A lot of people were quite happy when EA finally confirmed at E3 2015 that the upcoming Mirror's Edge title would be a prequel. I had the chance to play some of the new game, titled Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, which promises to explore the origin story of Faith. More importantly, it seems like the gameplay is going to be expanded, taking the established style of gameplay into an open-world environment. I was able to explore the beginning of the game and some later segments.

At the outset, Faith is getting released from a correctional facility with instructions to gain employment — and an ominous warning if she did not. Nearly immediately after being released, she is approached by a young man who helps her lay low, which all likely ties into bits of plot that I didn't get the chance to experience. This doesn't go unnoticed by the conglomerate, who runs the entire city in addition to the facility. As such, Faith must run from the facility, but this section of the game immediately faded out in lieu of the next section.

In the second part of the hands-on demonstration, Faith is more established in her new role as a runner, and she's been set loose in the open world. Three missions let me play around with the game, and they boiled down to delivery objectives, exploration and time trial. The delivery mission tasked players with bringing a package to a drop-off location while avoiding a slew of conglomerate security. The exploration mission tasked them with reaching a billboard high up on the side of a building and hacking it with the runner's logo. Meanwhile, the time trial is all about how you can get from point A to point B the fastest.

The gameplay felt quite similar to the previous game, with Faith able to clamber over ledges, slide under obstacles, and run along walls. It's all still very momentum-based, but thanks to the open world, there are a lot more possibilities for navigation. This felt like it had a very positive impact on the gameplay, but the combination of a relatively small slice of the world and the time limit made it difficult to tell how the actual game will utilize it.

Still, it felt very much like a game of the series, and it's still quite reminiscent of what made the original Mirror's Edge such a fun game. There's a lot to be learned about how the game will use its new open-world design. In any case, it'll be an excuse to perform crazy parkour stunts while learning more about how Faith got her start.