This is part of a gigantic article about the game's development history.
http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/25/11758974/designing-mirrors-edge-the-making-of-a-franchise
Initial Greenlighting:
- Patrick Soderlund wanted to greenlight smaller, more risky projects and also let DICE show that they don't just make an endless conveyor belt of military shooters.
- EA wanted to get into open world action adventure games, and a lot of technology and design lessons they would learn from making Mirror's Edge 2 would fit with that, even if the game itself didn't sell enough to continue the series.
- When Sara Jansson (the project lead) originally pitched the game, Patrick decided this was the right pitch because it made him nervous about whether or not DICE would actually be capable of building something like this given their skillset and current technology, and that meant they'd probably actually gain a lot when learning how to do it. (This is covered in another part of the article.)
Sequel Chances:
- Not guaranteed, will depend on sales.
EA had previously noted they were moving $100 million in revenue out of Q4 when they delayed the game, which would be about 2 million copies for the upfront shipment.
http://www.polygon.com/2016/5/25/11758974/designing-mirrors-edge-the-making-of-a-franchise
Initial Greenlighting:
- Patrick Soderlund wanted to greenlight smaller, more risky projects and also let DICE show that they don't just make an endless conveyor belt of military shooters.
- EA wanted to get into open world action adventure games, and a lot of technology and design lessons they would learn from making Mirror's Edge 2 would fit with that, even if the game itself didn't sell enough to continue the series.
- When Sara Jansson (the project lead) originally pitched the game, Patrick decided this was the right pitch because it made him nervous about whether or not DICE would actually be capable of building something like this given their skillset and current technology, and that meant they'd probably actually gain a lot when learning how to do it. (This is covered in another part of the article.)
Polygon said:"I think it’s important that we allow a game like Mirror’s Edge to exist," says Söderlund. "When you’re the size of Electronic Arts, and when you have so many big games, I look at our games catalog as a portfolio. You have to look at it almost like a movie studio would look at it. You have your blockbusters. You have your more artistic, almost indie-like titles. There’s a market for those as well, and I think the industry deserves those types of products."
Söderlund believes Mirror’s Edge Catalyst has the potential to do extremely well and to reach an even bigger audience than the first game. But he’s also realistic about it; he recognizes that it "probably won’t be a GTA in terms of audience size."
Players wanted it, though, as did the studio. And perhaps just as importantly, Mirror’s Edge Catalyst contains technology and design lessons that Söderlund believes will be useful to DICE and EA as a whole moving forward.
"There’s a lot of learnings that, should we not build another Mirror’s Edge for various reasons — a lot of the things that we’ve done will serve as great learnings for whatever else we build," he says. "As you know, EA is pushing quite hard as a company to move into the action space. A lot of stuff like going to an open-world structure, going to a nonlinear narrative, building out characters and stories — these are things that we need to learn and perfect as a company. Sometimes, you have to look at it long-term.
"I hope that Mirror’s Edge Catalyst does extremely well. But in a world where it may or may not do well, it’s important for us to understand that everything that we do needs to be seen in the longer perspective. You can’t just look at it in isolation."
Sequel Chances:
- Not guaranteed, will depend on sales.
"Whether or not there’s another Mirror’s Edge is going to be up to the people out there," Söderlund says. "If we can convince them that there’s a market for this, that people want to buy it, and if they tell us they want another one, then we’ll make another one. If the answer is that there wasn’t a big enough audience, it’s too difficult and too much work goes into making a game to build a game that we know people probably don’t want."
EA had previously noted they were moving $100 million in revenue out of Q4 when they delayed the game, which would be about 2 million copies for the upfront shipment.