Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst

Catalyst is developed by EA Digital Illusions CE (DICE), it is a reboot of the 2008 release Mirrors Edge. Set to revolve around Faith’s origin and attempt to overthrow the totalitarian conglomerate of corporations who rule the city of glass.

Players take control of Faith Connors, who will have the opportunity to transverse through the city known as glass.

Using parkour movements, you can complete missions, evade enemy attacks, or simply knock them off their feet. Players can also use environment objects such as zip-lines and ledges to travel across buildings.

As you mark an object on your map ‘runner vision’ is activated which turns some scenery and items highlight in red. These act as indicators to show if a structure is climbable at certain points, as well as guides to direct players towards an objective.

Unlike previous versions of the Mirror’s Edge that followed a linear system, Catalyst follows an open-world, free roaming environment as is with a lot of game releases since the release of next generation systems.

As Catalyst takes a non-linear approach, this allows players to transverse more freely, which in turn allows players to take multiple paths to complete an objective they’ve been given.

As you venture through the campaign mode of Catalyst, side activities such as time trials. races and environmental puzzles become open to you. DICE have promised that no loading screen will be included in the final game, allowing players to jump right into the gaming environment without any interruptions. Additionally, items called Gridleaks can be found across the entire world to be collected by players.

As this is a reboot of Mirror’s Edge,  the game has received an overhaul with combat receiving a major reboot as the developer is pushing for a higher emphasis on traversal gameplay.

Also, guns have been completely removed from gameplay even though they had only scarcely been used in previous installments of the game, with the intention of focusing more on Faith’s running, plus parkour movements throughout. As well as Faith’s quick melee-style attacks to either takedown your enemies, or evade them.

Multiplayer features have changed slightly, instead of a co-operative style of play or even a competitive multiplayer style, the game instead features a synchronous play style, meaning that your actions can affect the world that other players experience.