Mirror’s Edge Catalyst - On This Day

It most often happens that a reboot in the world of gaming follows after some series of games are left without ideas for sequels. It’s rare for a reboot to experience games that haven’t grown into series, but that’s exactly the case with Mirror’s Edge and its successor Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which came out on this day six years ago.

The original parkour adventure from 2008 gathered a fan base with its unique gameplay and aesthetic display. Fans, therefore, demanded a sequel, but a five-year lull ensued. The new Mirror’s Edge was announced in 2013 as a prequel unit but underwent a series of changes in development so that it was ultimately an expanded and changed story of the original, focusing on the origins of protagonist Faith Connors. The screenwriters of the first game did not work on the Catalyst story.

The main novelty of the "refreshed" Mirror's Edge was the open-world format. That is, the city of glass in which Catalyst took place was divided into several regions, but only the movement around the environment was mostly free. A slightly more linear approach was still seen in the main missions, and the game continued to use prominent colors in the environment to guide the player where to go.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst looked nice on the Frostbite engine, but the game still didn’t surpass its predecessor in several segments. In the reboot, some things were thrown out, such as the use of weapons that were present in the original. Ancillary activities were often insignificant and came down to gathering things, so the whole concept of the open world seemed a bit forced.

The game eventually sold more copies than the original Mirror’s Edge - a total of some 2.5 million. However, this did not seem to be enough as the franchise virtually disappeared after that. A TV series was also planned, but in the end, nothing came of it.