Where Basim’s Story Could Go After Assassin’s Creed Mirage’s Ending

Summary Basim Ibn Ishaq's journey will continue to be a major focus in future Assassin's Creed games, tying in with both Mirage and Valhalla.

Mirage offers a standalone experience but hints at a possible extension of Basim's story, delving deeper into his role as an assassin.

Basim's complex character and connections to Isu beings like Loki suggest a deeper, more villainous side that will unfold in future games.

It's clear to those who have played 2020's Assassin's Creed Valhalla and 2023's Assassin's Creed Mirage that Basim Ibn Ishaq will play a major role in the series going forward. Basim was introduced as a master assassin as part of the Hidden Ones - the group that would go on to become the Assassin's Order - in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, meeting Eivor's Viking clan and offering to help them expand their operations in Norway and England. The series then went back to Baghdad in the year 861 and depicted a 17-year-old Basim's origin story through a smaller, more stealth-focused title in Assassin's Creed Mirage. Here, players followed Basim as he learned new tactics from his mentor Roshan to take down members of The Order of the Ancients, a clandestine group pulling the strings across Persia.

[Warning: The following section contains spoilers for Assassin's Creed Valhalla and Mirage]Assassin's Creed Mirage's creative director Stephane Boudon, and art director Jean-Luc Sala recently answered questions about the game and where Basim's journey could go next. Boudon explained that "Mirage [has been designed] as a standalone experience without any [DLC planned]" but also stated that the team has ideas on how it could "extend the story of Basim", confirming what many players already suspected.

Related AC Mirage: How Basim Compares To Other Assassin’s Creed Protagonists Assassin's Creed Mirage finds an interesting new protagonist in Basim, but comparing him to other series protagonists yields fascinating results.

Could Assassin's Creed Follow Basim's Journey Between Mirage And Valhalla?

There's Roughly A Decade Between The Two Titles

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Assassin's Creed Mirage covered Basim's beginnings in the Middle East in 861 AD with Assassin's Creed Valhalla taking place over a decade later, between 872 and 878 AD. Therefore, Ubisoft has roughly a decade between titles in which they could continue to show Basim's growth as an assassin before meeting Eivor in Ravensthorpe. This could be a way to continue the smaller, yet more traditional, Assassin's Creed titles through stealth-first gameplay while other titles explore the larger RPG-esque elements the series introduced with 2017's Assassin's Creed Origins, catering to both types of fans.

The ending of Assassin's Creed Mirage saw Basim understanding his nature as a reborn Isu, merging with Nehal, who he believed to be his oldest friend and companion but was actually his psychological manifestation of Loki, whom Basim was revealed to be a reincarnation of in one of Assassin's Creed Valhalla's most shocking twists. As Basim and Nehal fuse into one person, Basim incorporates all of the memories of Nehal and his past selves.

Assassin's Creed Mirage's epilogue shows Basim vowing to have revenge on those who bound him inside the Isu's containment device within Alamut's hidden vault. This, of course, ties into his storyline in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, where he betrays Eivor following the reveal that they're a reincarnation of Odin, Loki's main nemesis from a past life.

In the Assassin's Creed series, Loki and Odin are not Gods but are Isus, a highly advanced species of humanoid beings who were active on Earth roughly 77,000 years before the rise of even the most ancient human civilizations.

With Basim showing a more villainous side upon learning about Loki's past, there's plenty of story to tell before that is Assassin's Creed Valhalla, as it's also implied that Loki has a vendetta against other targets whom he sees as wronging him. Future stories in this gap could show Basim manipulating the Hidden Ones to do Loki's bidding, with this trait already being shown in Valhalla through his interactions with Eivor and other characters.

Related Every Assassin's Creed Game, Ranked Worst to Best Since 2007, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed video game series has released twelve mainline titles. Here are all 12 games, ranked from worst to best.

Basim Is Also Present In Assassin's Creed's Present Day Story

Basim Was Reincarnated In Assassin's Creed Valhalla

One of the other characters Basim manipulated was Layla Hassan, the Assassin's Creed series' main present-day protagonist in Assassin's Creed Origins, Odyssey, and Valhalla. Toward the end of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Basim is brought into the present day after tricking Layla Hassan into using the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus to rejuvenate his body, suggesting that there's plenty more story to be told in this timeline with Basim essentially taking over as the main playable character, even if Basim doesn't show up again in a historical setting.

Assassin's Creed Mirage didn't have any present-day storyline and instead focused entirely on Basim's story in 861 AD.

Basim offered his help to the modern assassins while plotting to use the Animus for ulterior purposes, plotting to see the world through the eyes of Eivor to see if they had any children who could carry on Odin's bloodline. How this will tie into the next entry in the mainline Assassin's Creed series, the Feudal Japan-based Codename Red, or the more supernatural Codename Hexe is yet to be seen.

With Basim also being the main playable character in the present day by the end of Assassin's Creed Valhalla, there's also the possibility that players might finally get an Assassin's Creed title set in the present due to his pre-existing skillset as a master assassin. This was something many players believed the series was building up to with Desmond Miles' arc in the original Assassin's Creed games before the character's shocking death in Assassin's Creed 3, but there, Desmond was being trained to take on the Templars as all of his ancestors before him, whereas here, Basim has his own motives that could make for a far more compelling tale.

Desmond Miles may also finally make a return to the series, as "The Reader" who Layla interacts with in the Isu temple before resurrecting Basim seems to share the same physical structure and voice as Desmond, despite the Isu technology concealing most of his main features.

It seems far more likely that the continuation of Basim's journey that Stephane Boudon was referring to will be connected to this present-day arc, which would offer something new and interesting for the series. However, with so much time between Basim's origin story in Assassin's Creed Mirage and his fate in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, there's plenty of opportunity for him to appear elsewhere in the series, whether this is as a lead in another title like Mirage, or a supporting role like the historical part of Valhalla.