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GamingBolt: What The Hell Happened To Mirror's Edge Series?

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


Mirror's Edge, which, funnily enough, came from DICE and EA, who've very much become emblematic of the risk-averse approach to game development that defines the AAA space in this day and age.

Very much a prime example of a cult classic, the original Mirror's Edge has a dedicated fan following that swears by the game to this day, and even though its sequel fell short of expectations in more ways than one, there's no shortage of people out there who'd love nothing more than to see the series make a comeback.

Sadly, that looks quite unlikely, because Mirror's Edge isn't in a very good place. What was once one of EA's most promising and interesting franchises has quietly receded into the background and all but died off- but how exactly did we get to this point? What the hell happened to Mirror's Edge?
 

UnNamed

Banned
Nothis has really happened. Mirror's Edge had its fan but it was never a huge success. Catalyst was a good game, not worse than the original, just different. No groundbreaking sales even in this case.

It's the usual praised game with (relatively) low sales and few reasons to produce another chapter.
 
1st one was great. Short, linear platformer with a ton of style and a phenomenal OST.

2nd one shit the bed hard. Emphasis on super cringe-worthy story, dialogue and hipster characters. Open world ruined the flow of the game. Also the game was very poorly graphically optimized for consoles. Looked like they made a PC version and then just poured acid all over it to strip it down to run on consoles.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
Fans demanded for a Mirrors Edge sequel for so long, it fooled EA that there was genuine demand.
sequel came out and barely anyone bought it. Major flop.

This should really be a case study on not being swayed by a vocal minority.
 
Always loved the first game. DICE nailed the visual and sound effects that made it so immersive to traverse the world as Faith.

Falling from a great height always induced a sense of vertigo, sprinting felt like you were running with the wind and breaking a fall with a roll always felt graceful.

It's also one of the few first person games where you can view your body somewhat realistically by looking downwards. Starbreeze (Chronicles of Riddick) and Guerrilla (Killzone) did this too, starting to think European devs love this sort of thing...

Even Respawn's Titanfall, with its superb traversal system never thought it worthwhile to let you see your avatar's body.
 

skit_data

Member
The first one was cool, I remember booting it up on PS3 whenever I wanted to show someone how good games look nowadays.
A lot of the art design and aesthetics of the game holds up pretty well today, and I still feel its a bit sad the potential of the games weren’t entirely reached.
 

SF Kosmo

Al Jazeera Special Reporter
The first game is genuinely brilliant and one of my favorite games of that gen, but proof positive that there simply isn't a market for a 4-5 hour long single player AAA game.

The second game is, sadly, proof that you can't fix that by just duct taping 15 hours of filler onto said 5 hour game.
 

Notabueno

Banned
Holly shit, I've never read such a filthy thread.

This is why publishers shouldn't bother with quality and director and just bleed the increasingly rotting gamer crowds money with NFT time-limited micro-transaction online open-worlds.
 
I really enjoy the first one, still play it from time to time. The second one not so much.

It may take away the novelty of it a bit but I’d like to see a full on third person offering, the running and climbing an improvement on Assassins Creed and the combat of a Batman Arkham.
 

Skyfox

Member
1st game great, second game even better.

FUCKTHEHATERS!!
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/Gets incinerated by flames
 

Kupfer

Member
ME 1 was something new and felt like an indie title - which is why I gave the game more of a pass. It wasn't a AAA-advertising-everywhere game back then, it was a little insider tip that I had a lot of fun with. Also, the visuals, the soundtrack, and the pacing were something special. With part 2, they wanted to squeeze in the familiar money-printing formulas, and of course there had to be an open world. Open world sells, doesn't it? I didn't waste a minute with "part 2", since it wasn't even a sequel. For me, Mirrors Edge "Series" is one game, Catalyst at most a fringe phenomenon, with which they tried to rake in money in a cheap way.
 
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Certinty

Member
I might be the only one but I actually didn't mind Catalyst...

The first game was good but was so short I could never rate it as highly as most.
 

AJUMP23

Member
It didn't sell and it wasn't worth the hype. Fun, but nothing revolutionary.

They also listened to the loudest minority in making a second one, and not the research. There was no huge market for the second one, there was just a niche of fans.
 
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95mellow

Member
Holly shit, I've never read such a filthy thread.

This is why publishers shouldn't bother with quality and director and just bleed the increasingly rotting gamer crowds money with NFT time-limited micro-transaction online open-worlds.
The second Mirror's Edge was garbage because it was open world, tho?
 
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