Ask me about games “in the vein of X movie” and I’ll give you a loquacious lecture about how gaming needs to create its own landmarks if it wishes to be taken seriously as a medium. Alternatively, if you wish to avoid such a lecture, tell me your game was inspired by Joss Whedon’s cowboy-western sci-fi epic, Firefly. Of course, I’ll melt into a puddle of annoyingly exuberant nerdy goop, so pick your poison.
Anyway, DICE’s Owen O’Brien, in speaking about his company’s latest game, Mirror’s Edge, was happy to play the Whedon card.
“To be very honest, I’m a big Joss Whedon fan, and a lot of the things in the story of the game came from Firefly and Serenity.”
So what are we looking at here? A Mal cameo? River Tam as a playable character? O’Brien continued:
“The basis of Firefly and Serenity is, you can’t force other people to live by your system, even if your system is better. These people want to live on the edge of that society.
Again, in Serenity, The Operative actually says, ‘This is not an evil empire. We just don’t understand why you don’t want to be part of our happy club.’ Obviously, they take it too far, and similarly, that’s kind of what happens in our game as well: the mayor of the city decides to take things a step too far.”
Later on, O’Brien elaborated on his choice of a femme fatale main character. Again, his inner-fanboy emerged.
“I mean, again, to go back to my Joss Whedon fetish, I like that we have strong female characters,” O’Brien noted. “And I wanted a female character that females would like, too. So Faith, we’ve done a lot of tests, focus tests, on her and with her, as well. So she resonates with females as well, because she’s aspirational without having pneumatic breasts, or ridiculous body proportions. So she looks fit, and healthy, and agile, without being silly. So, she’s… I think, again, by accident or design, we’ve designed a character that appeals equally to men and women. Which is really good.”
So, uh, River?
Seriously though, it seems that, just as Firefly was a very forward-thinking series, using sci-fi as a medium to explore themes ranging from freedom and power to marriage, Mirror’s Edge will walk a similar path. With any luck, the game will rock so hard that the entire industry will be forced to stand and take notice. As spectacular as its is looking at this point, however, all I can say for sure is that Mirror’s Edge will bound from rooftop-to-rooftop and right into your heart sometime this year.
