WEBVTT 00:00:02.010 --> 00:00:06.269 Hi. I'm Mark and this is Game Maker's Toolkit 00:00:06.269 --> 00:00:11.510 Mirror's Edge is one of those games that was crying out for a sequel. One that would polish 00:00:11.510 --> 00:00:17.039 up the first-person platforming, rethink the story, get rid of the guns, and just add a 00:00:17.039 --> 00:00:18.289 bunch more stuff. 00:00:18.289 --> 00:00:22.880 And, hey, we got it! Mirror's Edge Catalyst is a sequel - or a prequel or a reboot or 00:00:22.880 --> 00:00:27.160 whatever - and the controls are more responsive, the cutscenes don't look like they were made 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:30.740 in Flash, the guns are gone, and there's way more content. 00:00:30.740 --> 00:00:35.829 But, if the reviews are anything to by, it didn't quite work out. And I think the culprit 00:00:35.829 --> 00:00:46.339 might be one contentious change to the franchise: the introduction of an open world. 00:00:46.339 --> 00:00:50.589 The original Mirror's Edge presented most of its levels like an obstacle course. There 00:00:50.589 --> 00:00:55.749 was a linear route through the world and you had to build up, and then maintain momentum, 00:00:55.749 --> 00:01:01.510 by stringing together parkour movements over a series of springboards, fences, and zip 00:01:01.510 --> 00:01:02.379 lines. 00:01:02.379 --> 00:01:06.120 You'd often see your route in front of you - highlighted in the bright red of Runner's 00:01:06.120 --> 00:01:11.470 Vision. But the challenge was to pinpoint that path while at top speed, to look for other 00:01:11.470 --> 00:01:16.170 routes that could be quicker, and to actually pull off the moves - the jumps, tucks, rolls, 00:01:16.170 --> 00:01:18.440 wall runs, and quick turns - with precision. 00:01:18.440 --> 00:01:24.410 And at other times, the game slowed down. Here, Mirror's Edge turned into a platforming puzzler 00:01:24.410 --> 00:01:30.470 where you tried to find a path up a tall tower, using a maze of platforms and obstacles. 00:01:30.470 --> 00:01:37.110 As for Mirror's Edge Catalyst. No, actually, all that is true of Catalyst, as well. Because 00:01:37.110 --> 00:01:42.450 almost every story mission, and some of the side missions, take place outside the realms 00:01:42.450 --> 00:01:46.740 of the open world - in locations that are linear and intricately designed to be run 00:01:46.740 --> 00:01:49.890 through once and in one direction only. 00:01:49.890 --> 00:01:54.840 Those missions take place in skyscrapers, office buildings, underground facilities, 00:01:54.840 --> 00:02:00.260 and giant server hubs you can't access while free roaming. Which means the open world is 00:02:00.260 --> 00:02:02.810 relegated to other roles. 00:02:02.810 --> 00:02:07.640 So it's a way to get from mission to mission, and a place to practice parkour. It's filled 00:02:07.640 --> 00:02:12.019 with collectibles if you're into that sort of thing, and it also houses a number of side 00:02:12.019 --> 00:02:17.129 missions. And so maybe these non-essential quests could actually take advantage of the 00:02:17.129 --> 00:02:19.079 sandbox City of Glass? 00:02:19.079 --> 00:02:24.269 If we want to understand how an open world can lead to gameplay that really takes advantage 00:02:24.269 --> 00:02:28.569 of having a large space to play in, there are plenty of games we can look at. 00:02:28.569 --> 00:02:32.999 Games that give the player a huge breadth of options in how they approach a mission, 00:02:32.999 --> 00:02:38.680 or give them a feeling of mastery by repeatedly exploring the same locations. But considering 00:02:38.680 --> 00:02:43.469 the speed of Mirror's Edge, perhaps the best place to look would be a game like Burnout 00:02:43.469 --> 00:02:44.810 Paradise. 00:02:44.810 --> 00:02:50.159 Here's a super speedy franchise that successfully transitioned from linear tracks to an open 00:02:50.159 --> 00:02:55.529 world. And I think that's because every event takes advantage of the game being set in a 00:02:55.529 --> 00:02:56.909 sandbox city. 00:02:56.909 --> 00:03:02.320 Races and marked man challenges send you from one side of the map to the other, and there 00:03:02.329 --> 00:03:07.249 are no limits on the route you can take. Road rage and stunt run events let you take 00:03:07.249 --> 00:03:12.010 down cars and rack up combo points in any way you wish and you don't have to worry about 00:03:12.010 --> 00:03:16.060 hitting dead ends because the city spills out in every direction. 00:03:16.060 --> 00:03:20.120 Because you're constantly racing over the same roads again and again, and all of 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:25.599 Burnout Paradise takes place inside the city, you quickly start to learn routes and shortcuts, 00:03:25.599 --> 00:03:28.849 and know where to top-up your boost or cut a few corners. 