Mirror's Edge 2 Development Stopped; How Dare They!?

According to a report from Sweden-based Press 2 Play translated by Eurogamer, development for DICE’s Mirror’s Edge 2 project has been stopped. Resources have been spread to other projects within the company and the game will resurface, according to Patrick Soderlund of DICE, when it resurfaces. Yes. Vague.

Three or four years ago, before Mirror’s Edge saw release, EA was a company that shared the same level of hate and nerd rage from gamers as Activision. That’s in this editor’s opinion, of course. Before Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, two incredibly ambitious IPs from EA, were released, the publisher was known for cash-ins and unchanged sequels.

Then came two brilliant efforts from two brilliant studios. Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space may not have absolutely decimated the sales charts, but they made fantastic waves in the new franchise pools. Dead Space has since gone on to release an under-performing rail-shooter (let’s see how it does on the PS3) for the Wii and a full-on sequel. Each game in the series has received high critical regard.

Mirror’s Edge, while a bit sloppy in parts, was a marvelous piece of creative art direction, storytelling and gameplay. It completely refreshed the way gamers should consider the FPS genre. This first-person parkour treat absolutely blew minds from trailers to release.

Stalling the sequel’s development to push more effort, presumably, towards titles like Battlefield 3 sort of stinks. It smells like the old EA, the EA that only cared about trying to compete with the latest and greatest from other companies rather than forging new paths.

While the lob likely misses the mark, I’m tossing an accusation at EA here. The company is passing on one of the best IPs of the last few years to shore up strength on another front. They’ve got the old Infinity Ward team on staff with Respawn Entertainment. DICE is entirely capable of producing a great Battlefield 3 game that competes with Call of Duty, Respawn can make yet another competitive shooter for EA. Why step away from projects like Mirror’s Edge when there’s already enough talent in place to handle the big scale shooters?

Let’s hope EA doesn’t dismiss Mirror’s Edge 2 for good. The game has its detractors, and rightly so, but the principle is a shining beacon for EA.