Mirror’s Edge

The original Mirror’s Edge was nothing short of an audio-visual masterpiece with its iconic art and sound perfectly suiting its setting.

The electronica-based soundtrack is comprised primarily of artificial, cold and often mysterious synths that beautifully accompanies the game’s stark and monolithic near-future totalitarian-run city.

Composer Magnus Birgersson a.k.a Solar Fields is known for his haunting electronic ambience but he also does a great job supplying heart-pounding numbers too, overall belying his limited scoring experience.

My favourite track is probably ‘The Shard – Puzzle’ from the last level of the game. It perfectly mirrors protagonist Faith’s trepidation yet resoluteness at the last stage in the story but still evokes a sense of wonder.

Beyond Birgersson, EA and DICE went to even greater lengths to create the game’s main theme, hiring music industry veterans Arnthor Birgisson and Rami Yacoub to write and produce. With vocals by Swedish pop star Lisa Miskovsky, Still Alive is an inspirational song that is much more pop than electronica, but not in that unbearable ballad sort of way.

This presents an interesting contrast, with it’s traditional instruments like the piano and guitar working outside of the bounds of the core music of the city, mirroring the roles of Faith and her fellow runners.

An official music video for Still Alive featuring Miskovsky and allusions to the game was produced and the song even graced the Swedish singles chart for three weeks in November 2008, peaking at the respectable twenty-ninth spot.

The music was a huge part of why Mirror’s Edge was so fantastic and memorable so let’s hope that EA and DICE are planning on bringing back Birgersson and company for the recently announced follow-up.