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Mirror's Edge Sequel On Hold
An anonymous reader tips news that Electronic Arts has rejected DICE's pitch for Mirror's Edge 2, halting development on the sequel to 2008's Parkour-inspired first-person action game.
"'Patrick [Soderlund - EA driving and shooting game boss] acknowledges that Mirror's Edge didn't match up to their expectations regarding sales, and that has stopped the sequel that has been in development,' declared the report, published originally in December. EA was shown a prototype, but declined with askance. The project has been stopped — involved parties at DICE are working on something else now. Patrick himself seems to have Mirror's Edge near his heart, but they are not in the business of charity.' Presumably the extra development is going into Battlefield 3 — EA's well publicized attempt at wrestling shooter supremacy from the Call of Duty series."
This is bullshit, Mirror's Edge was barely a game. We've seen the single player campaign fps thing a billion times, it really needs to go big! The sequel really would of been what it needed to deliver the first time around. Ah well another reasonably original IP, dies another shitty sequel is made.
Such a shame, the first one had so much potential but was partially spoiled by terrible map design and an awful lot of player deaths.
Because they do not judge the value of something based on quality, but exclusively on money. This way many good products get ditched...
My book: Friendly F#, fun with game development and XNA; my game: Galaxy Wars by VSTeam; my gamedev language: Casanova.
Mirror's Edge is one of the most tense and atmospheric games I've ever played, and it deserved to sell better than it did. Unfortunately it gave me extreme motion sickness. One time after playing it for just a couple of minutes I felt so nauseous that I had to go and lie down, and I slept for the rest of the day. It's such a shame because it was a brilliant game, but I could only play it for tiny amounts of time so I gave up by about halfway through the second level.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mirror's Edge the first time around. The movement system was absolutely phenomenal and jumping from building to building was a lot of fun. I don't understand why reviews were so mixed or sales so poor. DICE's innovation made the game unlike anything I had played before. Had I known the sequel would be canned, I'd have bought 2... or 5 copies. DICE has the engine now, they could really push it with a sequel and bring the rest of the game up to par (online multiplayer, longer campaign, more stunts). It's a shame this awesome franchise will fizzle out because of budget constraints...
Fuck you, EA. Fuck you. DICE is one of the few mostly consumer-centric dev teams that I still have expectations of and you pull a dick move like this?
Eh, with the way things are going with $ony, I might not have reason enough to get a new ps3 and thus, Mirror's Edge 2. Your loss.
While Mirror's Edge was a fun game to play, I felt it lacked the substance that many games have. The storyline was short and hardly captivating, and the levels were too few to consider it for purchase and replay. This is where Gamefly and friends with games are great! However, I certainly enjoyed the Parkour style of movement, the combination of fist fights and disarming/shooting enemies with their own firearm, and the speed challenges after playing through the story mode.
:D
It wasn't ever meant to be a blockbuster which changed the way people think about shooters and gaming in general, but it does have its own little niche in my VG memory. Many shooters have an extremely linear path which you're obligated to take in order to progress the storyline -- Mirror's Edge helped delineate that path, created a mode where the player could sometimes think outside conventional methods of completing a task. Jump over the pipe, slide under it, go around it? Avoid the guard, beat him up, or shoot him from a distance?
It wasn't a total revelation, but more than once I've wished I could do some of the things you did as Faith (the protagonist, for those of you who didn't play Mirror's Edge) while playing different games. Nothing wrong with shooting everything dead and letting God sort them out, but it's nice to have options. This game made me think about those options...even if I still choose the trigger
What else can happen when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object?
Looking at EA over the years, it seems they're not in the business of making games either. Rather, they believe their business is in making entertainment product labelled 'games'.
Let's not forget either that it was EA executives who tried to strongarm DICE into making Mirror's Edge a shooter, but DICE quietly refused to comply.
This is very disappointing news. Mirror's Edge is one of my all-time favourite games. According to vgchartz.com, it sold over 2 million copies between the PS3 and x360 versions and probably a lot more since those number were last updated. That's pretty close to Dead Space's figures (2.6 million), and EA was also disappointed with the results of that project. Yet, Dead Space 2 has arrived complete with a ton of marketing. I don't see how anyone can claim that Mirror's Edge wasn't a success, even if EA's expectations were wildly optimistic. I hope that it doesn't get resubmitted and released in future as a terrible multi-player game, but I do hope that there is a sequel eventually.
Not enough forced on rails shooting (hell, one can finish the whole game without firing a shot), and limited multiplayer (and so less enforced sales as the match making servers will aggressively check serials and such) and i am not surprised the EA bigwigs dropped a sequel.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
A full combat implementation was one of the natural potential developments, and I think Brink will do it well, even if it doesn't give the original any credit.
Apart from all its strengths it suffered one HUGE flaw.
It had the flaw of the most extreme console platformers. The HUGE "how the fuck was I supposed to know THAT" flaw.
