PICKING EVERY FIGHT IN MIRROR’S EDGE PART I
THE RULES
1 Whenever somebody attacks Faith, fight back.
2 Take every possible opportunity to use the guns.
3 Only run once all other options have been exhausted.
Mirror’s Edge is worse off with guns. That’s the received wisdom, anyway. The theory goes like this: DICE, upon inventing the running simulator, panicked. Any new series is a challenge for a AAA developer—a cacophony of newness, where a sequel builds on past successes. This game, more than most, was an expensive unknown—one that stripped away the familiar paraphernalia of first-person games. Sticking Colts and SCARs in Mirror’s Edge was a way of anchoring it in something safe. The guns represented reassurance, both for the Battlefield developer and an audience it worried wouldn’t quite get it.
Perhaps the studio was right to be worried— didn’t sell particularly well by EA’s standards. But a core fanbase really, really got into it. They understood it was a game about momentum, and that the guns were antithetical to that goal. They encouraged you to slow down and take aim, breaking the pumping pulse the game offered at its
