8 Video Games That Wasted Genius Ideas
7. Mirror's Edge Catalyst
First-person parkour is a mechanic that's never quite taken off in the gaming world. Mirror's Edge pioneered it in 2008, the Dying Light series uses it as a central mechanic, but that's about it really.
It's a difficult balancing act to present the player with the challenge of platforming from a first-person perspective whilst still making it look and feel cool and free-flowing (basically the two foremost rules of parkour). The limited field-of-view turns complex acrobatic sequences into frustrating exercises in trial and error, and pulling off a dramatic escape doesn't feel half as impressive when you've only managed it on the twelfth attempt.
Mirror's Edge learned this the hard way when it arrived on the scene and was met with a lukewarm reception. When working as intended, the parkour mechanics would feel smooth and even thrilling, but with it being such a nascent concept, there were far more 100-storey death drops than there were daring escapes.
Mirror's Edge Catalyst, a soft reboot released 8 years later, promised to refine the gameplay of its predecessor and expand to an open world setting, leaving players free to explore the rooftops of the city of Glass.
This would have been great had the city been more fun to explore than a cubicle farm, so players frequently found themselves ignoring the game's open world aspects and simply following a glowing red marker to the next objective.