Mirror’s Edge Catalyst Demo Previews Changes To Combat, Seamless With Movement

We have some new details on Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, based on the latest demo.

The thirteen minute demo allows one to experience multiple aspects of the game immediately. There is a timed race segment called Race, a series of combat encounters called Delivery, and a parkour related challenge called Billboard Hack. For Billboard Hack, Faith has to climb to the highest point of the microworld to hack a propaganda billboard.

For this preview, the focus was on the combat, and it sticks out due to how much it has changed. In particular, the combat has been made much easier, and in fact, it’s quite elementary. Instead of the Xbox controller’s right trigger, combat is now mapped to the X button. No worries about hitboxes here: as long as you hit the button when you get in proximity to an enemy, you take them out automatically. There are occasional third-person finishing animations, but it’s not clear from this description if those animations can be deliberately triggered via contextual actions, or if they also happen on their own.

The best change to combat, however, is that Faith can strike while she is still running, making combat and movement seamless. Players complained the original broke up the enjoyable parkour every time Faith picked up a gun. One hopes this change means players can collect combos with uninterrupted sequences of attacks and parkour movements.

This couldn’t be experienced in the demo, but Mirror’s Edge Catalyst will have an open world, and we don’t know how open it is, yet.

Do you hope Mirror’s Edge Catalyst has a true sprawling open world, or are you OK with a more traditional experience? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst will be released on February 23, 2016 on Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.