DICE has been trying to crank out the right Mirror's Edge 2 concept for years, EA Games executive vice-president Patrick Söderlund has confessed to CVG in an E3 interview, but the franchise's future was never really in doubt. As is the way with post-reveal exec pronouncements, he was unable to share much about how the long-awaited sequel will play, but did cite story and difficulty as key areas for improvement over Mirror's Edge 1. "It is obviously something that we know a lot of people want and fans have asked us for for many, many years," Söderlund told the site. "But more importantly, it's a game that DICE wanted to build. They think that the first one was a great first attempt but it didn't really deliver on the true vision that the guys had for that IP.



"What we managed to do was come up with an IP that looked unlike anything that you'd ever seen before. It had gameplay innovations unlike anything you'd ever seen before, and had a very memorable and iconic heroine in Faith. Those three things by themselves should warrant success if executed well. And I think they saw it as a good first attempt.

"I'll be honest with you," he went on. "We've been looking at Mirror's Edge for many years and had small prototype teams and incubations around what it could be. But it wasn't until Sara Jansson, who is now the producer on it, came to me and called [DICE general manager] Karl-Magnus Troedsson and said, 'listen, I have an idea for what this could be'. She presented a vision so inspiring that we were like, 'we have to build this now'.

EA had to wait for the right platform, too. "The interesting part is that it was a game that could only be built in gen 4 and that was cool. I liked that because what they're doing, it's not possible on the current generation.

"So that's when I knew that we had something and spoke to EA. The support inside the whole company on Mirror's Edge has been tremendous. We sold about 2.5 million units with Mirror's Edge and people haven't even blinked at it - like, 'of course we're going to make a new Mirror's Edge'. The whole company has been behind it.

"Of course we think that this will be successful, that people will love it and that we're going to sell a lot more than we did with the first one. A lot of times you've got to follow your gut and your heart rather than looking at everything that necessarily made sense on paper. I think that our fans are pleased to hear that and I'm glad that I work for a company that can give us that opportunity, frankly."



Pushed for insights on gameplay alterations, Söderlund became cagey. "Listen, if you do the same thing again then it's not going to work. You have to be very, very honest with yourself and look at what went right and what went wrong. It's obvious that people loved the art direction, loved Faith and loved the idea of what you did in the game.

"I think we missed completely on the game being too difficult, people keep falling down and the notion of constantly running away wasn't maybe greatly perceived. On top of that there were a bunch of other problems with it, but again we look at what's great with it, we do more of that and we fix the things that were broken.

"And frankly on top of that, even more so we add new things to it. The innovation... I can't talk about. I wish I could! Because I'm excited about it. The ID and vision for the game, coupled with the timing is what made it make sense. That's why we are making it."

EA Games boss Frank Gibeau has described Mirror's Edge 2 as an open world game. Is Söderlund prepared to corroborate this? "Who knows? It may or may not. We're not talking about that. He did, obviously!

"What I can say is we're taking more of an action adventure approach on it than maybe before. First-person, running predominantly... This will be more of an action adventure game, but true to what the first one was to a large extent.

"I find myself going back, playing games that in my mind were so good ten years ago and I'm like, 'holy crap, was it really this?' Because gaming is continuously evolving and when I go back and play Mirror's Edge today, it feels old compared to what's out there today, in design approach and everything.

"There are still some fresh things in the way that it looks and feels - it still looks really good, actually. But it still feels a little bit old school on its game design and compulsion loops. So we have to bring that forward and change that format. I think the story is another part that could've been a lot better. We didn't deliver upon the fantastic world that we created and the story is a big part in a world like that."

Plenty to chew on there. Do you have anything to add to DICE's to-do list?



Source: Rheena.com