Mirror's Edge

It’s been reported that Mirror’s Edge is so fast-paced and realstic, it’s given players motion sickness. We don’t know about that, but it’s certainly got Rob Power giddy with excitement...

There’s been a lot of fun had with dystopian future worlds. Most famously, George Orwell’s 1984 dealt with a brutal totalitarian future state monitored by Big Brother. And others such as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 have all dealt with what it might be like living in an oppressive futuristic world. Many games are set in the future, or an alternate present, but few have followed the idea through, at least not in the same way as those in the literary world. EA’s Mirror’s Edge dives headlong into these topics, and throws a whole lot more into the pot besides.

On the surface, the setting for the game is standard fare, all a bit sci-fi and shiny. The plot, however, reveals a darker heart beneath the shiny surface. The city in which the game is set, an almost utopian vision of shimmering skyscrapers, is in fact a conformist nightmare, a vision of a future in which all communications in every form are monitored by the government and life for anyone outside of the norm is a little, well, difficult.

Due to communication between folk who want to keep some things private being a highly dangerous affair, a system has evolved whereby runners are used to simply take information to its intended recipient and hand it to them with no governmental interference. These runners are essentially what are known as free-runners – those chaps often used in sports ads who demonstrate just how easy it is to run, jump, climb, and generally make travelling through an urban sprawl look as graceful as ballet.

Players take up the role of a striking looking girl called Faith, who is a runner. A first person perspective is used throughout the game, but far from the emphasis being on how big a gun you can shoot, Mirror’s Edge is all about the movement. “What makes the game unique is the fact that it focuses on movement in first person, not just shooting guns,” confirms Mirror’s Edge producer Nick Channon.

“Clearly the game contains guns and combat, however the core of the game is movement through an urban environment.”

The environment itself is stunning – an impressive backdrop indeed, comprising bright primary colours and a lot of sterile white, with the intention being for it to look un-natural, forced, and a bit wrong to the eye. A long way from Kansas, in other words. “We wanted you to know that you were looking at Mirror’s Edge when you saw a screenshot,” adds Channon.

“It had to stand-out. Being in first person you play the game through the eyes of Faith, the visuals you see are how she perceives the city. She sees the city as a cold, austere place. The controls that have been placed on the people living there mean the city has lost its vibrancy. This is why we have the very unique art style within the game.”

The idea of a title based around free running is itself an interesting one, and the use of a female lead character, combined with the individualistic aesthetic, make for a special combination that has obvious market appeal. “We have designed the game so that it will appeal to a broad audience,” continues Channon.

“Mirror’s Edge is a level based story driven game. This was a very conscious decision, as we wanted to pack as much action as we could into every level. Each level has many routes through it, with the user only being limited by their imagination for how they use the environment to get through the levels as quickly as possible.

“When developing Faith as a character we were very careful that we didn’t go down the route of a typical game character. She is a normal person with normal proportions. This approach has meant that she resonates with both a male and female audience. Additionally the control system is very simple to pick up, and you can use the basic controls throughout the game, thus making the game very accessible to a more casual gamer. However the beauty of the game is the fact that if you use the controls in combinations to pull off more advanced moves, then you can move through levels very quickly, and there’s rewards for doing that, thus appealing to more experienced gamers.”

“We were tweaking it for months and we tried a lot of different things but two simple aspects were constant – first person in an urban setting. However we soon found that an urban environment really highlights the limitations of traditional first person controls. Everything becomes an obstacle and the way you have to navigate the environment becomes very unnatural. It was then that we really started exploring the idea of first person movement and soon we were completely hooked on it.

Everything else we did flowed from that central core of movement. We wanted you to make a connection with the character. Playing a game in third person is like watching an action movie; playing a game in first person is like being in it.”

With a plot worthy of a novel, a setting that looks both spectacular and strangely chilling at the same time, a sympathetic lead character and an innovative control system with varying methods of traversing the game’s levels, there is an awful lot wrapped up in Mirror’s Edge to catch the eye.

The marketing machine behind the title is beginning to get into full swing, and there will be plenty of airplay for Faith and her free-running skills across the media. “Naturally you’ll see us on TV and we’re especially looking forward to seeing our advertising on cinema screens, while Faith’s free-running skills also provide excellent inspiration to some very cool and dynamic digital advertising, experiential and PR activity,” comments Mirror’s Edge product manager Kevin ... Article continues below