Mirror's Edge: Catalyst does not allow the player to hold or use a gun, ever -- there is no gun combat, so when Faith disarms an enemy soldier, his gun goes on the ground and stays there. When asked why Mirror's Edge is ditching ballistic encounters, DICE General Manager Patrick Bach said, "I think it's a statement."
He explained, "We have a game that is about a character that doesn't use guns, period. I guess it's part of sticking to the creative vision, because it's so easy to fall back on adding a gun, because we know that works in a way that takes us to a place where we don't want to be."
DICE's Sara Jannson talks Faith, combat, and more with IGN.
Mirror's Edge: Catalyst "is about navigation, the freedom of traversing the city. Having the full focus on that forces us to fix other issues and go beyond stuff we haven't seen before. I think that's the beauty of sticking hard to a concept, instead of saying 'maybe this doesn't work, we're a bit nervous, let's add guns.' You can feel that in some game concepts, where it's so interesting and then it goes back to what sells copies. Because the data says it sells copies."Bach admits that it would be very easy for DICE -- a studio known for shooters such as Battlefield -- to rely on weaponry as an alternative, as the original Mirror's Edge did. "But wouldn't that be boring?" he said.
Faith's abilities in Catalyst downplay the guns of her enemies as well. While moving rapidly, attacking enemies, or traversing the world, Faith enters a "flow," as DICE describes it, and it makes her invulnerable to bullets. If you're moving, guns don't exist in the player's mind. That's a statement I can get behind.
For more on Mirror's Edge: Catalyst, stay tuned to IGN.