‘Mirror’s Edge Catalyst’ is make or break for Faith

Even now, after seven years, Mirror’s Edge is a unique and exhilarating parkour thriller. It’s littered with flaws — a paper-thin story, some frustrating level design and unnecessary gunplay — but the clean, dystopian world and fluid motion still impress. The game didn’t sell particularly well, so it was a surprise when EA first announced that it was giving developer DICE another roll at the franchise. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is a complete reboot for Faith, but it could also be the team’s last chance to prove the series has a future. If the game can’t find a larger audience this time around, it’s unlikely that EA will green-light another.

“We have big plans on what we want to do after this and moving ahead,” Sara Jansson, senior producer for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst says. “But I really do think that if this doesn’t fly — if people don’t like this game — there’s really no reason to keep building on it.”

All or nothing

Catalyst is a gamble for EA. When the team at DICE started to think about a follow-up, they quickly realised that it couldn’t be half-assed. To make a worthwhile successor, they needed the publisher’s full support, which meant a “AAA” budget and a lot of development time. They didn’t want Catalyst to be a small downloadable title, or even Mirror’s Edge 2. To do Faith justice and broaden the game’s appeal, DICE was committed to a grander vision that retold the character’s origin story. What’s been shown so far feels like a complete do-over — the game that the original Mirror’s Edge aspired to be.

“We wanted to make sure that we had a game that could appeal to our core fans and also appeal to a broader audience of action-adventure fans,” Jansson says. Part of that vision involves a richer narrative and giving Faith some proper character development. She has an iconic look and a pretty badass attitude, but in the original game little was revealed about her past or how she was recruited into the rebellious world of freerunning. In Catalyst, there’s a larger and more meaningful storyline that weaves through the missions, as well as CG cutscenes and expanded dialogue while you’re jumping around as Faith.

“Even if it’s a very personal story, and it’s personal elements that trigger her, we wanted to put her in the middle of a national conflict,” Jansson says. “So what she does has an effect on the people around her, and that’s something that’s very important in Catalyst.”

A new playground

Even the world and overarching structure of Catalyst is more ambitious than its predecessor. Whereas the original Mirror’s Edge took you through linear, tightly choreographed levels, Catalyst offers a seamless open world. DICE says there are no load screens and as you take on more missions, new rooftop districts in the city of Glass will open up. For a game like Mirror’s Edge, which relies so heavily on traversal and the feeling of momentum, this poses a number of challenges. Every object has to link into a possible route for the player and also compliment the sparse, geometric aesthetic the game is known for. To do this, DICE has formed pairs of level designers and artists who work in tandem on every building in the game. Each pair physically sits beside one another, and an area can’t be finalized until both team members have given their blessing.

DICE has formed pairs of level designers and artists who work in tandem on every building in the game

Designing an open world is tricky, but Jansson says it should help players to learn the mechanics and improve their freerunning skills. “Traversing is actually most fun around the fifth time,” she says. “Because you’re starting to know the space and that’s when you can find all of the ultimate paths. When you have this open structure and you’re navigating across the city between different buildings and missions, you’re learning the city — it’s starting to become yours. Then you know it and that’s when it becomes the most fun.”

EA has faith

Catalyst is unashamedly different. Even firearms, which were difficult to control and largely out of place in the original, have been ripped out to focus on Faith’s hand-to-hand takedowns. The extraction will be welcome news to fans, but for DICE it’s another risky move that positions the game further from established first-person shooter franchises.

“To be completely honest, when we pitched this we were not at all sure that EA was going to want to do it and take that risk,” Jansson says. “Because it is a risk. It’s more high risk than doing a Battlefront or a FIFA.” But the team’s pitch paid off. And while the game is a financial risk, it does seem to support EA’s changing public image. Two years ago it was named “the worst company in America,” and since then the publisher has tried to show that it’s putting gamers first. For instance, it’s funding Unravel, a whimsical 2D platformer that won the hearts of gamers at E3 this year. Both Unravel and Catalyst had huge booths at Gamecom too, rivalling EA’s tentpole franchises such as Need for Speed and FIFA 16.

