Prominent industry analyst Michael Pachter has issued a forecast for incremental growth for EA over the coming year, centered chiefly in the launch of some long awaited key titles in this period, including Mass Effect 4 and Mirror’s Edge 2, by Bioware and DICE respectively.

“FY:16 is expected to feature incremental releases Mass Effect 4, Mirror’s Edge 2, a new Need For Speed game, and Star Wars: Battlefront, as well as meaningful re-orders for Battlefield Hardline, which launched in late Q4:15.” Owing to this, and owing to the company’s already strong presence on the PS4 and Xbox One, Pachter believes that it is uniquely positioned to thrive in the coming years in the next generation marketplace.

As of right now, however, this seems a bit unlikely- neither Mass Effect 4 nor mirror’s Edge 2 even have proper names yet, let alone release dates. And although we can expect to see more of both games at E3 this year, one must question whether the games will actually meet their projected launch dates, in this generation where scant few games have managed to do so so far.

Of the many games teased at EA’s E3 media briefing, the only one to receive a halfway decent reception was Mirror’s Edge 2. The reboot, which explores the origins story of Faith Connors, will be out on the Xbox One, PS4 and PC. General manager Karl-Magnus Troedsson spoke to Games Industry International about the game and how the team is passionate about what they’re doing.

“We’re so passionate about this product; it’s a game that needs to be built, basically. Is there an element of a leap of faith here, no pun intended? Yes, there probably is, as there is with all games as they’re being built. You don’t know if they’re going to be a smash hit from the beginning. But do we feel like we’re swimming out into an unknown ocean? Absolutely not.”

That being said, DICE has faced tons of flak for the issues that plagued Battlefield 4. Troedsson feels that that success put it out of touch with fans. “In the journey of Battlefield, we started to become pretty big, and maybe we lost contact a little bit with our players.”

Now the situation is different though. “We want to get closer to our players as much as possible. And some people are going to say, ‘That’s buzz word bingo, direct-to-consumer, feedback, whatever.’ But it is very important for us. We want to listen to what our players have to say.”

Will that feedback help Mirror’s Edge 2? We’ll find out in the coming year.

A new Mirror’s Edge game was announced at E3 last year, finally answering the cries of all the fans who had appreciated the first game, and then proceeded to not buy it (remember, it was a critically middling game at release, and a damp squib at retail). Anyway, the reboot/sequel looked great, although since then, both DICE and EA have gone on a radio silence about it. Now, Australian website Rocket Chainsaw has what it claims is verified information about the title- information that is so far unsubstantiated either way, so I would treat it as a rumor if I were you.

Anyway, here goes:

• Faking nothing, the E3 2013 Mirror’s Edge 2 teaser was indeed entirely real time and generally unscripted, including the combat systems. Rocket Chainsaw has now seen both in motion in test environments, and they match up, graphically and mechanically.
• Target platforms are Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and Mac.
• Reiterating statements from DICE, Mirror’s Edge 2 is a total reboot.
• Core goal of the reboot is to create an open world, living breathing city for you to explore.
• Part of this open world environment includes a persistent, “always online” component. The open world is considered a multiplayer “playground” where other plays can drop-in/drop-out seamlessly, freely choosing their level of interaction with other players and the game world. A comparison to Journey‘s online feature was given as the closest example.
• Other general multiplayer components include co-op and competitive modes, such as time trials
• Rebooting the universe means new enemies. Mirror’s Edge 2 will include many AI opponents, some on equal footing to Faith. Among these are the standard cannon fodder Protectors, melee combat expert Sentinels, and armoured gun wielding Enforcers. We’ve been told that Faith does not have guns.
• DICE has taken on a lot of feedback from Mirror’s Edge in shaping the combat system for Mirror’s Edge 2. Heavy revisions have shaped the combat away from useless gunplay and one button combats (like the nut-punch) to a deeper system that emphasises speed and fluidity. Environment interaction is also a key feature of the combat system, Faith able to push, punch, and kick enemies out of the way, over ledges, tables, and railings. These physics driven interactions are combined with 1-2-3 punch/kick style combos, wall running, flips, and other martial arts moves, as well as brief grapples. Occasionally a third person take-down move will be used when an enemy is beaten, and “adaptive slow-motion” is used vary sparingly, mostly just to highlight cool sequences, like the E3 2013 trailer face punch. Rocket Chainsaw has seen all of these combat functions performed in real time, without scripting.
• While DICE are committed to providing a deeper combat system, melee combat is not the single focus of Mirror’s Edge 2. DICE does not consider Mirror’s Edge 2 as a brawler, but instead a racing game at heart. For the development team, the focus is on creating a game all about parkour: speed, fluidity, and mastery of your environment. Even these changes to the combat system are being done to prevent issues with Mirror’s Edge where players would have a stretch of parkour with intermittent pace breaking stops to fight an opponent. DICE wishes to seamlessly integrate encounters and the combat system into the feeling of speed and parkour mastery, so players even while fighting are still on the move, making progress, and interacting with their environment.
• Its target release date is in 2016. Sorry kids. Fingers crossed it comes around earlier!