00:03:28.849 --> 00:03:33.469 Plus, every race ends at one of eight finish lines on the map, so you'll soon become very 00:03:33.469 --> 00:03:37.989 familiar with the roads and shortcuts leading to those end points. 00:03:37.989 --> 00:03:41.689 Mirror's Edge Catalyst doesn't really work like that. 00:03:41.689 --> 00:03:47.090 Side missions like dashes, fragile deliveries, covert deliveries, and dead drops are all 00:03:47.090 --> 00:03:52.749 point to point runs, but to arbitrary spots and on short, predetermined routes. And while there 00:03:52.749 --> 00:03:56.629 are often shortcuts that will give you a better time, they're usually just off to the 00:03:56.629 --> 00:03:58.299 side of that main route. 00:03:58.299 --> 00:04:02.859 That makes it feel like the open world has been carved up into tiny chunks and at that 00:04:02.859 --> 00:04:06.949 point you might as well just put them all in a menu and call it Mirror's Edge. 00:04:06.949 --> 00:04:10.919 Because they ultimately feel no less linear than the races in the first game, which saw 00:04:10.919 --> 00:04:16.720 small sections of the main story levels turned into speed runs. As well as bonus, pure platforming 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:20.410 challenges set in bizarre abstract worlds. 00:04:20.410 --> 00:04:25.280 Side Note: because Mirror's Edge didn't need to reload an entire chunk of an open world 00:04:25.280 --> 00:04:30.590 every time you fluffed a jump, it didn't have to have annoying loading screens during races. 00:04:30.590 --> 00:04:35.340 Anyway. What you'll find is that the shortcuts in Catalyst's side missions are found much 00:04:35.340 --> 00:04:41.000 like they were in the original Mirror's Edge: through repeated playthroughs of that specific 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:44.630 event, rather than from your overall knowledge of the City of Glass. 00:04:44.630 --> 00:04:49.400 Which will be, I'm willing to bet, very limited. And that's for a few reasons. 00:04:49.400 --> 00:04:52.680 One is that because the main missions don't take place in the open world, you just don't 00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:57.410 spend enough time there to learn the layout. Two is that the city has few familiar landmarks 00:04:57.410 --> 00:04:58.880 to help you navigate. 00:04:58.880 --> 00:05:03.250 And third, which is the most important, is that the game is almost impossible to play 00:05:03.250 --> 00:05:08.860 without obsessively and blindly following this wispy red trail. Check out this video 00:05:08.860 --> 00:05:13.730 for more on how following little dotted lines harms your ability to engage with a game's 00:05:13.730 --> 00:05:14.900 world. 00:05:14.900 --> 00:05:19.360 You can tone down Runner's Vision or turn it off entirely but the confusing design of 00:05:19.360 --> 00:05:22.170 the city almost makes it a necessity. 00:05:22.170 --> 00:05:27.320 Strangely for an open world, the City of Glass constantly funnels you into linear corridors, 00:05:27.320 --> 00:05:32.420 where you're trapped between towers too tall to scale, or buildings too low to land on, 00:05:32.420 --> 00:05:35.290 or enormous gaps between rooftops. 00:05:35.290 --> 00:05:40.080 This is good for giving you that classic Mirror's Edge feeling of flowing through an obstacle 00:05:40.080 --> 00:05:46.020 course but it's horrible for navigation. Especially between these big clusters of buildings that 00:05:46.020 --> 00:05:50.360 have just a few ways to get between them. 00:05:50.360 --> 00:05:54.260 So your floating waypoint thingy might be right in front of you, but the only way to 00:05:54.260 --> 00:05:58.200 get to it is to take a huge detour around here. 00:05:58.200 --> 00:06:02.440 This is likely a technical issue, to do with loading the different chunks of the open world 00:06:02.440 --> 00:06:06.990 into memory. But while gamers can put up with some hidden loading screens, it's harder to 00:06:06.990 --> 00:06:10.250 stomach when it starts to really impact the way you navigate the world. 00:06:18.710 --> 00:06:22.990 What all this means is that Mirror's Edge Catalyst can't really provide missions like 00:06:22.990 --> 00:06:28.620 Burnout Paradise. Or, perhaps, Crazy Taxi. In that game you had a vague arrow pointing 00:06:28.620 --> 00:06:33.590 towards your destination and to make it under par time you needed both good driving skills 00:06:33.590 --> 00:06:36.900 and some knowledge of how the city was laid out. 00:06:36.900 --> 00:06:40.810 This could have been a fun mission type in Mirror's Edge where you would pick up and 00:06:40.810 --> 00:06:44.720 deliver packages from one side of the the open world to the other. It would provide 00:06:44.720 --> 00:06:49.490 a new type of gameplay to compliment the linear levels of the campaign - and test you on both 00:06:49.490 --> 00:06:53.450 navigation of the city and your ability to maintain momentum. 