Mirror’s Edge – The parkour game ahead of its time
Mirror’s Edge might be one of the most underrated games to ever hit the gaming market in our eyes for its beautiful and unique color palette, butter-smooth gameplay, and reinventing the parkour genre in gaming.
Mirror’s Edge is a first-person parkour game developed by DICE and published by EA in 2008. despite its unique and immersive gameplay, the game only sold 3 million copies on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 combined, and unfortunately, its predecessor also flopped.
The game later inspired a sequel called Catalyst in 2016 but it wasn’t as good as the first. Although it did tackle problems its predecessor faced such as the horrible weapon gameplay, DICE also added stuff that took away from the original game’s charm such as babying the player on where to go and ditching the beautiful and unique color palette.
This leaves us with one question, what makes Mirror’s Edge so great?
Mirror’s Edge – The parkour game ahead of its time
Firstly, it was the first game to incorporate parkour into the first-person genre making it both more fun and immersive for players. Additionally, the colors DICE used in the game were pure genius because of its monotone palette.
Let us explain, DICE made everything around the game white including buildings inside and outside except for enemies and objective areas so players would know exactly where to go without the need for a map or an NPC telling them where to go.
Having vibrant colors like red, yellow, and green pop up around important areas easily catches the player’s attention and that’s why it’s genius!
Graphics that still live up to this day!
It’s already impressive that a game from 2008 can live up to games coming out in 2023. DICE Studios has always been graphically impressive with its games. We remember seeing the trailer for Battlefield 1 in 2016 for the first time and were blown away by how massive and beautiful it looked!
From a massive thermal airship falling to its demise as hundreds of players watch to rideable tanks, cars, and airplanes, Battlefield 1 was a love letter to FPS fans just like how Mirror’s Edge was for parkour fans.
Mirror’s Edge still looks and plays like a modern game so we recommend picking it up if you haven’t played it as it currently costs $20 on Steam. If you think $20 is a hefty price for a 2008 game, you might find it cheaper on key shop websites such as CD Keys, G2A, Kinguin, and more.
