E3 '07: DICE sharpening Mirror's Edge

SANTA MONICA, Calif.--Five years after Battlefield 1942 hit the market, the Battlefield franchise has expanded far beyond World War II. Battlefield 2 took the series into the present, while Battlefield 2142 vaulted it into the future. Battlefield: Modern Combat brought the hallowed PC shooter to consoles, and Battlefield: Bad Company will inject humor into the series when it arrives on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 later this year.

Today, though, Stockholm-based developer EA DICE, formerly Digital Illusions CE, announced it is expanding its portfolio beyond Battlefield. This morning, the Electronic Arts-owned shop announced it will release an all-new game, Mirror's Edge, for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 sometime in 2008.

Details are currently slim on Mirror's Edge, but that didn't stop DICE from unloading plenty of hype about the game. "We made the sandbox experience viable and enjoyable in Battlefield and now, we are looking to do something radical with the traditional, established mechanics of first-person movement," promised Patrick Soderlund, EA DICE's general manager, in a statement.

How will movement be different in Mirror's Edge? The game's senior producer, Owen O’Brien, dropped a few oblique hints. "We want to change the way that players are able to move in first person," he said. "No more restrictions, no more being blocked by simple barriers such as walls and fences. We want to enable the player to move like a real person, with the ability to run, jump, vault, and slide in a way that has never been seen before in a first-person game."