Let’s be honest: the original Mirror’s Edge had a forgettable story. Catalyst tries harder. It gives Faith a backstory (orphan, prison, rebellion), a sisterly foil in Cat, and a genuinely chilling villain in Gabriel Kruger.
The problem is delivery. Cutscenes are stylized, dreamlike storyboards—beautiful to look at, but emotionally distant. You never feel Faith’s rage or loss because you’re watching paintings move instead of watching a character act. Voice acting is solid (Faye Kingslee brings a wounded ferocity to Faith), but the script is all cyberpunk clichés. “They built this city to control us.” We know. Tell us something new.
Confession time: I’ve replayed Mirror’s Edge Catalyst four times. Yes, four. Despite its mixed reviews, despite its empty open world, and despite EA shutting down the studio that made it.
There is something about this game that refuses to let go.
Released in 2016 as a “reimagining” (not a sequel) of the 2008 cult classic, Catalyst tried to do something bold: take a tight, linear parkour puzzle and stretch it into a sprawling, first-person action-adventure playground. Did it work? Kind of. Sometimes. And when it does work, it’s pure, uncut magic.
The story serves as an origin story for Faith. We learn about her time in prison, her sister, and her mentor, Noah. The game tries to tackle themes of corporate surveillance, data control, and the loss of privacy—ideas that were prescient in 2016 and remain relevant today.
Unfortunately, the storytelling is uneven. The motion capture and facial animations are excellent, but the plot relies on standard cyberpunk tropes. The villains are cartoonishly evil corporate stooges, and the "KrugerSec" enemies are forgettable. While the world-building via collectible audio logs and documents is fascinating, the main narrative feels like a generic action movie rather than a deep dive into a philosophical dystopia.
Let’s be direct: the movement in Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is arguably the best first-person traversal ever created. The original introduced the "Maggie" (the mechanical arm swing), wall-running, and coil jumps. Catalyst adds three game-changing tools:
The learning curve is steep. New players will find Faith tripping over knee-high railings. Mastery, however, paints the city as a continuous rhythm game. There are no loading screens when moving from the street to the rooftops—it is a seamless, breathtaking ballet of button inputs.
The core of the game—the "Flow"—is largely improved. Faith Connors moves with a sense of weight and momentum that few first-person games achieve. The introduction of a "Runner’s Vision" system, which highlights climbable objects in red as you approach them, creates a natural racing line without breaking immersion.
By opening the world up, DICE encouraged players to find their own paths. Scaling a construction site or leaping between rooftops feels intuitive, relying on triggers and bumpers rather than complex combos. The addition of a "Mag Rope" adds a vertical dimension to traversal, allowing Faith to latch onto specific points to swing or climb, expanding the verticality of the sandbox.
However, the open-world structure introduces a new problem: Traversal Fatigue. In the original game, every section was handcrafted for a specific purpose. In Catalyst, you will often find yourself running across identical rooftops and climbing the same ventilation shafts repeatedly to get from mission to mission. The journey is fun, but the repetition of the "climb up, zip line down" loop becomes noticeable after a few hours.
While the movement is elite, the structure of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst draws criticism. To justify the open world, DICE introduced Ubisoft-style tower climbing. To unlock new delivery missions and reveal the map, Faith must hack "GridNodes" by climbing massive, puzzle-like structures. These are fun the first three times; by the tenth, they feel like padding.
Let’s be honest: the original Mirror’s Edge had a forgettable story. Catalyst tries harder. It gives Faith a backstory (orphan, prison, rebellion), a sisterly foil in Cat, and a genuinely chilling villain in Gabriel Kruger.
The problem is delivery. Cutscenes are stylized, dreamlike storyboards—beautiful to look at, but emotionally distant. You never feel Faith’s rage or loss because you’re watching paintings move instead of watching a character act. Voice acting is solid (Faye Kingslee brings a wounded ferocity to Faith), but the script is all cyberpunk clichés. “They built this city to control us.” We know. Tell us something new.
Confession time: I’ve replayed Mirror’s Edge Catalyst four times. Yes, four. Despite its mixed reviews, despite its empty open world, and despite EA shutting down the studio that made it.
There is something about this game that refuses to let go.
Released in 2016 as a “reimagining” (not a sequel) of the 2008 cult classic, Catalyst tried to do something bold: take a tight, linear parkour puzzle and stretch it into a sprawling, first-person action-adventure playground. Did it work? Kind of. Sometimes. And when it does work, it’s pure, uncut magic.
The story serves as an origin story for Faith. We learn about her time in prison, her sister, and her mentor, Noah. The game tries to tackle themes of corporate surveillance, data control, and the loss of privacy—ideas that were prescient in 2016 and remain relevant today.
Unfortunately, the storytelling is uneven. The motion capture and facial animations are excellent, but the plot relies on standard cyberpunk tropes. The villains are cartoonishly evil corporate stooges, and the "KrugerSec" enemies are forgettable. While the world-building via collectible audio logs and documents is fascinating, the main narrative feels like a generic action movie rather than a deep dive into a philosophical dystopia.
Let’s be direct: the movement in Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is arguably the best first-person traversal ever created. The original introduced the "Maggie" (the mechanical arm swing), wall-running, and coil jumps. Catalyst adds three game-changing tools:
The learning curve is steep. New players will find Faith tripping over knee-high railings. Mastery, however, paints the city as a continuous rhythm game. There are no loading screens when moving from the street to the rooftops—it is a seamless, breathtaking ballet of button inputs.
The core of the game—the "Flow"—is largely improved. Faith Connors moves with a sense of weight and momentum that few first-person games achieve. The introduction of a "Runner’s Vision" system, which highlights climbable objects in red as you approach them, creates a natural racing line without breaking immersion.
By opening the world up, DICE encouraged players to find their own paths. Scaling a construction site or leaping between rooftops feels intuitive, relying on triggers and bumpers rather than complex combos. The addition of a "Mag Rope" adds a vertical dimension to traversal, allowing Faith to latch onto specific points to swing or climb, expanding the verticality of the sandbox.
However, the open-world structure introduces a new problem: Traversal Fatigue. In the original game, every section was handcrafted for a specific purpose. In Catalyst, you will often find yourself running across identical rooftops and climbing the same ventilation shafts repeatedly to get from mission to mission. The journey is fun, but the repetition of the "climb up, zip line down" loop becomes noticeable after a few hours.
While the movement is elite, the structure of Mirror’s Edge Catalyst draws criticism. To justify the open world, DICE introduced Ubisoft-style tower climbing. To unlock new delivery missions and reveal the map, Faith must hack "GridNodes" by climbing massive, puzzle-like structures. These are fun the first three times; by the tenth, they feel like padding.