Instead, it’s a testament to the power of video games and simulation that this scene (which I’ve encountered plenty in my time with the game) is able to elicit a visceral response from the player.

It’s all very gruesome stuff without being either bloody or tasteless. All the while, Faith begins panicking, her vision blurring. When you miss a jump and begin plummeting to the ground, you remain in first-person perspective right up until the moment before you hit the ground. Mirror’s Edge forgoes the kill screens in favor of a more direct approach. In Mirror’s Edge, you experience death by falling in first-person. It’s very much similar to Dark Souls, except the words shown across the screen is “You Died”. In games like Resident Evil, dying triggers a game-over screen with red blood splashing across the words “You are Dead”. You see, I’ve never experienced video game death like I have in Mirror’s Edge. Then it quickly becomes hideously uncool. The Parkour action is seriously cool right up until the part you miss a jump. For those of you who haven’t, death-defying acrobatics performed by the player in a first-person perspective is both exciting and satisfying, thanks to the game’s fluid controls and seamless level design. If you’ve seen the film you’ll understand the basic gist of what it’s like to play Mirror’s Edge.

That good idea, however, essentially inspired the film Hardcore Henry, which built a film around a similar, first-person, Parkour perspective. The sequel painstakingly improves upon the Parkour mechanics of the first game, which many agree was a good idea, but perhaps a bit undercooked. The sense of freedom and movement is a big draw for the Mirror’s Edge series.

Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, the game’s heroine, Faith Connors, acts as a free-running courier who delivers sensitive materials under the watch of a Big Brother-style corporation/bureaucratic agency. The action in Mirror’s Edge primarily takes place atop Apple-esque skyscrapers hundreds of stories high. The only problem is that failing at Parkour is absolutely terrifying. Simulation of death as a result of failure is after all, a hallmark of video games. So when Mirror’s Edge and its sequel, Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst base their core gameplay mechanic around free-running, that naturally means that there are consequences for Parkour failure. Just watching these near death experiences can cause the palms to moisten. You’ve undoubtedly come across at least one video or gif online where someone narrowly avoids death during a Parkour trick - a backflip atop a skyscraper which almost leads to tragedy, a barely successful jump connects one rooftop to another.

Mirrors edge games