“That’s how you should use the fact that you have some really established franchises,” Jansson argues. “You have Battlefield and that’s great — people love it, they want it and they want it often. But having that strong portfolio — I think you should use that. There’s almost an obligation to use that to create something else that might be more risky.” Ultimately, it’s those creative risks that could give both EA and DICE another Battlefield-level success. The critical acclaim that followed the first Mirror’s Edge suggests that the team has stumbled onto something rather special. The hope now is that a well-funded sequel can unlock the concept’s true potential and produce a game that is both artistically and commercially successful. For Jansson and her team, it’s just another leap of faith.

Image Credits: Xbox Wire

We’re live all week from Cologne, Germany for Gamescom 2015. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.

Filed under:
Gaming

Comments

Tags: dice, ea, faith, freerunning, gamescom-2015, gamescom2015, impressions, mirrorsedge, mirrorsedge2, mirrorsedgecatalyst, parkour, preview

Two indie pretenders to the ‘XCOM’ crown

2012’s XCOM: Enemy Unknown was a revelation. I’d never played the ’90s original or its successors, but I was immediately drawn in by the reboot’s story, world and, most of all, combat mechanics. At its heart, XCOM is a turn-based strategy game that pits your team of four soldiers against an alien invasion. As anyone who has played it at all will tell you, though, it’s so much more than that. A sequel is coming this November, but in the meantime, a pair of independent developers are readying their own takes on the genre, and they both have the potential to be truly special games in their own right.

A Fistful of XCOM

Hard West is set in the “Weird West” — an occult version of the Wild West. That means that while you’ll see the typical six-shooters, saloons and heists, there are also demons, witches and all manner of supernatural goings on. Originally funded on Kickstarter, it’s since been picked up by publisher Devolver Digital‘s sister label Gambitious. It’s coming to PC, Mac and Linux this fall.

The game takes the basic combat mechanics of XCOM — strategically planning an assault, using the environment for cover, maintaining line of sight, etc. — and throws some insane things on top. The most interesting addition is a perks system based on poker hands. There’s a whole deck of cards to be unlocked, and each card comes with a unique ability. One allows you to ricochet bullets Wild West-style off any curved surface, letting you shoot around corners or — with careful planing — hit multiple enemies with one shot. The cards are all “overpowered,” and your characters have five slots each for combining perks together. For an example of how effective this can be: there’s a card that reduces everyone’s health to one, meaning you could potentially kill every enemy with a single ricocheted shot. The drawback? It reduces everyone’s health, i.e. yours and your party members’ too.

http://gfycat.com/ifr/MilkyPoshHellbender

Ricocheting bullets using one of the perk cards.

The perks system gets more complex when you start viewing it from a poker player’s perspective. When combining cards, you’re not just looking at what the individual perks are, but also the rest of your hand. You get bonuses for hands with pairs in them, and those bonuses get better as your combinations get better. Three of a kind is stronger than a pair, and a straight is even more desirable. Kacper Szymczak, Lead Designer at developer CreativeForge Games, won’t tell me what a royal flush will yield, but says the bonus will be “awesome.” Of course, giving all the best cards to one character is likely to leave the rest of your team underpowered. Weighing potential bonuses against keeping your team balanced promises to keep players busy for hours.

While — in case you hadn’t noticed — the perks fill me with glee, the game would be nothing without the combat. Although I was only able to watch a developer play through some missions, it seems solid. It’s very XCOM-y, of course, but there are some interesting touches. You can manipulate your environment by, say, flipping open a cellar door or a table to create cover. If an opponent’s shadow is visible, then you will be able to keep tabs on where they are, even if line-of-sight isn’t there (this is especially useful when you have the ricochet ability). There are also a wide range of abilities for individual weapons, such as cone shots for shotguns, which are handy against congested groups of enemies. You can also neuter opponents, and control crowds “stick ’em up” style. Using this tactic, some missions (such as the one in the video below can be completed “without a single bullet being fired,” Szymczak explains.