Some platform games have lots of hidden features or specials that can only be found through methodically exploring every last pixel of a level. The worsed (or best if you like this) of them even have in the main game play. Where your progress through the game is a constant Trial and Error approach with you NOT being able to do just get it right the first time because there was no way for you to know what to do.
You know the examples, the landing target you can't see until you made the jump meaning a fall to your death until you got the jump correct. The enemy attack that you can only counter once you know what it is.
Mirror's Edge looked a LOT like a FPS and most modern FPS give the player a different style of game. If you are good most of them can be played first time around without dying because challenges are about seeing the problem and then solving it. Not, oops I died WTF happened. Mirror's Edge was nicely done in the tutorial but pretty soon you were to often caught by guards while trying to figure out where the hell you were supposed to go to.
There is a reason Tomb Raider doesn't have so many guards running around while you are exploring. ME just forgot that there is a reason racetracks have got far more signs showing you were to go then a ordinary road. Because at 300+ km/h you do NOT want to have any surprises about the upcoming corner.
For many the game held a lot of promise but since it was all about speed its "run a bit, fall, reload, run a bit more, fall, reload" gameplay just wasn't it. It appealled to the kind of person who gets a kick out of memorizing a Mario run through. For the ordinary Maria player who just wants to run through a level it was to unforgiving and to obscure with where you were supposed to go while also constantly adding pressure so you never could just look around to see what the designer had in mind you do next.
That 99% of the time there was only one path didn't help either.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
While EA was continually (and rightly) blasted for putting profits before quality, Mirror's Edge represented them delivering on a surprising promise to invest in new IP, alongside Dead Space that year. Sadly they felt stung by the move with lower sales than anticipated despite a sizeable marketing push unusual for a new IP. Meanwhile Dead Space (great but less interesting to me) is becoming a new gaming heavyweight franchise.
I absolutely view Mirror's Edge as a success and think there's plenty of room for strong sales with a sequel now that it has a recognizable name. It's not a game for everyone, but the exhilarating feeling of freedom in first person will be missed. For me the game only struggled in its closing levels when it started throwing too many enemies at the player so that fight (intentionally its most limited mechanic) overtook flight.
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Great Cthulhu..."
... and if EA think I'm going to buy Battlefield 3 while they're already lining up DLC for the game before its even out, they're very much mistaken.
"but they are not in the business of charity"
Fuck that. How about concepts like improving the industry overall, expanding and welcoming new game ideas, or furthering the notion that games can be art?
You know, stuff that doesn't just revolve around the bottom line and proves that publishing corporations are made up of *people* instead of some sort of self-aware narcissistic greed-bot.
VHS vs Beta is a misnomer. Same with Gameboy vs Lynx. The problem is that you seem to think that everyone should buy everything purely on technical mojo and not actual, you know, content.
VHS won because it had longer recording times than Beta, 120 minutes to Beta's 60. The slight picture quality difference was MUCH less important than being able to record more than an hour.
As for Gameboy vs Lynx, the whole problem is games. Just like it was with the Saturn, with the Dreamcast, with countless other failed technological marvels. It's an amazing piece of hardware that you couldn't actually use to play games because there were no games. Not compared to the Gameboy.
I do agree that our incarceration rates are way too high, but I fail to see what that has to do with the Olympics. I'm thinking you should make sure you're using actual tinfoil instead of aluminum foil though.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
It's controls where also horrible and the game atleast the demo was very unplayable. I don't know how anyone could have enjoyed this game, let alone the developers want to make a sequel with the thousands of horrible reviews it got.
at least we are getting Portal 2 soon....
Live life to the fullest, you only get one chance at it.
What specifically about the controls were horrible? I can think of stuff that perhaps could have been improved, like the wall running, but I wouldn't have called it "horrible". I tried Prince of Persia recently, and it was certainly better than that.
I don't know how anyone can enjoy any of Blizzard's games, but that doesn't mean anything - a large number of people still continue to enjoy them.
which is totally what she said
I played the first one on the PS3. The game was great! I thought using parkour for a game was awesome fun.
I don't know what the controls were like on other systems, but the PS3 felt pretty natural to me. It was so much fun to pull off strings of moves, like doing a wall run, then spin and jump, grabbing onto a pole, flinging yourself forward to some platform which you hit at a running pace. Once the controls became instinctive, the movement just felt so natural and fluid. An excellent game. One of my favourites.
We get more sequels because more people will buy them than new games, simple as that.
Mada mada dane.
I think that game had a lot of potencial. I've thought of a game like that for years and I really liked ME but..it lacked ..stuff.
the maps could have used ..maybe someone more inspired by this "sport"..cuz they were a bit dull..or something.
im just saying, it could have been much better..but I guess it's a FIRST ONE..and sometime the first of something don't do that well.
If I ever make it to the game industry, I'll make a MIRROR'S EDGE meets CALL OF DUTY (rifles only)
Mirror's Edge was crap, which is why it sold poorly, which is why they didn't make much money.
To me your post just sounds like a generic anti-corporate rant, with no relevance to the actual issue at hand. Of COURSE corporations care about money, they have to or they'll go out of business. Making games is not free, it is actually quite expensive if you hadn't noticed. That means the games need to sell to make money back or they cannot afford to do it. They have to have the sales to pay all the programmers, artists, level designers, testers, and so on that.
