Good news, people who prefer their videogame graphics crispy rather than hazy and rainbow-edged! Ubisoft are working on an Assassin’s Creed: Mirage patch that will let you toggle off chromatic aberration – aka the blurring of outlines and details for artistic effect, which you might consider appropriate to a game subtitled “Mirage”, but which some people absolutely despise.
This follows a week of uproar (as previously reported by Eurogamer) that has seen some players outright modding the game to remove the feature. Some people are complaining that it actually gives them headaches or makes them feel dizzy and nauseous. There’s no release date for the Mirage update yet, but Ubi have a “dedicated team” working on it.
All that’s from a support team post below the publisher’s recent announcement that Mirage is Ubisoft’s “biggest new-gen launch in terms of unit sales to date” with “the number of players being in the line with past successful launches such as AC Origins and AC Odyssey”. The post comments that “we could not have been happier that our back to the roots experience has been embraced by the community,” which gives me hope that we might see more stealth-oriented, levelling-averse, 10-20 hour Assassin’s Creeds, rather than another Valhalla-style open world grindfest.
As for chromatic blur, consider it knifed and/or poisoned and dumped in a bush somewhere. “Regarding the chromatic aberration, our dedicated team is working on it,” reads the subsequent support team post. “The option to toggle it on and off should be available in one of the upcoming updates.”
I can’t say I’ve been that bothered by chromatic aberration in Mirage, but now that my attention has been called to it, I can understand why a few players find it unpleasant. Consider this zoomed-in screenshot taken by Redditor IzttzI. Gosh, that rope looks a bit… psychadelic. Careful, it might bite!
On the other hand, I look at the comparison shots for the mod that removes the effect (taken by its creator kamzik123) and I can’t see the problem. What’s your mileage?
It’s funny how graphics features catch people out differently. For instance, I have been unable to finish the otherwise lovely Sable because the contrast between the character’s purposefully juddery animations and the camera movement causes weird lights to go on in my skull. That’s despite really liking the game’s aesthetic in small doses – I just can’t play for longer than 20 minutes.
Alice Bell found Mirage to be “the most enjoyable Assassin’s Creed game for years”, and our hardware editor James Archer was similarly impressed by its visuals. In his guide to Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s PC performance and the best settings to use, James summarised it as follows: “Mirage cares not for being the glossy poster child of ray-traced glamour; it’s just a game that looks pretty nice and runs well on PC, older hardware and Steam Decks included.”
