Mirror's Edge - 7 Year Development Cycle

Mirror's Edge was one of my favorite titles in 2008. I took an opportunity to focus group at EA for the title. When everyone else in the group was asking for Left 4 Dead, I went with Mirror's Edge because of how curious I was with the title. Running and jumping in first person with limbs swinging about in view seemed to be quite possibly the freshest take on the first person action genre in some time. Even shooting guns can sometimes become mundane.

Now that Gaming Union is interviewing former DICE CEO Fredrik Liliegren, some interesting details are surfacing about the game's development.

"Gaming Union: What do you think of DICE's choice to make Mirror's Edge, and now that they're developing a sequel?

Liliegren: Knowing that that product was in development for about seven years.. [laughs] and given that it wasn't Mirror's Edge when we started, but it was one team working on 'the new IP' for seven years, I think they did a strong final. They did something different that people hadn't done before. I think it needed a second generation so they can tweak on it, I played it a little bit."

Seven years is a long time to spend on a new IP, and obviously the development was a risky one, what with Mirror's Edge not selling all that much after it's debut. There was a huge amount of buzz and coverage of the title, but in the end, buzz and interest do not translate fully to sales.

Honestly, that was disappointing to fans of Mirror's Edge everywhere. If you found something to love about the game, quite a bit of fervor for the title was born out of that love. Obviously larger sales figures would have been nice because of how quickly the turn around for the sequel would have been. Still, the talk of a sequel is nice to hear, though it wouldn't be that nice to wait another 7 years for Mirror's Edge 2.