Indie developer is making an open-world Mirror's Edge spiritual successor

Mirror's Edge has long been one of EA's most painful examples of an abandoned franchise – beloved reputation intact, new games nowhere in sight. Indie studio Viridian Matters has decided to do something about that, announcing their own Mirror's Edge-like called Panline.

The Steam store page already has screenshots and brief gameplay gifs, and the resemblance to DICE's game is obvious within seconds. The color palette swaps out Mirror's Edge's iconic red for bright blues, oranges, algae greens, and other vivid hues, but it still takes place in a gleaming dystopia full of spotless white skyscrapers – hard to mistake for a spiritual successor to anything else.

It wears its love for the late aughts on its sleeve. One of the first screenshots features an in-game gadget that looks an awful lot like one of Sony's gaming handhelds from the era, and the parkour on display reproduces the key mechanics of its inspiration: wall-running, building up speed, crashing through doors, and so on.The developers seem to have gone beyond simply recreating the formula, though.

The non-linear open city is explored through jobs that appear dynamically. As you unlock new movement abilities and upgrade your not-a-PSP, new areas become accessible. The catch: a lethal fall wipes all progress on the current job. "What you carry is what you risk, and progress only counts once you make it back to base," the store page reads.

Release of Panline is planned for sometime this year, with only a handful of footage to show so far. Viridian Matters' only other game on Steam is also a parkour title, and it carries a "Very Positive" rating – which at least suggests the studio knows what it's doing.