Otaku Dome was lucky enough to get into the closed beta for Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, and thus far the beta impresses. Fans of the original will be glad to see the signature red guiding Faith across the world of Glass city, as she traverses the map facing gravity and weapon wielding enemies along the way. The open world works fairly well for this type of game, though the online portion seems a tad unnecessary.

Faith as she appears in Catalyst.

Since it’s initial release in 2008, Mirror’s Edge has received a rather strange loyal following. Having increased in fandom every year since that time, people were literally begging EA to release a follow up title, and thousands of hopeful people waiting every E3 since 2009 for some kind of announcement, but got nothing. This changed in 2013, when EA shocked gamers by announcing Mirror’s Edge Catalyst, a reboot of sorts depicting the origins of lead character Faith and her history as a runner.  EA would announce the game as an open-world action adventure with a huge world, and thus far the beta delivers on this.

The beauty of Catalyst’s world thanks to the powerful Frostbite 3.

EA has only used Frostbite 3 for a handful of games over the years, but Mirror’s Edge looks absolutely gorgeous in it. Everything looks crisp and alive & Faith looks amazingly realistic in the new game. Apparently the game looks even more beautiful in 4K, having played the beta in 1080p and seeing it’s beauty firsthand I can only imagine how much better it looks in 4K. Combat feels a lot more fluid this time around, in Catalyst Faith can use the environment and her parkour as weapons to aide her in defeating her enemies, such uses include, but aren’t limited to slide kicks, springboard kicks, drop down attacks, and other forms of physical attacks. Actual weapon usage has seemed to be eliminated from Catalyst, just as well as one of the major complaints was that weaponry was annoying, however it should be kept in mind that Mirror’s Edge was never intended to be a shooter, and guns were always a last resort.

Take a leap of Faith.

When you wish to take a break from the main story missions, Social Play comes into effect, here you can challenge your friends on delivery runs and time trials in an effort to beat their scores. While it’s not exactly necessary, it doesn’t take away from the fun of the game, and it’s great experimenting with different routes to see just how face you can reach your destination. So far the game seems pretty polished, I didn’t experience any issues while playing, and I was enjoying the beta on a fairly weak internet connection. I’ve spent well over two hours with the closed beta, and Mirror’s Game is living up to it’s open world theme so far. I still have a hand full of main quests to complete and several side quests to do before the beta comes to an end, and if this is any indication of the gold version of the game then longtime fans and new comers have a lot to look forward to this June.