It’s the part where they introduce a new named, voiced, modelled and animated character, and he gets this gif’s worth of screen time and is never seen or heard from again.
Mirror’s Edge is full of these parts where you can see the stubs where big slabs of game must have had to be cut for whatever reason, which feels like a rare bit of almost-insight into AAA game dev, plus it makes the world feel bigger – the opposite of the hannah-barbera-effect of knowing what’s about to be important from which assets look expensive.
I don’t have any inside info, but it feels like the devs had to hurriedly figure out how to make a decent smaller game out of bits of a planned larger one, in which case they did an incredible job. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, which I also think is great, feels like it might be a second better-resourced run at the same concept ME started out with.
The PC version of ME shipped, maybe accidentally, with its Unreal Editor, and I went through that and some decompiled source code a while back, and found some cut multiplayer modes where you’d play as various classes of runners and cops: cops and robbers, package delivery, stuff like that. Hot scoops.
in reply to @joewintergreen’s post:
I seem to dimly remember her going straight up on record saying that they designed all the levels, gave her an overview and then asked her to tie them together with her story
not uncommon. this was how Gears of War 1 was made, and while it’s accepted to have a weaker story than its successors, it ends up establishing some very important plot threads elaborated on in further installments, so was a more successful example.
Mirror’s Edge is part of a small set of games that defined how I played games for a decade, and I honestly can’t say I picked up on this dude being entirely perfunctory.
Like I know immediately from years-old memories what part this is, but never really thought about how it doesn’t link in.
goated game though, rises above the jank in a way catalyst didn’t imo
When this game is clicking, it conveys such an amazing sense of flow. I love the aesthetic. There’s so much to like. However, you can also clearly see the lines where they got “notes” from management and where the game’s vision is compromised due to a lack of budget, time, or ability. It’s a good case study for game development, but I also lament the lost opportunities with this property.
that guy: i’d love to give you a hand up, but… you know…
faith: yeah, i know. animation budget. plus maybe our docked animation tech isn’t up to it.
ME is exactly the kind of game that deserves to be rescued from oblivion by an open source community with tons of fan missions a la Thief. alas, UE3 will never be open sourced for legal reasons and reverse engineering it would probably be an even bigger effort than building it in the first place was.
I hope people can reverse engineer it eventually, though. This and Superhot in particular need it
edit: nm SH is unity??? huh.
oh my god. professional tag already is just parkour. yes.
for some reason i thought this was made in frostbite??? i just assumed DICE used it on every project after bad company
The sequel was I believe
love when devs stray out of their genre wheelhouse. the battlefield guys making a platformer, the total war guys making two ps2 hack and slashes and a survival horror immersive sim, and the street fighter EX devs making the tetris version of choice for the real tetris sickos. things of that nature.
Mirror’s Edge. What a franchise man. Always so close to being so much more. And yet still so incredible at what it does that nobody has really recaptured it’s magic.
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