Game review: Mirror’s Edge Catalyst – an acrobatic follow-up that is worth a leap of faith

Faith Connors, the hero of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst. Electronic Arts via AP Photo

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst

Electronic Arts

Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC

Four stars

In most first-person video games, the act of running and jumping is something a player does while shooting enemies. The creators of Mirror's Edge slickly subverted that overused convention in 2008 by putting the focus on acrobatics instead of guns.

Eight years later, developers at DICE have finally retraced their steps. Mirror's Edge Catalyst isn't so much a prequel as it is a ­modern-day reimagining of the parkour adventure starring free-running vigilante Faith Connors. The tattooed heroine is back to lunge between buildings, scurry up scaffolding and zip across walls.

Catalyst kicks off with Faith being sprung from a juvenile detention facility in the city of Glass, a gorgeously detailed urban dystopia. She is immediately thrown into a pedestrian plot involving the ruler who controls the metropolis and the resistance groups that fight him.

While the story is leaps and bounds above the underwhelming narrative of the original game, it still seems stuck in the past compared with other recent story-driven games, such as Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Quantum Break. Stiff ­performances from the voice cast do not help matters.

As with its predecessor, Catalyst rises above other first-­person titles with brisk gameplay that involves guiding Faith across skyscraper chasms, through doors and underneath obstacles, utilising “runner’s vision”, which paints walls and landmarks leading to safety a pleasing shade of ­candy-apple red.

A security force armed with stun guns and other weapons can stop Faith in her tracks, but she can build up momentum to fend them off with her fists and feet – or just keep moving. Catalyst isn’t focused on fighting, so it’s always best to flee.

DICE, which worked on both Mirror’s Edge games, wisely swapped the original’s linear levels for an open-world approach that makes Glass feel more like a living urban playground. With its colour-coded minimalism, the cityscape is easily the game’s most engrossing element.

Besides about 10 hours of story-centric missions, there are dozens of other diversions, including delivering fragile packages, hacking billboards, inciting combat diversions and completing time trials. Users can also craft their own courses and share them online.

Despite the long gap between games, the ethereal Mirror's Edge remains a unique experience that marries fluid interactivity with stunning visual design. It is not a first-person shooter, racing simulator or platformer. It is something else entirely. That distinctiveness alone makes Catalyst worth a leap of faith.

* Derrik J Lang / AP