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Assassin’s Creed: Mirage launched on October 5th and takes players to medieval Baghdad at the height of the Islamic Golden Age. One of its more immersive new features is the option to play through the game with subtitled Classical Arabic voice work. Ghost of Tsushima‘s Japanese language option played a major role in inspiring Ubisoft’s decision.
Ghost of Tsushima Influenced Assassin’s Creed’s Arabic language option
Games Industry.biz recently spoke to Mirage’s art director Jean-Luc Sala and cultural consultant Mohammed Alemam.
A bit part of the interview was the pair’s explanation of the game’s localization priorities. Usually, Ubisoft’s primary objective is just to make sure players understand what the characters are saying. The first two Assassin’s Creed games actually reference this, directly stating that the Animus automatically translates spoken words.
However, the developers of Assassin’s Creed: Mirage thought it would be more authentic to include an Arabic option as standard. Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Tsushima played a big role in influencing Ubisft’s decision. The samurai game allowed players to go through the game with Japanese voice acting and English subtitles. This created a more authentic experience, and was an element that Ubisoft wanted to emulate.
“We [paid] special attention [to the fact] that people love to play Ghost of Tsushima in Japanese, for example,” said Sala.
The version of Arabic spoken in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is the Classical Arabic spoken in the 800s. However, while modern Arabic has drifted somewhat, many people in the Arabic world still use and understand the medieval version. “Honestly,” said Sala, “it would have been a shame to miss that opportunity to return to the Middle East with Assassin’s Creed and not [include] a language that is still here.”