Ben-DutkaYou know, we're starting to really like EA CEO John Riccitiello. The more he talks, the more he sounds like a "gamer's executive."
In a recent Kotaku interview , Riccitiello talks about his company's firm resolve to stick to their "innovation and originality" goal. He also addresses the possibility of Mirror's Edge 2 and explains how the first title presented developers with the appropriate foundation, but there are any number of directions they could go in the sequel. Riccitiello calls Mirror's Edge a "massively innovative product" and one that absolutely "deserves to come back," but hey, when you produce something unique, it doesn't always fly off the charts. The CEO makes a very good point by saying that innovation doesn't always completely succeed the first time; "if it did, everyone would do it." And while he wouldn't confirm the sequel was in the works at DICE, he did have further comments on the quality of the first game:
"I think Mirror's Edge was a fascinatingly original world. Fascinatingly original art direction. Music and sound design was great. I think the gameplay mechanic was a blast, but was intermittent and the levels didn't work. You found yourself scratching at walls at times, looking for what to do. Sometimes you had a roll going, downhill, slide, jump, slide, jump and then you just got stopped. It sort of got in the way of the fun.
It was like we couldn't quite decide if we were building Portal or a runner. And I don't think the consumer was ready to switch it up quite that way. You could say it was a sharp and great innovation. I believe that it was. You have to figure out what to do from here if you want it to be a five million seller vs. a one-million unit seller."
Riccitiello goes on to say that they could go in two very different directions. Maybe they could go the more traditional route; "it's a first-person game" and "there are a lot of successful FPS products out there that do really well." Yeah, that's one option. On the other hand, you could say, "this was never about guns…it was about stark originality," and we should stick to that. He said both ways were valid but it's really up to the developers. Well, if we ever do hear about Mirror's Edge 2 , we'll be plenty enthusiastic.
