Mirror's Edge Catalyst

Mirror's Edge Catalyst
File:Mirror's Edge Catalyst.jpg
Developer(s)	EA DICE
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Producer(s)	Sara Jansson
Composer(s)	Solar Fields Daniel James Mick Gordon
Series	Mirror's Edge
Engine	Frostbite 3
Platforms	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One
Release date(s)	NA 20160607June 7, 2016 EU 20160609June 9, 2016
Genre(s)	Action-adventure, platform
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is an upcoming open-world action-adventure platform video game developed by EA DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It is a reboot of 2008's Mirror's Edge and will revolve around Faith's origin and her attempt to overthrow a totalitarian conglomerate of corporations who rule the city of Glass.

Gameplay

File:Mirror's Edge Catalyst gameplay screenshot.png

Pre-alpha gameplay screenshot of Mirror's Edge Catalyst. Like the original game, Faith is able to traverse environments using various environmental objects, such as the walkway rail pictured here.

Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a first-person action-adventure game in which players take control of Faith Connors as she progresses through a futuristic city called Glass. Similar to the original Mirror's Edge, players traverse the city using aspects of urban exploration and parkour movements to complete missions and evade enemies or knock them off of their feet. Players can also make use of environmental objects such as zip-lines and ledges, and equipment including Mag Rope and Disruptor to travel across buildings. When players mark an objective on their map, Faith's "runner vision" is activated and some scenery items automatically highlight in red. These act as guides to lead players towards their objective. The use of levels and linear gameplay found in the first Mirror's Edge has been replaced with an open-world, free-roaming environment. This gives players more freedom in traversal, allowing for the use of multiple paths to reach one's objective. In addition to the campaign's mission, side activities such as time trials, races and environmental puzzles will be featured. DICE also promises that no loading screen will be included in the final game, allowing for freedom to travel within all areas without loading delays. Additionally, items called Gridleaks can be found across the world that can be collected by players.

Combat mechanics of the game received an overhaul and a new combat system was developed as traversal is greatly emphasized in the game. Also, though only used sparingly in the previous game, Mirror's Edge Catalyst has removed the use of guns by the player altogether, focusing on Faith's running and parkour movements and quick melee-style attacks to take down or evade her enemies. Faith enters focus mode while she is running. With sufficient focus Faith can evade bullets from enemies. According to Sara Jansson, the senior producer of the game, the combat and fighting featured will be an extension to the game's movement instead of a separated set. When Faith is performing a finishing move, the game switches to a third-person perspective.

Social Play

Mirror's Edge Catalyst contains several multiplayer features, which DICE calls Social Play. While there are no live co-operative multiplayer or side-by-side competitive modes, the game features asynchronous multiplayer in which a player's actions in the game can affect the world for other players' games. Among these are Time Trials which, unlike in the 2008 game, are not pre-defined by DICE. Instead, these checkpoint-to-checkpoint paths are set by any player whereby others can race against them at their leisure for faster times. Players are also able to place Beat Location Emitters for other players to track down, an exploration activity similar to geocaching.

Development

The new Mirror's Edge game was officially revealed in June 2013 at the Electronic Arts press event at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013. It will be released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The game was announced soon after as a prequel to Mirror's Edge showcasing the origins of Faith, and will use the newer Frostbite 3 engine, instead of the Unreal Engine used in the first game. However, more recently Sara Jansson stated that the game is not being seen as either a reboot or a prequel. Electronic Arts also confirmed in 2013 that the game will be an "open-world action adventure". According to DICE's general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson, the game will focus on the first-person combat mechanics building upon the first-person movement mechanics that were present in the first game. As the game features a free-roaming environment, the runner vision from the first game had been completely redesigned to adapt this structure. The runner vision in Catalyst can recalculate the path for players towards their objectives or waypoints.

The game was featured at E3 for a second time in June 2014, and prototype gameplay was briefly shown. It has been suggested the new Mirror's Edge will have more varied gameplay for Faith and Runners, where they will serve a greater purpose than in the first game. In January 2014, writer Rhianna Pratchett announced on Twitter that she would not be involved with the new game and neither would most of the original team. Mirror's Edge was confirmed to have a planned release date of February 23, 2016 before it was delayed.

The title Mirror's Edge Catalyst was formally announced in June 2015 prior to E3 2015; DICE product manager Sara Jansson affirmed that the game is not a sequel but will delve into more of Faith's past while expanding on the original game's first-person perspective experience. On June 15, at E3, and later on the Mirror's Edge YouTube channel, DICE released a new trailer for Mirror's Edge Catalyst, revealing elements of the game's storyline and environment. It was confirmed that the game would feature an open-world design and Faith will no longer be able to use guns.

On September 30, 2015, it was announced that the soundtrack composer for the original Mirror's Edge, Solar Fields would again compose for Catalyst. He collaborated with Scottish synthpop band Chvrches to create an original song for the game's soundtrack entitled "Warning Call".

On October 29, 2015, it was announced that the game had been delayed until May 24, 2016 to allow additional development time and for DICE to refine the traversal gameplay. On April 21, 2016, it was announced that the game had been delayed until June 7, 2016 to allow optimization and perfection of Social Play. The game's Collector Edition is set to be released alongside the main game. It will include a figurine of Faith, a steel book, a lithograph, temporary tattoos, and a storage box.

Related media

DICE announced Mirror's Edge: Exordium as a prequel comic book leading towards the storyline of Mirror's Edge Catalyst. It was released on September 9, 2015 and was published by Dark Horse Comics.