Assassin’s Creed Mirage Narrative Director Sarah Beaulieu recently explained why he chose to introduce a new middle-aged female mentor for Basim.
Speaking with Games Radar about the upcoming game Beaulieu discussed why she chose to introduce a new middle-aged assassin mentor for Basim named Roshan.
She said, “Very early on, when we knew that we were going to work with Basim, with [Creative Director] Stéphane [Boudin] we agreed that we needed a mentor. Because he’s going to become an assassin, obviously we need a mentor.”
“What I wanted was a woman mentor, but I also wanted someone who was not too young, I wanted someone in their 50s. That was very important, because of their experience but also because I think that we need more women of a certain age in mainstream media,” she revealed.
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Next, Beaulieu detailed how they built the character around The Expanse’s Shohreh Aghdashloo despite not having hired her to voice the character yet, “We agreed on that very early on and someone on the team brought up the name of Shohreh Aghdashloo for the role.”
“She has this very specific voice that everybody loves and it helped a lot, because even though at that point we didn’t know if she was okay with doing it or not, with writing the dialogues, it really helps hearing the voices in your head, helps to build a character around this charisma that Shohreh has,” she concluded.
Aghdashloo also informed the outlet about how she views the role and how she wants it to be an example for women.
She said, “When the story appeals to us, we want to tell the story, and when this one came around, I just thought, ‘Wow. What an amazing woman she is.'”
“She is representative of the ethnicities, cultures, and diversity back in 9th Century Baghdad – at its Golden Age. What a great example for women today, especially in the other half of the world, who want to realize that I too can be strong, I too can stand for justice for all,” the actress explained.
She also asserted, “When this role came I knew I would love to play this role, to lend my voice to this strong woman who’s struggling so hard to make her society a better society to live in, to get rid of the bad people, the rotten people, dictators who are using and abusing people.”
Aghdashloo elaborated on this point stating, “Assassin’s Creed Mirage can read very well for today’s world, for certain places and societies in the other half of the world. It can speak for them as well.”
She continued, “It’s still happening right now in this world. What if we had some people like Roshan and the Hidden Ones to come back from the 9th Century and take care of these bad people who are using and abusing others?”
The actress then asserted, “She is representative of all these millions of women around the world, around the globe nowadays, who are standing for justice, or standing for their basic rights, or standing for taking care of their people, and making the world a better place to live in.”
“This story becomes even more fascinating when you think about what’s happening in the world, about how many thousands, millions of women in Afghanistan, in Iran and Pakistan, in Africa, elsewhere, are fighting for their rights right now,” she detailed. “When you play the game it doesn’t feel like you’re playing an ancient game about Baghdad, no matter how elaborate or beautiful the animations are.”
The actress reiterated, “This is Baghdad at its golden time and Ubisoft has done a fantastic job at bringing it into the picture, but it speaks for today as well.”
“When I was voicing Roshan, I thought I wish I could do this for my own people, for girls who are dying to bring freedom to their countries, to gain their basic rights such as getting educated or having a choice to wear whatever they like to wear, or not. But I can’t find anything else right at this moment that is more relative to today than this game. This game is far more relative to what is going on in the world right now, as we’re speaking, than other movies or series that I have done,” she concluded.
Assassin’s Creed Mirage is set in Baghdad and puts players in the boots of Basim who is described by Ubisoft as a “a cunning street thief with nightmarish visions seeking answers and justice.”
Ubisoft is also marketing the game as a callback to the original Assassin’s Creed describing it as a “tribute to the original” and explaining, “Experience a modern take on the features and gameplay that have defined a franchise for 15 years. Journey to Alamut, the legendary home of the Assassins who laid the foundations of the Creed in this heartfelt homage to the game that started it all.”
The game arrives on PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on October 13th.
What do you make of the character of Roshan and how they created her?
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