EA Explains Why Mirror's Edge 2 Took So Long.

Zero-O

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Sep 11, 2013
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It was an awesome surprise to behold Mirror's Edge 2 during EA's press event during E3 2013. But really, what took so long? After all, the first installment appeared in November 2008 for the consoles and several months later on the PC. Executive vice president Patrick Söderlund of EA Games said the sequel's delay was all about the right concept and the right idea.
"Sara Jansson who is producer on it, when she pitched her idea to me and Karl-Magnus, the GM for DICE, I was frankly blown away," he told GameReactor. "I'm like 'Finally, you've got it!' and when you hear something like that... She pitched an idea that frankly could only be built on Gen 4, is a stunning concept, and when she came to us we knew we had it. And yes, we've been testing ideas and we've been prototyping stuff, and I'm glad that we waited to get the right idea."

Mirror's Edge 2 will be a first-person action adventure, he said, and will be different than what we experienced in the first installment – an innovative game that will definitely surprise people. "Today DICE is a large studio with a lot of people, and for DICE to be building Mirror's Edge [2], Battlefield and Star Wars: Battlefront is frankly crazy and a dream," he added. We bet.

In a separate interview with CVG, he said that a sequel wouldn't have been possible on the Gen 3 consoles, AKA the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. He also admitted that the first installment sold 2.5 million copies, so naturally a sequel would eventually arrive – it was only a matter of when and how.

"I’ll be honest with you: we’ve been looking at Mirror’s Edge for many years and had small prototype teams and incubations around what it could be," he said, adding that he didn't feel an immediate pressure to start full development until Jansson presented her steaming hot idea. "The interesting part is that it was a game that could only be built in gen 4 and that was cool. I liked that because what they’re doing, it’s not possible on the current generation."

At the end of June, EA Labels president Frank Gibeau also talked up Gen 4 regarding Mirror's Edge 2, saying that the time was right to work on the sequel. All that freshly-based technology and extra computing power will take the Mirror's Edge franchise to the next level, he said. The project also now has the right story and the right leadership. Right on.

"Our goal in any product is to try and grow the audience," he said. "We’re definitely taking into account the opportunity to reach a bigger group of people. We think we’ve got the right story and accessibility that can do that. It’s a title that did multiple millions of units, so it has a fairly widespread audience. It’s not an art film. But we do see an opportunity to grow it."

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