Like Playing an Early Tomb Raider, But With None of the Modern Improvements
I’m struggling to think of a modern game that evokes a particular era of gaming – a particular year, even – more than Mirage 7 does. To me, it’s the walking spirit of 2008. It makes me think of Xbox 360 and PS3 games like Dark Sector, Conflict: Denied Ops, Dark Messiah of Might & Magic, Alone in the Dark and Fracture as I play it. It’s all of the B-list of that period, mashed up and reconstituted into a 2026 sausage.
If you’re struggling to figure out if that’s meant as a positive or negative, well, it’s both. Mirage 7 captures all of the ill-advised ambition, the bugginess, the bad controls and the deadly serious storytelling. But it’s also a B-tier game when they’re just not made any more, and the focus on puzzling could have been ripped directly from a 360-era Tomb Raider. Mirage 7 even goes so far as looking like a game of that period. I’m not sure how intentional it is, but I see a 360 title when I look at the screen.
In Today’s Kick-off, it’s Mirage 7 – Maroon 5
Your mileage will vary about whether all of the above is a good thing. I emerged at the end of Mirage 7, battered from the bugs, the lack of handholding and some truly excruciating stages, with an answer that teetered on ‘no’. But I can see people loving it. This is for those people who return to PS1 Tomb Raider and claim that it plays better than any of those Anniversary releases.
Mirage 7 tells the story of Nadira and her pet lizard, Jiji. Nadira is headed to the Moon Palace where she hopes to find the lost princess Taishma, who will grant her a wish and bring her little sister back from the dead. Mirage 7 cold-opens on Nadira, deep in the desert, hopelessly unprepared for surviving in, what seems to be, a fantasy-inflected Persia from many centuries ago.
Running parallel alongside this are some very odd sci-fi gubbins. Occasionally, the narrative will get psychically interrupted by a hybrid alien thing that leaped out of one of HR Giger’s sketchbooks. Something is clearly not right about this little quest. Where are we? When are we?
On paper it sounds quite fun and high concept, but – in the game – it’s a little hokey. The script is dry as a pitta bread left in the sahara, and the voice-acting and awkward, stilted character animations can’t sell it. It leads to some chucklesome interactions, particularly with a Vizier character who couldn’t be more suspect if he tried.
An Oasis or Two in the Adventure
But as I started exploring the desert, some underground caves and not one but two puzzle-palaces, I started to find the charm in it. This is a third-person adventure that is clearly in thrall to Lara Croft and Nathan Drake, and the orientation towards puzzles rather than combat is where it sings most. Nadira can use her catapult, her ability to push and pull blocks, as well as momentarily enter the perspective of her pet lizard, to solve rooms and gain items. Those items help in other rooms within vast, sprawling complexes. They feel a little like a Resident Evil mansion with the zombies stripped out, including all of the awkward controls of that period, and that’s entirely the compliment that we mean it to be.
Unfortunately, Mirage 7 couldn’t stay in that mode forever. Even within the puzzle-palaces, there are illogical moments. You can brute-force most of them, pressing A or B on everything, in the hope that something contextual happens. You can open your inventory of items and the game helpfully informs you if something could be used on something else. Praise Taishma, as we wouldn’t have worked out these combinations without that prompt. But there are moments where brute-forcing won’t work. One particular puzzle required us to step on a table, and I can’t for the life of me understand how I should have known that.
But those are mostly forgivable, particularly in a utopian future when there are guides for Mirage 7 (we didn’t have that luxury and probably took twice the time that you will). But where Mirage 7 most belies its 2008 roots is in some mazes and its combat.
Getting Sand in all the Wrong Places
Oh, the combat. It becomes clear as soon as the first giant centipede attacks that Mirage 7 isn’t so hot when crossing swords. It doesn’t feel like you’re hitting the enemy with your dagger, and it certainly doesn’t feel like they are hitting you. The only real way to play is to run around the enemy while it attacks nothing in particular, attack and then run again. Catapults turn up later, dealing the same damage as a melee attack, so you can cheese everything from then on. The enemies also become more palatable spirits and skulls, as if Mirage 7 became aware that combat was duff with larger enemies.
One maze in particular sucks. We made the mistake of neglecting to pick up one item in the maze, and spent thirty minutes backtracking to find it. It was hellish without needing that item – every corner looks the same, there’s no map, and some helpful fireflies only take you to the exit – and it’s only multiplied when you do need it. If I wasn’t reviewing Mirage 7, I can say with certainty that I would have stopped there.
Being an homage to 2008, there are also plenty of visual bugs and camera quirks. It looks big budget if you squint, and would certainly have looked pretty a couple of decades ago. But now? Mirage 7 is showing its age. Textures are inconsistent. Vital, quest-important items look just like the level decorations. It’s not got that slick usability that we have come to expect from modern games.
And we haven’t even talked about the ending, which doesn’t so much culminate as puff into non-existence. Perhaps a Mirage 8 is in the offing? It’s the only explanation that we have.
A Musty Relic
Part of us is happy to see games like Mirage 7 made in 2026. It’s an ambitious, meaty 3D adventure without a licence or a continuing IP. We saw lots of games like Mirage 7 back in the ‘00s, in the B-List golden age, but nowadays they are virtually extinct.
But Mirage 7 is also a reminder of what it was like to play those games. The storytelling is musty, the combat mustier, and it’s more illogical than logical in its puzzles. If that doesn’t put you off, and you’re on the market for this time-capsule of an adventure, then there’s some Tomb Raider-like treasures to be found.
Important Links
Explore Desert Legends In Mirage 7 On Xbox, PlayStation And PC – https://www.thexboxhub.com/explore-desert-legends-in-mirage-7-on-xbox-playstation-and-pc/
Mirage 7: A Sci-Fi Arabian Nights Adventure Revealed – Release Date Confirmed – https://www.thexboxhub.com/mirage-7-a-sci-fi-arabian-nights-adventure-revealed/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/mirage-7/9p3sxstls8bz
