Assassin's Creed Haptic Shirt Wants You to Feel Every...Stab?

Haptic MIRAGE suit
(Image credit: OWO/Ubisoft)

Ubisoft and OWO may not want to make you bleed, but the duo is certainly hoping you feel the same punches and stabbings that you make the next protagonist endure. That's because the companies have announced the launch of a limited, Mirage edition of OWO's haptic feedback shirt, a piece of wearable technology that constricts sections of your torso to transmit the feeling of impacts, cuts, and compression forces. The byline? You'd better ensure you're a good caretaker for your in-game character, Basim, or you'll feel exactly how good (or bad) of a player you are.

The haptic feedback Mirage shirt will be part of a limited 100-unit run and builds on OWO's own premium haptic offering, the Founder Limited Edition. That product ships with ten haptic sensation locations (the places where the suit can compress and decompress to simulate contact), 100-ohm high-conductivity electrodes, Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, and an eight-hour rechargeable USB Type-C battery. Depending on the settings, we can't imagine anyone wanting to be inside a walking machine of pain for the duration of its battery, so maybe OWO could have shaved some weight or pulled some additional constricting power from the suit's battery.

But the Mirage edition, being a limited one, brings some additional bells and whistles: according to OWO's page, the device will come bundled with an Assassin's Creed-style lycra shirt (a particularly useful material for all the sweating from playing contact games will generate); 20 gel pads; a storage pouch, and of course, the actual "beat me up" simulator itself and the world to be beat in: the OWO device and a digital copy of Assassin's Creed Mirage.

Luckily, users can customize their individual experiences, feedback intensity (and pain thresholds) through the OWO device and mobile app. Through it, users can make it so that a 50mm bullet feels like the lightest hand-slap in the world. OWO's sensations library (the range of contact that the vest can simulate) includes experiences ranging from wind, stress, and freefall to knife wounds, severe abdominal wounds, and shots... complete with exit wounds...

Haptic MIRAGE suit

It can't have been easy for the model to convey "wow, the sensation of being stabbed by an Iranian sabre" and "this is an amazing product you should buy" in the same shot. Alas, there it is. (Image credit: OWO/Ubisoft)

Uh.

Before you ask: No, it can't play Crysis (the game isn't supported yet), and yes; I checked. But it is compatible with Halo Infinite, Apex Legends, Half-Life: Alyx (VR), CS:GO, and Valorant, among others. Counting the soon-to-be-included Assassin's Creed: Mirage, that's quite a heavy-weight support list already.

Assassin's Creed Mirage is scheduled for release on October 12, 2023, for PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Amazon Luna platforms. The game will also be available to all Ubisoft+ subscribers at release.

Francisco Pires
Freelance News Writer

Francisco Pires is a freelance news writer for Tom's Hardware with a soft side for quantum computing.

  • Ralston18
    "No, I don't want my gaming inadequacy to be proven by the actual feeling of a knife to the ribs."

    Gaming iadequacy is the least of the problems.

    Not going to end well even without blood.

    Just imagine some buggy game or some really vicious attacker having at a player.

    Let the lawsuits begin.....

    Just my thoughts on the matter.
    Reply
  • neojack
    relax everyone, those are probably just vibrators like found in console controlers since the PS1

    I would be curious to read an actual test

    Also, if the drivers get standardized with an API, it would be interesting for VR
    Reply
  • rluker5
    The high conductivity electrodes and gel pads leads me to believe that they are doing this right. But you may have to buy replacement gel pads if you use it a lot.
    Electrical stimulation can be painful. On the plus side a bad player might get totally ripped abs.
    Reply
  • Geef
    I have shock gel pad thing for massaging muscles and it does huge shocks if you turn it up enough. Think of it on the top of your arm and you turn the shock to max. You can feel the pain at the tips of your fingers. Also the shocker runs on a tiny battery. Like a watch battery. It doesn't take much to feel it.

    If they setup an entire shirt to do this they could easily power it with 2AA batteries or just through a usb connection.
    Reply
  • blacknemesist
    Maybe for VR, for normal play the controller vibration is enough for me
    Reply