Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is an action-adventure platformer developed by EA DICE and published by Electronic Arts. It was released in June 2016 for PC, PS4, and Xbox One. This game is a little bit of an oddity as it is neither prequel, sequel, or remake. If anything, it’s a reboot of a franchise that only had one game. No matter how you label it, Catalyst is a fitting successor to the original Mirror’s Edge. The game focuses on first person freerunning (or parkour) to get from point A to B, with some climbing, platforming, and combat sequences thrown in.
The game got mixed reviews with many people commenting that the basic freerunning mechanics are quite good, but the combat, story, characters, and pretty much everything else about the game are solidly mediocre. For the most part if you liked the first Mirror’s Edge, you’ll probably like this one. If you didn’t like the first Mirror’s Edge, it’s extremely unlikely that this one does anything that would bring you around.
Speaking of the original Mirror’s Edge, there will probably be many comments referencing or comparing the two games so if you’ve never seen or played it, check out the LP I did.
I have heard some bad things about this one but it will be interesting to see it compared to the few levels of the first I have seen. The story seems very stuffed towards the front compared to the introduction of the original.
What this Black November mission has me thinking is just how much bigger of a scale Catalyst has against the original. Yes, in the old Mirror’s Edge, the corrupt organizations and government and our fight against it is important, but it’s really just about Faith and her sister. Anything we do is to the system is just secondary to our main goal.
This game however is very much a fight against those in power, and our time with Black November is a huge highlight on that. It’s also interesting to note that the earlier breakdown we got on Rebecca, vs Noah, vs Faith’s parents different ideas show that there isn’t one way to combat a corrupt system. Sure it didn’t work out for Faith’s parents, and Noah’s route had a similar ending, but all of them are really necessary. You need the voice, the power, and bystander to make a change. No one person is right or wrong in this situation. And it’d be interesting to see what exactly this iteration of Faith does.
