Maybe I'm the only one who doesn't see, but that's what Mirror's Edge senior producer Owen O’Brien said in a recent interview with Gamasutra when discussing the inspiration behind the unique title.

"I think what I want to do is... It's very easy to look at this game, to misunderstand this game, and say, it's one girl against this police-state dictatorship. It's not. It's more subtle than that."

"One of the core questions that the game asks you is, how much of your personal freedom are you willing to give up for a comfortable life? And the other sort of theme for the game is, you can't force other people to live by your rules and your society, even if your society is better..."

The Mirror's Edge producer explains how Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Firefly creator Joss Whedon has influenced some of the key thematic elements of the title:

"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. I was listening to this director's commentary [on the DVD of Serenity]..."

"So, actually, that sentence that I just used is actually a direct quote from Joss Whedon; 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."

On the mirror's edge?

"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."

Of course, whatever about Josh Whedon's popularity (deserved or not) it seems a little naive to give him all the credit; this kind of social contrast study and these messages are not the sole brainchild of the Firefly creator, and have existed and been analysed for centuries.

But hey, at least we know they're given the story more than a passing thought.

The full interview can be found here, for those of you interested in reading more.

Tags : DICE : electronic arts : firefly : josh whedon : Mirrors Edge : PlayStation 3 : Serenity : Xbox 360

Comments

By: Samuel On: 02:27 Jun 8th, 2008 Offline	For a minute there, I thought we were looking at more info about the firefly MMO. Huge letdown. But I can't imagine a better thing for a game to be inspired by, whatever the genre. This guy has made me buy the game, even if it's crap.