A great thing happened at E3 this year and Mirror’s Edge series came back to us, with Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. Mirror’s Edge has been adored by it’s fans for it’s mechanics in the past and I hope to be able to say it will continue to impress with its parkour, combat and, simplicity but with modern gameplay elements as well. Dice has clearly been hard at work creating the world for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst and getting its gameplay elements smooth and fun.
Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst is set to start right after Faith is getting released from prison and is “reformed” Naturally she goes straight to breaking the law with the help of her old accomplices.
What we got to play was the beginning of the game, we saw the opening scenes and finished the tutorial while meeting one of what seems like main characters who is requesting a meetup with another. Though after we do the tutorial we were set free in a smaller section of the open world and we were given 3 missions of different types and about 15 minutes to do what we wish with. I set off to do all the missions, that was my goal at first. There were 3 types, one a race, another to hack a billboard to show off your runner symbol (The Mirror’s Edge logo pretty much) and, a courier mission that requires combat.
All three missions were fun, none really too challenging but that’s expected for early game missions and in a demo. The most fun one was likely the courier that included combat. While unlike most games, the combat isn’t really a focus of this game as previous in the first Mirror’s Edge. But it depends all on your “flow” on what the game is based around. The key to Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst and the combat in it is completely based around moving and keeping going no matter what you’re doing. If it’s fighting or racing around the city. If you’re in a flow and at your top speed, you’re pretty much unstoppable.
The section of the city we got to explore included around 50 collectibles as well, While I don’t think there was any chance I was going to get them all I sure tried to get as many as I could and fortunately the section of the city that we got to play in showed off many of the ways to do parkour from sliding through vents, bashing doors open and, rolling to avoid high falls and much more. All of it felt great, I can’t really say anything felt clunky or slow.
Overall, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst looks like a strong game coming to us next year. Gameplay was very smooth as you would expect from a game like Mirror’s Edge focusing on parkour. Another game I’m glad I got to play at E3 and look forward to greatly for release and hope it continues on the path of development it is on now as it is a great game in the form that I got to play.
