Mirror's Edge™ Catalyst

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[b]TL;DR:[/b] I loved the original [i]Mirror’s Edge[/i] and wanted to give [i]Catalyst[/i] a fair chance, but it feels like it misunderstands what made the first game work. The movement is clunky, the combat is awful, the open world is full of pointless map clutter, the story is nonsensical, and the broken online features make achievements unobtainable. It has brief flashes of the smooth parkour the series is known for, but they are constantly interrupted by bad design choices. I wondered if this game was even play-tested at points. I simply cannot recommend it. --- I really tried my best to give [i]Mirror's Edge Catalyst[/i] a fair shake. Despite the mixed reception, I loved the original and was hoping this would recapture what made that game so special. Unfortunately, Catalyst feels like it forgets almost everything that made the first game work, to a downright near-broken level. For a game released in 2016, it somehow still plays like something from 2008, and not in a charming way. The movement is far too clunky to achieve the smooth, fluid parkour experience it is clearly aiming for. The wall run in particular is finicky, inconsistent, and never satisfying. The original game worked because when everything clicked, movement felt fast, clean, and continuous. Catalyst constantly interrupts that flow with awkward new mechanics and design choices that make the simple act of moving around (the entire appeal of the game) feel worse than it should. The open world doesn't do this problem any favors. This is a game built around movement, but the movement is not good enough to justify spending this much time in an open-world map. In addition, this game has an issue a lot of games from this era had: endless icons, collectibles, side activities, and busywork that have absolutely no interest or incentive to engage with litter your map. Instead of enhancing the core gameplay, the open world just exposes its weaknesses that much more. The final mission encapsulates all of the game’s biggest problems. Mirror’s Edge works best when you are moving smoothly and continuously, but Catalyst keeps stopping you every two seconds to use some mechanic the developers thought was a cool addition. It never lets the gameplay breathe. It keeps interrupting the exact thing that should have been the main appeal. Combat is, frankly, awful. It is clunky, repetitive, and completely unsatisfying. Every time the game forces you into combat, it feels like it is actively working against its own strengths. This problem existed in the first game as well with its gunplay, but this amplifies that even more. This should have been a game about momentum, escape, and movement, but far too often it slows you down for mechanics that simply are not fun. The story is also a mess. It is dense in a way that seems to mistake confusion for depth. It feels nonsensical, goes nowhere meaningful, and never earns the seriousness it clearly thinks it has. It's also bizarre that they rebooted the franchise after only one game, but still kept the exact same protagonist. The result is a story that feels both overcomplicated and strangely unnecessary. Not to mention that an "anti-corporation" story is rich coming from EA of all people. On top of all this, the online features no longer work, which means that some achievements are plain unobtainable, while 95% of the others do not trigger no matter what you do. For a game that is still being sold, that is unacceptable. Ultimately, I find it hard to believe that this game was ever even playtested in the state it released in. It's genuinely surprising that a "AAA studio" released [i]Mirror’s Edge Catalyst[/i] in the state it's in, and even more surprising that it's still available for purchase with non-existent online functionality when that seems like it was a key aspect of it. There are flashes of what made the original great, but they are buried under clunky movement, terrible combat, open-world filler, and a nonsense story that goes absolutely nowhere.