Gamescom 2015: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Gameplay Trailer is Amazing

Mirror's Edge Catalyst gameplay

A trailer for Mirror’s Edge 2 gameplay just came out and it’s basically everything we should’ve gotten in the first game.

The graphics are beautiful to look at, the free-running seems a lot more fluid, and with a promise of a vast open world, I think it’s safe to say Mirror’s Edge Catalyst won’t feel as contrived as its predecessor. Not to mention that its storyline seems a lot more engaging.

Not to say Mirror’s Edge plot was a borefest, but we didn’t really get to see the big bad corporation inflicting its totalitarianism upon its citizens. Sure, we saw its high surveillance in action, but never the reaction of the population over its loss of freedom. The only thing close to it was Faith’s flashbacks scenes about her parents’ involvement in the protests, where her mother got killed after the police opened fire upon the protesters. But that was just one scene, and I would’ve liked to see at least a couple more in the present timeline.

For example, Faith could have witnessed a takedown of an innocent bystander, or watched in horror as a child saw his parent getting shot to death; that could’ve been the catalyst (eh, I love puns) for a more brutal Faith and thus a more engaging storyline because of the downward spiral of the game’s lead heroine into a vicious vigilante. It could’ve even freshen out the “save my sister from a corrupt government” storyline, with Kate becoming conflicted over the safe but unethical world she choose to live in, and her sister who represents the freedom everyone wants but never realize the brutality it comes with.

But hey, that’s just an opinion.

In Mirror’s Edge Catalyst gameplay trailer, however, we clearly see two guards harassing an employee because “this area is off limits”, almost pushing him off the edge of the building. I hope to see more of these scenarios along the full-fledged game, it brings a more realistic vibe to it. After all, a city should have citizens, right?

Anyway, from the conversations heard, it’s because they’re looking for a Runner, which is interesting because it doesn’t seem it’s about Faith. And when she gets into the building of Agriculture Division, Elysium, we quickly discover there’s something a lot more sinister going on besides your usual “killing bees for the sake of profit” trials. We see a room with mechanical tables that resemble something out of a horror game, but a lot more sanitary and stylish, and a few brain scans scattered across the room. Faith is right, that is not Agriculture research, probably illegal-human-experiments type of research though.

There’s also another intruder inside Elysium, someone who looks like they shop at a Metal Gear Solid store (not an insult, by the way!), and, I’m assuming, they’re there because they too want some of that illegal-human-experiments research. He’s probably the Runner the other guards were searching for, but who knows.

Unfortunately, he gets knocked out by the lady bodyguard of Gabriel Kruger (he’s got Big Bad written all over), and Faith takes that chance and grabs the stolen data.

What I love about this scene is that we now know the cutscenes are no longer cartooned animated, which was a gripe for me in the previous game, because instead of emerging me in the story, it just kind of zoned me out. The art style wasn’t bad, it was just too different from the game’s graphics and so it looked like they didn’t belong. I’m glad they decided to make the cutscenes more engaging, I could barely tell the difference between the actual gameplay and the game’s cinematic.

The next sequence we see is Faith running for her life as she is chased down throughout the facility. They show us several new ways of taking down the guards – and they are all awesome – with kicking them down while in the air and pushing them into glass which breaks behind them (an efficient way of opening doors, I might say). In the last shot there’s a helicopter trying to shoot Faith from outside, we hear shots, windows are broken, our heroine keeps running, and the rope to her salvation is in her sight. But, of course, it then cuts to black with Faith’s exaggerated and distressed breathing and the game’s logo following suit.

I do love me some cliff-hangers.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst comes out in February 23rd 2016 for both next-gen consoles and PC. I really can’t wait to play it.

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