New Mirror's Edge Catalyst art is ultra pretty and, wait, is that a grappling hook?

UPDATE: That Mirror's Edge Catalyst grappling hook is confirmed in this bit of official art.

So here's the first shiny current gen image of Mirror's Edge Catalyst's Faith and of course it's looking rather lovely. In the cover art for the Mirror's Edge reboot , Faith has just landed on a reflective surface and those cracks tend to suggest she doesn't care about the seven years of bad luck since the launch of the original.

But it's when we look at her arm that things get interesting.

Could this be a grappling hook? There's definitely more going on with that gauntlet than just wrist support for building leaping, and that bit on the side does look a little like a barrel with a reel attached. It could also be a weapon (a taser perhaps?).

However, when Dying Light hands over its grapple gun a few hours into the game, it changes the way you play altogether, having you leap off buildings before firing it at the next like an undead-dodging Spider-Man so it's an obvious extension of the original game's mechanics. A tool like that would also keep Faith in line with this year's free running criminals in Assassin's Creed Syndicate - maybe this is going to be E3's 'thing' this year? . Whatever it is, it's clearly a new feature given that prominent placing on the art.

In the announcement last week on the game's official website Dice's senior producer discussed Catalyst driving the series forward in terms of movement (no pun intended, honest). "The team has spent a lot of time re-evaluating every aspect of the game and making it a new experience. This is not a sequel, this is not Mirror's Edge 2," said Sara Jansson. "We have landed on a vision that honours the first game — pushing the boundaries of first person movement and diving deeper into the story behind our heroine Faith — but also brings a lot of great new, interesting gameplay and features to the experience for our players." A new way to travel between buildings definitely doesn't sound unlikely but it looks like we'll have to wait until E3 2015 for more news.

In other Mirror's Edge news, Dark Horse comics has announced it will be release a six part graphic novel series to explore the events that lead up to Catalyst. Mirror's Edge: Exordium will "grant fans special insight into the origin of Faith, one of the most unique and celebrated heroines in video games." The graphic novels will be written by narrative director at Dice, Christofer Emgard and feature art from Dice's very own in-house art team.

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Louise Blain

Louise Blain is a journalist and broadcaster specialising in gaming, technology, and entertainment. She is the presenter of BBC Radio 3’s monthly Sound of Gaming show and has a weekly consumer tech slot on BBC Radio Scotland. She can also be found on BBC Radio 4, BBC Five Live, Netflix UK's YouTube Channel, and on The Evolution of Horror podcast. As well as her work on GamesRadar, Louise writes for NME, T3, and TechRadar. When she’s not working, you can probably find her watching horror movies or playing an Assassin’s Creed game and getting distracted by Photo Mode.