Six Days With the Mirror's Edge Catalyst Beta

When the original Mirror’s Edge released back in 2008, I fell in love with it. It was beautiful, pure and exhilarating. I still play that game regularly, but ever since it released, I was hoping for another entry to the series. That wait is finally over, as I’ve got my hands on the Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Beta.

Movement is the core pillar of Mirror’s Edge, and so it is the first thing introduced to players of Catalyst. The game allows you to pull off and chain together many parkour moves in first-person, such as wallruns and wallclimbs.

As I learned the ropes of the familiar-but-upgraded parkour gameplay, I was reacquainted with the dreaded unlockable skill tree. Some core movement mechanics are not available from the beginning, which has sparked some conversations about how limited the game would feel in the early stages. For me, the game didn’t feel limited in any way. The basic moves that you unlock throughout the game feel more like an extended tutorial. It makes the moves easy enough to pick up for newcomers, as opposed to flooding the player with every game mechanic all at once. It wasn’t until I restarted the beta that I felt any kind of restriction, as I had just been playing with certain moves unlocked. Going by how quickly you can purchase the skill roll and quick turn in the beta, I’m sure that the unlock system will be an insignificant memory in the grand scheme of things for the main game.

There’s not too many open world games where the traversal in-between missions would be cited as a highlight. But Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’s traversal and open world exploration is almost its main selling point.

Environmental puzzles, such as the billboard hack missions, where you can take down corporate messages, are a nice change of pace to the constant flow of running, as they entail slower platforming puzzles. Looking up at a billboard from below, then finding my way up there and leaving my mark on the world was satisfying.

Similarly, the time trials in Catalyst (now called ‘Dashes’), entail an amount of environmental analysis. Being presented with these new challenges available in Catalyst, where I had to discover the fastest routes available to achieve them elusive three-star times, was a joy.

Many players felt that the original Mirror’s Edge was lacking in regards to the combat, however with the very first KrugerSec goon I took on in Catalyst, I realised how much more brutal and fast the new game’s combat is. Within seconds, Faith had punched, kicked and knocked out an enemy in the most stylish way possible.

A short combat tutorial follows, showing the player how to combine parkour abilities, such as wallruns, with heavy kick attacks. You’d be hard-pressed not to feel like a complete badass during this section - so much so that I replayed the tutorial three times straight because I was having so much fun.

Sometimes simple mechanics, such as being able to direct your kick, surface in Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. And yet I’ve never seen these ideas utilised in other hand-to-hand combat games.

What if you just want to keep on moving past enemies, though, instead of coming to a stop? DICE has you covered there too, in a lot of sections - though not all. One beta mission was particularly enjoyable, challenging the player with landing light attacks on enemies while also keeping up movement momentum. These attacks are more concerned with simply getting enemies out of the way in order to keep on running. Kicking someone on the way to landing a jump feels very satisfying indeed.

I don’t have huge hopes for Catalyst’s story, as it was by no means the original’s strong point. That’s not why I’ve been so excited about the release, despite being a lover of narrative-driven games. That said, the glimpses of Catalyst’s story and characters available in the beta do show a lot of promise. I find myself wondering about Faith’s childhood flashbacks and about how they’ll come into play for her modern-day character.

The first thing I noticed about Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’s opening sequence was the story-telling details. Faith literally pouncing up from her prison bed, and then immediately exercising explains how she’s kept in shape for running during her down-time, for instance. Later in this opening sequence, for example, she stands up to K-Sec guards brilliantly, but a quiver of panic can be heard in her voice as she runs from a Kruger aircraft and yells “There are K-Sec everywhere!” Perhaps even just in this opening sequence, Faith shows more character than she did in the entirety of the original Mirror’s Edge.

Later, after stealing a valuable item, but then being scorned by father figure Noah for messing with Kruger, a beautifully crafted cinematic brilliantly captures the sense of a disappointed parent. Faith’s distant, regretful look cannot help but pull at my heartstrings, even as I watch it for the fourth or so time.

When I was allowed to explore the open world and make my own way through the city, that exhilarating thrill of running just wasn’t there, as it was in the main missions. The elegance and purity of the parkour gameplay was absolutely intact, though. It’s just that Mirror’s Edge is at its best when you have something to run from or towards.

But I knew that a lot of my time with Catalyst would be spent exploring this world, and so I looked for ways to see past my issues with it. I realised that the issue is probably over-exaggerated by the beta, as exploration is all that is left to do after completing the main and side missions. In the full game, I’d just be able to move on through the story.

And, lo and behold, I found myself enjoying exploring Faith’s world more and more. I realised that after hours of playtime in the same area, I was still finding different routes to traverse. It’s an interesting puzzle to reach the edge of a crop of buildings before realising there is no way of getting across to where you want to be. Spying down the rooftops in order to spot a way across to Faith’s far-away objective felt great, and making it over there gives you a sense of awe as to how grand and large the world is. I came to adore how beautifully crafted the City of Glass is, at least in the district available in the beta. Not only is it visually stunning, but it’s so tightly designed that Mirror’s Edge’s unique parkour mechanics are allowed to shine.

DICE have also been touting the new Social Play features. These include the ability to make and share your own time-trials, hack billboards that appear in a friend’s game and more.
Having my own game world populated by these user-created time-trials meant that I always had a lot to do.

In other games, such as Halo, that give the player the ability to create their own content, it can be hard to find levels that are well-designed. And yet this doesn’t seem to be an issue with Catalyst. Thanks to the incredibly well-designed world, everywhere in the map that you can reach feels fun to run about in.

Hacking billboards in-game is also a lot of fun, from a social approach. I enjoyed having my friend message me to say that he’d stolen my billboard, and then going on a mission to cover all the billboards in the beta to ensure that I regained my glory.

And so it looks as if Mirror’s Edge Catalyst will be one of the most notable games of 2016. I, for one, cannot wait.
Catalyst’s full release is on 7th June in North America and 9th June in Europe.