Upcoming Games – Day 1

We’re getting close to E3 2016, the annual video games convention held in Los Angeles. That means we’re about to get a bunch of previews for games that will be coming out either this year or in 2017, and in that spirit I thought I’d dedicate this week to highlighting several of the games I’m personally looking forward to. Each day I’ll feature two games and a short description of what they are and why I’m interested in them.

Today we’re going to start with a pair of sequels whose predecessors had high-potential, but fell a little bit short.

Mirror’s Edge Catalyst is a game I’ve been wanting since I played the original Mirror’s Edge back in 2009. While technically a reboot, rather than a sequel, I’m just happy that it got made. The original Mirror’s Edge had a number of problems, but also had a lot of interesting ideas, and I even wrote one of my first gaming-related writing pieces on it (found here). Taking place in a beautiful but sterile city under the thumb of a police state, Mirror’s Edge had you playing the role of Faith, a free running courier on a mission to save her sister who was framed for murder. The first-person traversal of the original Mirror’s Edge felt novel at the time, and with any luck Mirror’s Edge Catalyst will refine and improve upon it, while also fixing the first game’s problems, such as the gunplay and there being only one route from point A to point B. Mirror’s Edge Catalyst comes out on June 7, so it won’t be much longer before we start seeing review scores and get an idea on whether or not it’s any good.

The original Titanfall was one of the showcase games at the unveiling event of the Xbox One. Titanfall’s gameplay demo did everything right and had me hyped for the game. It was a futuristic first-person shooter where you could pilot giant mechs that were dropped out of the sky (what’s not to like about that?). Titanfall was sure to become a favorite of mine…. until I learned that it was multiplayer only. Then my heart sank, and a massive wave of disappointment swept over me. Titanfall looked so cool, but I was never going to play it. So then, you can imagine my excitement when a brief teaser trailer for Titanfall 2 was released recently, and a press release confirmed that it would have a singleplayer campaign. Little else has been revealed about Titanfall 2, hence why the image on the right is actually artwork from the first game, but it will supposedly come out this year, so I am confident it will appear at E3 and we’ll get the full details on what to expect.