http://kotaku.com/5483353/mirrors-edge-was-seven-years-in-the-making

In hindsight, Mirror's Edge was probably my favourite game of 2008 (provided I go back and skip the indoor bits). Turns out that quality was no accident, with the game having been in production for seven years.

In an interview with Gaming Union, former DICE (the developers behind the game) CEO Fredrik Liliegren said "Knowing that that product was in development for about seven years.. [laughs] and given that it wasn't Mirror's Edge when we started, but it was one team working on 'the new IP' for seven years, I think they did a strong final."

"They did something different that people hadn't done before. I think it needed a second generation so they can tweak on it, I played it a little bit."

He won't be the first person to recommend a tweaked, refined sequel, and he won't be the last, either.

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Wow, that was a long time. Hopefully they're still making a sequel, they might have some costs that need recovering from the first one

Not dissing Mirror's Edge (which was a fine game as far as I've seen), but why would they need 7 years to make this? Sure it could take 7 years from idea to completion, but that doesn't seem the case here.

Depends on the workforce I guess. Could have been a pet project for DICE for a while I guess, or maybe they took it back to the drawing board at one point, and started over.

The release implies the game changed a lot over time, so I don't think this is 7 years for Edge as we think of it, more 7 years from game concept A, through some tests, through switching to game concept B, etc. until the basic framework for Edge arrived.

The reason for the 7 year quote seems to be it was one team working through this hence the consistent timeframe.

The game was great, and the number of years it took to make doesn't really matter because its pretty much original in its own ways.

Videogame production is consistently becoming the interest of multinational media conglomerates, consequently you don't make fps games, with no guns, starring a woman protagonist.

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=102643