Mirror's Edge: Catalyst – 'I hope this is just the beginning'

EA Dice's 2008 dystopian parkour adventure Mirror's Edge was visually stunning but flawed. Now a long-awaited reboot seeks to fulfil its potential

First-person shooters are rarely ever about the person. We may view the ceaseless slaughter through the eyes of the lead protagonist but we rarely get a sense of them as a physical presence in the game world. They are a visual consciousness attached to a gun and a health gauge.

Mirror's Edge was different. Built by Swedish studio EA Dice between the second and third generations of its multimillion-selling Battlefield titles, it made the body and experiences of lead character Faith Connors central to the action. Set in a stylised futuristic dystopia, the game mixed parkour exploration with the narrative of a paranoid chase movie, turning the city into a tense gymnastic playground, its soaring white towers a mere backdrop to the physicality of the avatar. While running, we could see Faith's arms and legs on screen, the camera jogged as she sprinted and leapt. It was a strange and thrilling simulation of embodiment. It was flawed but beautiful.