Now how well a game sells is 100% up to consumers. If people like it, if they feel it is a good game and buy it then it sells well and the company makes money. If they ignore it, don't purchase it, then it does not and the company does not make money. The control really is in the hands of the consumers for this. It is up to them where to spend their money.
Now if you liked Mirror's Edge, well ok, but understand that most people didn't (and do a search online and you can find lots of reasons why). That being the case you cannot expect EA to want to fund a game just for you, or you and a few others. You can't say "They should spend millions on a game and expect to lose a lot of money because only a few people want it." That is selfish and unreasonable.
It's controls where also horrible and the game atleast the demo was very unplayable
It sounds like you mean that you hadn't played a hundred clones of the game before and thus didn't know how to play the game before you picked it up. Maybe you thought that since it was first person perspective, it should play like every other FPS out there. That's not possible since the game was about navigating obstacles, unlike almost any other game. Once you got used to them, the controls worked great.
Mirror's Edge was such a great game. I mean, I honestly must have beaten the campaign on every difficulty at least 11 or 12 times, on both consoles. I mean, the story was fantastic, the gameplay was great, the soundtrack for the game went so perfectly with the game, and to be honest, next to FF7, and a couple other games, Mirror's Edge is up there with my favorite games of all time. They really are making a mistake.
They're screaming blue murder.
EA already has it, and has had it since Battlefield 1942.
I enjoyed the game, yes it had its flaws and several obscenely annoying choke points (the assault team with automatic weapons in the warehouse of exploding barrels, and the rooftops of snipers near the end). However, it just made me want to get through and beat it.
I did win the achievement Leap of Faith, without shooting anyone, on hard too.
A agree with a lot of comments and several scathing reviews (like Yhatzee, but for me it's originality made up for it.
Like Assassin's Creed to Assassins Creed II - Ubisoft listen to the criticisims and made a much better flowing game. I expect DICE would have done the same with ME2 - hopefully kept it as a FPS too.
I think it is one of most innovating games in recent times and the game mechanics are incredible.
I also love the aesthetics of the city and the music is awesome too.
The game is hard in some places (especially the part where you need to climb inside the building to find the sniper rifle) and level design could be a little better.
It is such a shame that there will be no sequel. It is probably the one sequel I have ever waited for.
Then again, I guess I'm not a typical twitch fps gamer. Story is probably the most important element of a game for me, and I found the story rather appealing.
This is why I liked it.
* Story is the most important to me (which is why I liked Mass Effect *, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines, Halflife *, NOLF, Dreamfall)
* I'm a PC gamer. Maybe the console controls were problematic, but I didn't find the PC controls that hard.
* It wasn't about killing endless hordes of baddies
* The characters were appealing
* Parkour is cool
* The soundtrack was great
* It wasn't 'the same'. It had a slick European feel to it.
* The main character wasn't the typical large breasted (with advanced breast physics) 'wearing-next-to-nothing' character.
Things I didn't like:
* It was too short. Triple the size and it woulda been great.
* Load times
* There were a few moves that weren't obvious, and a few scenarios that weren't obvious (running to grab onto the chopper to escape the police)
Things EA coulda done to make it more of a success, IMHO:
* They never sufficiently market test/market analyze the over-22 year old female gamer community
* They didn't sufficiently market to that community
* Overpriced for it's size, hence their expectations were too high.
* Release a decent DLC
* Better beta testing to catch the potential issues early
maybe dice can get that team to help with the bugs in battlefield BC2 as that game is fun but fucked up because no one there seems to care about it.
AND STOP USING THE BINK SHIT! It sucks and part of the problem with the bugs!
Kinda disappoints me..I'm the kind of guy who never finishes games, but Mirror's Edge was one of those games that only come along once every 5 years or so, the kind that rips me in and won't let me go until I beat it. It was horribly difficult, I died practically every other minute, and I loved every second of it.
The fact that the team's being shuffled to an FPS just disappoints me even more. We need more innovative games like this, not more shooters. The military craze has led to essentially the same game...how many different ones can you play before it's cheaper to just enlist in the army?
Here is a good place for players to find cheap gold in games.
I would have paid for a second ME.
I would have forgiven the bad dialogue, lame voice acting and completely unbelievable situations the protagonist found herself in ... I would have even overlooked the empty world she seemed to inhabit, devoid of pedestrians, cars (or anything really) If they could have just taken what they had and improved all of those things above just a little bit. I would have bought a second ME then.
ME was something of a racing and adventure game, I hated being chased and I hated the gazillion quick-saves I had to do. Even if they had gotten rid of the ridiculous plot and had me running bags around rooftops, it would have made ME a better game. No silly conspiracy theories, no armoured evil versions of yourself chasing you ... just find satchel, deliver satchel. It could have been sweet, because It was a beautiful looking game after all, I just wish my beast had a physics card.
"Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing." -- Salvador Dali