How to do the New Zealand trick for Assassin’s Creed Mirage

Assassin’s Creed Mirage will release on Oct. 5 for console. But thanks to a little concept called time zones, it’s Oct. 5 right now in New Zealand. See where we’re going with this trick?

The game’s release schedule doesn’t have separate times in separate regions to account for time differences, but rather releases at midnight of Oct. 5 local time.

This means that if you’re in a time zone where it’s already past midnight on Oct. 5, well… you know.

How to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage early with the New Zealand time zone trick

It’s every bit as simple as it sounds, and no—you won’t need a VPN. Simply changing your console’s time settings to reflect New Zealand’s schedule will enable you to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage early. New Zealand is 17 hours ahead of New York, and 20 ahead of Los Angeles, so while at the time of writing we’re still on Oct. 4 in the U.S., New Zealand is already several hours into Oct. 5.

Changing your console or time settings to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage early will vary slightly depending on which console you’re playing on, but it isn’t difficult and won’t take more than a minute or two.

How to do the New Zealand trick on Xbox

On Xbox, go to Settings>System>Language and Location and select New Zealand as your location. Afterwards, reset your console. When it’s booted back up, you’ll be able to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage early.

How to do the New Zealand trick on PS5

On PS5, you’ll have to do a bit more work. Changing your consoles setting won’t work; you’ll need to make a new PSN account and select New Zealand as the location for that account. After purchasing Assassin’s Creed Mirage with this new PSN account, you’ll be able to play early. The downside to using the trick on PS5 is, of course, you’ll have to pay for the game again on this second PSN account if you already bought it for your regular account.

Can you do the New Zealand trick on PC for Assassin’s Creed Mirage?

Unfortunately for PC players, both Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games store have a global release time, rather than a region specific one, so changing time zones won’t let you play the game any sooner on PC.

You can of course change your PC’s region to New Zealand, but that doesn’t affect release times. For PC players, you’ll have to wait until 4pm UTC (11am CT) on Oct. 5 to play Assassin’s Creed Mirage if you went through Epic, or 5am UTC (12am CT) if you went through Ubisoft.