Assassin's Creed: Mirage's new free permadeath mode deletes your save when you break the law

The latest Assassin's Creed Mirage update is giving me flashbacks to that inglorious period in game design when every other action game had an insta-fail stealth segment to wind people up between cover-based shoot-outs and, I don't know, three-part glyph puzzles or what-have-you. Out today for PC at 12pm UTC, 1pm GMT, 7am ET and 4am PT, the 1.07 patch adds Full Synchronization Challenge, a permadeath mode (originally teased last year) that not only permakills you when you're slain by enemies, but also deletes your save file when you commit crimes such as slaughtering civilians, or going outside of "authorised map locations".

You can enable Full Synch Challenge on any difficulty. Cross-progression and cloud saves will be disabled in the process, and you can't turn FSC off after starting the game. Finish a permadeath run, and you'll be rewarded beyond your wildest dreams in the shape of... an emblem when completing the game on Easy, an emblem and a Rayhan costume when you complete the game on Normal, and an emblem, a Rayhan costume and six new dyes for existing outfits (specifically Initiate, Zanj Uprising, Abbasid Knight, Hidden Ones, Rostam and Bayek) when you complete the game on Hard.

Fail, and your sorry plight will be to stare disconsolately at a new stats screen showing your finishing time, how many conflicts you triggered, how you died, how many people you killed, and your assassin rank.

Some might call a new emblem, dyes and costume a scant return for the labour of avoiding being killed or getting caught breaking the law in Mirage. To these people I would say: you whippersnappers don't know you're born. Back in the day, every game was a permadeath game because there weren't none of your fancy "save files", thank you very much. Every morning, our dad would make us play through the entirety of Sonic 2 before we even had breakfast. "Sithee, you'll get nowt snap till you've polished off Oil Ocean Zone and I don't want any chuffing backchat," he'd say. I once got locked in the pantry with a copy of Ghosts 'n Goblins. It sure was grim up north.

There's more in the patch than permadeath. It adds a "transmog" feature, which is not some kind of quantum cat (apols, this is another joke about British slang) but the ability to wear any costume you own as an outfit. Although speaking of cats, the patch introduces a feline-sounding "Easter egg" to the world. "Be sure to snap a photo if you meownage to find them!" chortles the changelog. Here's hoping it's an actual cat egg. I'd sure hate to be ambushed by a cat egg, whatever that looks like, whether I'm playing on permadeath setting or no.

The patch also fixes a bunch of bugs. Amongst other things, the Roshan costumes no longer have bizarro physics, and enemies ringing alarm bells will now be properly affected by smoke bombs. One particular NPC will no longer levitate when you're walking slightly behind them. The full patch notes are here - bear in mind that some of them are spoilerific.

Mirage was one of Ubisoft's biggest success stories last year. Our Alice B called it the most enjoyable Assassin's Creed game for years. The next game is set in feudal Japan.