As far as I can remember, we never considered doing the same thing as Valhalla concerning the Memory Corridors. I just discussed with Darby how he envisioned the Sages, since he was the one who introduced them into the lore, to make sure we didn't go against what he had already established.

The idea of Nehal came fairly quickly in the production process. Early on during conception, we had thought about how Loki could have a progressive influence on Basim with gameplay elements supporting the narrative. Nehal was one of the answers.


Q: In your opinion what are the main differences between Eivor’s struggle with the memories of Odin, and their eventual resolution design-wise and story-wise, compared to Basim’s struggle with Loki’s memories and their eventual resolution? What were your main attempts making this look and feel different from what players had experienced in Valhalla?

Eivor and Basim don't have the same backstory. They also are very different in terms of personality. It was important that the treatment of their struggles with their past memories be different.

As I've mentioned several times in previous interviews, the very last scene of the game with Enkidu is the first one I wrote. The intention was there: Basim's eagle no longer recognizes him. It's the tipping point, the moment we know that Basim will never be Basim again.

Similarly, the farewell scene with Nehal is Basim saying to Loki: I'm leaving my place to you. It's Basim letting Loki take the reins and withdrawing into the background, into the Memory Corridor that I used as Basim's mental space. Where memories reside. At the end of Mirage, Basim is a memory. There's never a similar event in Valhalla. Eivor always remains Eivor.


Q: Also, there are several hints about Nehal being what she really is or... isn’t throughout the main story.
Which are your favourite ones, or the more notable ones or the ones that the writing team had more fun placing in the story?

There's one for which I've bothered quite a few people: the book that Nehal retrieves from the House of Wisdom, claiming to have saved it from the fire. She holds it in her arms, and we can briefly see the cover.

This book is the "Great Book of Interpretation of Dreams" written during the 7th century by Mohammed Ibn Sireen. After this scene, when the player returns to Anbar, they can find the book in Basim's hideout. Obviously, Basim has retrieved it himself at some point. The subject of this book has certainly caught his attention...


These are the kinds of small details I particularly cherish. Players who notice them feel more invested.

Q: What would you say would be Basim’s approach towards the Creed and the Brotherhood before entering the Vault and after exiting it? He seemed pretty against the Creed already in his final dialogue with Nur and after exiting the Vault he’s pretty ironic about Rayhan and the next steps to take...

Indeed, there are several steps into Basim’s evolution within the Hidden Ones.

As Basim tells Nehal at the beginning of Mirage, he sees the Hidden Ones as heroes. When he was a child, his father was exiled and he lost everything. His need for justice is therefore very strong. He also feels he has something to prove. He believes that the Hidden Ones will allow him to evolve. Which is quite ironic, considering what he will discover by joining them... Fate always plays tricks on us! This is actually something we find in the story of Mirage: the idea that everything is predetermined, that one cannot escape their destiny. One of my narrative pillars was the Shakespearean tragedy, and this theme is part of it.

After joining the Hidden Ones, Basim's visions intensify. For the first time, when he assassinates Al-Ghul, he sees the jinni outside of his nightmares. From then, the jinni keeps appearing after the assassination of each main target, for a simple reason: moments of intense violence trigger the trauma of the torture Loki himself endured. It's a situation that eats away at Basim. But Roshan ignores his questions, simply advising him to leave his past behind. So, when Basim discovers that she hid from him what was beneath Alamut, the betrayal is too strong. At that moment, he is angry, torn between his duty as a Hidden One and his need to uncover what lies in Alamut.

When he arrives at Alamut and witnesses the massacre of the Hidden Ones, it's an intense feeling of failure, a questioning of the creed, and above all, the influence of Nehal who stands beside him at the Isu prison gate.

The last conversation with Rayhan is a conversation between Loki and Rayhan... It’s no longer Basim who speaks. Basim, as I mentioned earlier, has taken the back seat... Loki has other motivations, those he has in Valhalla: to find Odin and to seek revenge.

Q: Something else I wondered about while playing is - what were all the dig sites supposed to lead to?
Looking around in the dig sites you can actually see that the Order is digging to find some Isu structures of some kind, some of which you can even see through inaccessible windows of sorts, and if I’m not mistaken at the end of the game Qabiha says that all the operations by the Order in the region were to find Basim, they were for him.
What did she mean by that? What was the Order looking for in the dig sites? I feel like there might have been some cut content in there too.

The Order is searching for other Isu sites, and for other Memory Seals. They are aware of the presence of the Isu prison beneath Alamut and know it to be a vast source of knowledge about the Isu, as they would find hundreds of Memory Seals there. The Order also knows about the Sages: it's not Basim in particular they seek, but the reincarnation of an Isu, which would be another source of knowledge about the first civilization, and a powerful tool.


Q: ... and speaking of cut content ... the Present Day. Mirage is the first time we've not had a playable modern day section since Assassin's Creed Syndicate in 2015. Was there ever any plan to have a playable Modern Day section in the game?

No, we decided from the start that we didn't want any Modern Day to focus on Basim’s story, in 9th century Baghdad.