00:06:53.450 --> 00:06:57.750 But I don't think it would work in the maze-like and fractured City of Glass, because you'd 00:06:57.750 --> 00:07:05.060 spend the entire time simply following that wispy red line, or just falling to your death. 00:07:05.060 --> 00:07:09.450 One thing that does work well is the way that players can make their own time trials, using 00:07:09.450 --> 00:07:13.870 any route through the City of Glass. That wouldn't really work in a linear game, like 00:07:13.870 --> 00:07:17.620 the first Mirror's Edge, where all the best bits have already been turned into races. 00:07:17.620 --> 00:07:21.690 But would it be naughty to say that Burnout Paradise did it better by just putting leaderboards 00:07:21.690 --> 00:07:25.930 on every road so you're passively competing with other players and it makes you always 00:07:25.930 --> 00:07:30.250 want to race fast, take risks, and become a better driver? 00:07:30.250 --> 00:07:35.290 Or how the collectibles in Burnout were only ever about smashing through gates and billboards 00:07:35.290 --> 00:07:40.780 as you drive and not stopping dead in your tracks to open up a fuse box. And how mission 00:07:40.780 --> 00:07:46.240 givers don't just stand around like zombies but rocket past you and goad you into giving chase? 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:55.120 But, back to Catalyst. There is one more mission type that actually does take advantage of 00:07:55.130 --> 00:08:01.560 the open world. These security hub side quests see you beating up a bunch of guards, smashing 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:04.900 up a tower, and then running away from a helicopter. 00:08:04.900 --> 00:08:10.020 Now, like the stunt run events in Burnout, you can just run in any direction, sprinting 00:08:10.020 --> 00:08:15.139 this way or that and taking any route you can to maintain enough momentum to outrun 00:08:15.139 --> 00:08:20.090 the chopper. There is no predetermined path and no specific direction, and any small 00:08:20.090 --> 00:08:24.389 understanding you have of the City of Glass will help you avoid dead ends and drops. 00:08:24.389 --> 00:08:31.139 But, sadly, the best way to finish those missions is to just follow the red line which automatically 00:08:31.139 --> 00:08:35.810 routes you to the nearest safe house, where the chase is immediately called off. 00:08:35.810 --> 00:08:37.190 So close! 00:08:37.190 --> 00:08:42.310 Stuff like this shows that a Mirror's Edge game could utilise an open world. The mechanics 00:08:42.310 --> 00:08:47.180 are not incompatible with free roaming and, in fact, an open play space could lead to 00:08:47.180 --> 00:08:53.830 another style of mission to play. To compliment the linear and puzzle-like missions. 00:08:53.830 --> 00:08:59.020 But many unfortunate choices - like the weird layout, the reliance on Runner's Vision, the 00:08:59.020 --> 00:09:04.570 short-sighted side quests, and the main missions being off in their own locations - all mean 00:09:04.570 --> 00:09:09.090 that this open world just doesn't quite work. 00:09:09.090 --> 00:09:15.680 In an interview, design director Erik Odeldahl said "I'm 100 percent sure that other teams 00:09:15.690 --> 00:09:21.270 within DICE, and other EA studios will learn and look at what we've done and probably use 00:09:21.270 --> 00:09:25.900 it in some way, especially when it comes to these big, big worlds". 00:09:25.900 --> 00:09:30.630 Which should worry me. But seeing as how EA seem to have completely forgotten all the 00:09:30.630 --> 00:09:35.420 clever stuff they achieved in one of the best open world games they ever made, I don't think 00:09:35.420 --> 00:09:38.520 their memory is all that great. 00:09:41.460 --> 00:09:45.920 Thanks for watching! Lemme know your thoughts on Mirror's Edge in the comments below. I 00:09:45.930 --> 00:09:49.660 actually do like the game quite a bit, even if the open world was fumbled. 00:09:49.660 --> 00:09:54.380 Also, a quick note to say thanks for all the kind words on Boss Keys, which is my spin-off 00:09:54.380 --> 00:09:59.940 show about dungeon design in Zelda. I wasn't sure how that would be received, so I'm relieved 00:09:59.940 --> 00:10:03.790 that you like it. Link's Awakening is up next, as requested! 00:10:03.790 --> 00:10:08.390 Finally, Game Maker's Toolkit is made possible by everyone who donates on Patreon, but a 00:10:08.390 --> 00:10:11.320 special shout out to these top-tier supporters.