To be fair, a lot of that sounds incredibly believable and reasonable. Everything except for the release date part that is, because that would totally break my heart.

We’ll find out in the coming months how accurate this information was- stay tuned to GamingBolt.

About Mirror’s Edge 2:

Mirror’s Edge 2 is an upcoming open world game for the PlayStation 4, PC and Xbox One. The game is developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts.

Mirror’s Edge 2 will be the reboot of the franchise and will showcase the origins of Faith.

Check out Mirror’s Edge 2  Wallpapers below:

Mirror’s Edge 2 has been rumoured for months, appearing on various retailer sites before finally making its way to EA’s own customer support sites. Of course, EA tried to make it seem like it didn’t exist by having it go on last, but we all knew coming in what to expect.

What we didn’t expect was that Mirror’s Edge 2 would be released – quote – “when it’s ready”. After the Duke Nukem Forever and Beyond Good and Evil 2 fiascoes, those aren’t really the words we want to hear right now.

Regardless, look forward to the game when it eventually does hit for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Screenshots:

On top of this, names for “Mirror’s Edge 3” can also be seen. If EA simply registered the domains, it’s one thing, but these have also been transferred to the publisher’s DNS. Are there long-term plans to include a third game already, or will we be hearing about it along with news on the second game?

As always, E3 2013 will be the place for answers. We are going to attend the event and bring you all the latest news. Stay tuned from June 10th onwards for more.

Will EA showcase the game at this year’s E3? Are DICE currently working on it, despite being busy with Battlefield 4 and the upcoming next gen Star Wars games running Frostbite 3 – or is there a new studio on the job? Stay tuned for more details as E3 2013 is just around the corner.

Not even a week in since the last Mirror Edge 2 appearance on German Amazon, Italian Amazon lists the title for Xbox One. However, it has been taken down to avoid the leak/confirmation, (even though it has already been leaked) at this point it’s quite obvious that the game will be making an appearance at E3 2013 in some shape or form.

Here is the image of the Italian Amazon listing Mirror’s Edge 2:

We’re just a few weeks away from E3 2013, it’s safe to assume that Electronic Arts will be demonstrating/announcing Mirror’s Edge 2 at their press conference on June 10th at 1-2 PM Pacific time. We will try to cover as much of information as possible during that period on future Electronic Art titles and announcements. It’s neat to see that Mirror’s Edge 2 is a next-generation title, it’s unknown if the game is coming out for the current generation at the moment though.

Check back on GamingBolt for more updates on Mirror’s Edge 2 in the coming weeks.

German Amazon seems to be on a roll today with leaks. First it was the Forza 5 boxart leak, and now it’s a listing of Mirrors Edge 2 on the website. We are few weeks away from E3 2013, and leaks are starting to happen rather quickly.

Judging by the listing on Amazon it seems that the game is coming out for Xbox One by looking at the boxart despite the fact that it says Xbox 360 as the platform. However, it’s safe to say that this is a placeholder boxart since it’s completely black and only has the title on it. No sign of PlayStation 4 has been found on the website, however; I doubt that this game is a Xbox One exclusive.

Fans have been asking for a sequel of Mirrors Edge for quite a while now. The game was released 5 years ago in 2008. Apparently Electronic Arts decided to listen to consumers and make their wish come true. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mirrors Edge gets an official reveal at EA’s press conference on June 10th.

Let us know if you’re excited for Mirrors Edge 2 in the comments below.

Check back on GamingBolt for more updates.

Mirror’s Edge and an alleged sequel to it have long been in (and out of) the news- by this point, I’m guessing we all are fairly certain that EA has plans for a sequel to the hit title, but we don’t have anything concrete to back up that claim.

However, Ben Cousins, former general manager of EA Easy, says Mirror’s Edge 2 is very much in development at DICE, who EA says will not just be a Battlefield developer forever.

“It is general knowledge in the Stockholm dev scene that Mirror’s Edge 2 is in production at DICE,” Cousins wrote on his Twitter page.

This is certainly good news for all of us, but we’d definitely like to see something official by EA- right?

This being a DICE developed game, we can safely assume it’ll run on FrostBite 2. It looks like EA has been pushing the engine anyway, what with most of the news games, like Mass Effect 4 and Dragon Age 3, being confirmed to run on it.