The other thing that sets Hard West apart from XCOM is its narrative. Although XCOM‘s world is engaging and interesting, the personal narratives are really left for you to fill in. It’s one of the things I love about the game: creating a vivid backstory for a character, only to see them die and never return. Hard West “is heavily story-driven, and character-driven,” says Szymczak. Events are wonderfully narrated by a grizzly voice, à la Bastion, and in-between combat you’ll be traversing a map, learning about the characters, meeting new faces, making decisions that will impact the story, and trading resources.

To be fair, CreativeForge had me at “weird west XCOM,” but I came away from the demo way more enthused than I’d thought I would. For fans of the genre, Hard West looks set to provide a healthy dose of the familiar, but with more than enough innovation to keep things fresh.

XCOM and the Temple of Doom

Renowned Explorers: International Society is a very different beast. Abbey Games — known for the 2D god game Reus — has injected a lot of personality into the genre. “Our initial pitch for the game was ‘XCOM meets Indiana Jones,” says studio co-founder Manuel Kerssemakers. “We’re approaching the same topics as Tomb Raider and Uncharted, but from a management perspective. It’s a really cool theme, but if you like games that make you think, you can’t really access the fantasy of being an explorer.”

You play as a 19th century explorer trying to make a name for yourself. You do this by increasing your “Renown” score through uncovering treasures, charting new lands, and outwitting your foes. There are many explorers to choose from, each with their own strengths that come into play both during exploration and combat. I went with Yvonne Lefevre, a brilliant public speaker that’s able to talk her way out of difficulties in a pinch. Before launching an expedition, you’re able to equip yourself appropriately, and complete tasks that will increase your gold, level, or Renown. You can then pick other classes to join you on your travels. There are three main types — speaker, scientist and fighter — and then many sub-classes within each.

Expeditions themselves borrow a little from perhaps my most-played game in recent years: FTL: Faster Than Light. Kerssemakers explains that “to facilitate the exploration … we knew that we had to look at FTL, because it’s a favorite game for many of us.” The way this works is by adding the space sim’s “node-based” navigation, which sees you taking whichever route you please between various points in order reach a goal, all while managing fuel (or in Renowned‘s case, supplies). Like FTL, most of the nodes feature events of some description, which can either be combat instances, opportunities to acquire supplies, increase your Renown or gather gold.

Once you get into a combat situation, you’ll find that it’s far simpler — map-wise , at least — than XCOM, as there are no elevation or cover mechanics to speak of. You can, of course, use the environment to physically put space between you and an opponent, and carefully planning your assaults is still vital, but the complexity of Renowned’s combat system lies in its attack types. For this, Abbey Games takes inspiration from an unlikely source: The Sims 4. “We wanted to make a tactical game, but also offer the option of non-violence, so you can approach the natives and wildlife in whichever way you want, and we added the option to act friendly in a combat encounter.”

Friendly in combat? Yup. Everyone (your characters included) essentially have two “health” stats that are affected by different types of attacks. One is more of a traditional vitality gauge, while the other looks like a Sims-style happiness meter. A native may be extremely capable of defending against physical attacks, but have the emotional resilience of a teenager going through a break-up. In one encounter, I essentially hid behind a rock and used an area-of-effect attack to call the enemy names. He ran away crying.

The system is extremely complex, as your actions in both individual encounters and expeditions as a whole will affect the way enemies see you further down the line. If you stab someone and then attempt to charm their friend, it’s not going to be effective, and if you get a reputation as a conquerer of foreign lands, you’ll have trouble ingratiating yourself to the natives in your next expedition.

I only played through a couple of expeditions, but that was enough to get me hooked. Each campaign lasts around ten hours, but, with procedurally generated maps, and an enormous roster of characters and items, that doesn’t have to be a big deal. I get the feeling that there’s so much depth waiting to be discovered, so many different ways to approach the game, that I could end up replaying it hundreds of times, just as I have FTL and XCOM. The game releases September 2nd on PC, Mac and Linux, and I can’t wait.

[Image credits: Abbey Games / CreativeForge Games / Firaxis Games]

We’re live all week from Cologne, Germany for Gamescom 2015. Click here to catch up on all the news from the show.

Filed under:
Gaming

Comments

Tags: AbbeyGames, CreativeForgeGames, FiraxisGames, gamescom, gamescom-2015, gamescom2015