Deus Ex: The Future is Here

I’m one of the lucky few old enough to have played the original Deus Ex when it arrived on PC back in 2000.  Deus Ex gleefully dipped its toes in many pools – RPGs and action games, the mechanics of both stealth games and shooters, ripped from the headlines “this could actually happen” science fiction and ludicrous, break out the aluminum-foil hats conspiracy theories – and somehow it made them all work together beautifully.  It was also a game that truly respected you as a player to make your own calls.  Did you want your JC Denton to be the cool, cautious investigative type, sneaking from clue to clue, hacked device to hacked device, or did you want to go full-on Dirty Harry guns blazing?  Should you pursue that crazy rumor you heard from that crazy guy who just maybe is not so crazy after all, or do you just blow it off and concentrate on the job at hand?  If you could upgrade your body where would you start and, perhaps more importantly, would you know where to stop?  And when all was said and done, how should the game (and possibly the world) end?  Given the keys to the kingdom and an overload of information, what judgment would you pass on the mere mortals living in blissful ignorance?

In 2003, Deus Ex: Invisible War was released to a much more tepid reception.  The game was fine by most standards (full confession:  I played but did not finish it), but it simply didn’t have the polish and freshness of the original.   And then Deus Ex more or less disappeared.

Until 2011.  That year, the series was resurrected as Deus Ex:  Human Revolution.  By almost all accounts the game was outstanding, a mostly brilliant game unfortunately overshadowed by what may be one of the best years of gaming ever (Skyrim, Uncharted 3, The Witcher 2, Arkham City, Gears of War 3, Dark Souls and, of course, Portal 2 just to name a few) and tainted ever so slightly by a handful of questionable design choices (those boss fights especially).  More importantly, it was faithful to what made the original a classic while still establishing its own identity – both homage and original.

This week it was confirmed that the series is getting a new installment with Deus Ex:  Mankind Divided.  There is a blisteringly hot new trailer for the game and, while it doesn’t show any gameplay yet, it captures the spirit of what makes the series so exciting.  Government conspiracies and shadowy organizations.  The struggle between technology and humanity.  And, of course, cyber-augmented super-soldiers kicking each others’ butts.

Needless to say, I am very excited for the game.  As I’ve said before, I would greatly prefer a world where  this trailer meant the imminent arrival of the actual game and not the whistle of the incoming one to two year hype train, but that seems fairly unlikely. Having said that, what we have in the trailer is very promising.  It’s easy to be cynical about the fact that no actual gameplay is featured here, but Human Revolution was announced with a similar trailer and that game mostly delivered on what it promised.  I feel it’s fairly probable that Mankind Divided will do the same.

At its best, Deus Ex is unlike any other game series out there. I slightly fear that the corporate types will demand the game be more linear, more action-oriented, that the focus will shift towards better lighting and particle effects and physics and facial animations and pretty explosions and forget that what made Deus Ex great was first and foremost the story and the world building.  I also slightly fear that the game might once more find itself surrounded by numerous other high profile offerings – Uncharted 4, Quantum Break, a new Elder Scrolls perhaps – and get lost in the shuffle once again.  Still, I’m thrilled to see that the series still has life, that the creative team involved still understands and respects the property and that fans will get at least one more opportunity to live out their cyberpunk, conspiracy busting fantasies.