The prosthetic arm shown off at E3 was placed in a glass case conspicuously at the entrance of the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided press event hosted in San Francisco. All along the walls were a number of posters displaying advertisements and calls to action by the political factions of Deus Ex. During a short presentation, we were given a review of what was available and asked to try to get as far as possible into Mankind Divided despite the generous amount of time we had been given to play.
The decorations and direction of the event seemed meant to immediately immerse us in the world of the game. Each game featured in the presentation, Mankind Divided, Breach, and Deus Ex Go, all featured intertwining plots attempting to build upon the same narrative. You got the feeling Eidos Montreal really had a story to tell. This came through in the opening cinematic in which Adam Jensen and a disgruntled soldier immediately trade barbs on their way to a mission in Dubai featured in the E3 demo.
Developing the world of Deus Ex had been a huge focus for the developers and they really wanted us to see the narrative turns this build had to offer as we pressed on. Some of the themes carried the weight of the sort of societal introspection for which the greatest works of science fiction are known. While I'll be going over the specifics of the gameplay in another piece, the attention to the narrative did its job and I approached my interview with Oliver Proulx and Fleur Marty with a new respect for what the studio was looking to accomplish with the story.
Peter Fobian: Playing Mankind Divided, I noticed the gameplay and controls felt spot on with Human Revolution. Can you tell me a bit about how the game was developed? Was it from the ground up or did you build off the original design?
Oliver Proulx: We had to rebuild a lot of stuff because we changed the game engine, so with the new technology we had to recreate all the game mechanics. In terms of the design direction we definitely wanted to build on the success of Human Revolution. We felt that we have a strong DNA in the franchise that we don’t want to change the nature of, so all the main elements of gameplay are still there, we added more depth to those aspects of the game. The combat is more fluid and easy to control, augments are action-oriented rather than being passive bonuses.
PF: Definitely see a noticeable improvement across the board. Can you tell me about any new features to the gameplay you were really focusing on bringing into the game?
OP: There was no single feature that was our top priority, more of a collection of things we wanted to add to improve the experience. For example, we have crafting now which allows players to modify their weapons and build tools and consumable items to use. Finding crafting materials adds another cool layer of searching for parts, which really drives exploration and adds another layer to the gameplay.
Combat with the new augmentations, with all the new augmentations on Jensen’s arm like the tesla and the nano-blade, and other augments like the Titan, which is a very aggressive armor you activate for heavy combat. The focus on these new augmentations are that they have to be activated so they can be more dynamic and visceral with the tradeoff of energy consumption. We had to make a lot of considerations about how this would work with the controls for both combat and infiltration scenarios.
PF: On the subject of augments, one of the few sticking points I had with Human Revolution was that there was a diversity of strategies you could use to approach problems during the majority of gameplay using upgrades to social interactions, stealth, and tech, but when you got to major boss fights you were put into a combat situation where, if you were focusing on a non-combative build, many of your augments didn’t have much use. Was this a consideration when developing Mankind Divided?
OP: Very much so. There are always production constraints so I think, when Human Revolution was wrapped up, the team knew we didn’t really have the boss fights that we wanted. That came through in the reviews and from the community. That’s why, in the DLC, we included a boss fight that was much more rooted in the environment and the director’s cut we improved the boss fights.
With Mankind Divided, I think we’ve learned our lesson and that the improvements we have included since the original release of Human Revolution have worked well. So that is our approach. Any challenge situations, if you have a stealth or hacker build then the fight may be more difficult, but you can still make use those tools.
PF: Probably the biggest development I have seen with Mankind Divided is in the story which, as a fan of science fiction and cyberpunk, I really appreciate. Both genres have a lot of depth so can you speak a bit about if there were any major inspirations you drew from?
OP: I think the writing team and the art direction teams have become experts and have spent a lot of time researching subjects like transhumanism and emerging technologies. A lot of these themes were established in Human Revolution and Mankind Divided occurs only two years later it’s still set in very much the same world with recurring characters so that gives us a lot to work with.
PF: One aspect of Human Revolution that i thought really made it stand out was the amount of time it spent developing Adam Jensen’s character. Can you tell us a bit on any story or personal developments that you have planned there?
OP: We did a lot of work as Adam as the main character. Mary, our executive narrative director, thought about killing him for a few seconds there. *Laughs* We quickly moved away from that idea but we really looked at Adam and felt that he was a strong, iconic character. He’s evolved, he’s a much more confident Adam Jensen, he’s not the “I didn’t ask for this” Adam which sort of sums him up in Human Revolution.
Now, he wants to use his powers and what he is to counter terrorism and understand what happened in Human Revolution, really dive into the conspiracy and use his tools for the greater good. We want to try to flesh out the character as much as possible, in conversation he is much more assertive and he has an agenda which we think is super empowering for the player. We’ve also paced the game so you can spend a lot more time with Adam as a character. In his apartment there are opportunities to take your time and watch cutscenes of him doing things like watching television and getting a bit introspective or read his emails. For us it was very deliberate to add those slower moments for players to build a relationship with Adam.
PF: Moving over to Breach, I’m very curious about how it was developed. Was this something that was originally supposed to be a component of the main game that was separated or was it created with the intention of being separate?
Fleur Marty: It was separate the whole time. We have a dedicated team that has been working on Breach. Although we are working closely with the core game team, we’re not taking any resources away from them. From the beginning we knew we wanted to make something else. We have that set, single player experience in Mankind Divided our thought was “what else can it give to the players?” There is so much time and effort and energy that are spent developing the core of the game and we wanted to take those systems and look at them in a different way, to twist them and have fun with them. What we did with Breach was remove the weight from the way you play Deus Ex. As Adam Jensen you have to think about what you are doing because it says something about who you are. Are you willing to kill people? If you are, then are their limits? What you are playing Breach, there are not consequences to this action. That’s why we embraced an arcade aesthetic, because it’s a game-y game.
OP: It’s still grounded in the same universe, so you’re infiltrating the systems of corporations that appear in the world of Deus Ex.
FM: It’s taking the opportunity to show players another side of the game that they may not have experimented with in the single player mode. In the main story you spend a lot of time investing a lot of time in your play style, which is fine, but maybe you want to experiment with something else. Hopefully you can bring some of that play back to the main game as well.
PF: So Breach is taking place as a side story developing the universe and Deus Ex and Deus Ex Go will have its own story following some of the events occurring between Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. I’ve noticed these sort of multi-stage, multi-platform releases becoming more common in Japan but it’s fairly new in the west. Working on your components of the release, can you describe the level of involvement you have or if this is a driving factor in your portion of the development?
OP: In this case specifically, what I can talk to, for Deus Ex we build so much lore. It’s a franchise that’s existed for 15 years now after the groundwork was laid by Warren Spector and his team and we really build on top of that. We have something that is really rich, we have an art direction that’s really strong and we have some teams that are very important for exploring that. It feels natural for us to use all this lore and put other things out there for the fans to enjoy.
FM: Also the universe has begun to bleed into reality. Seeing an actual person wearing and using a functioning arm at E3 was an amazing experience. The guys who worked on Human Revolution thought what they were putting into the game, set in 2027, was going to appear in the distant future, but now it appearing today. There’s a model that has prosthetic limbs who is amazing and seeing that when we had commercials set in the game with that sort of thing is unbelievable.
PF: Favorite works of cyberpunk?
FM: Hardwired. I’m a huge cyberpunk reader and it’s a monument of the genre.
OP: I’d have to go back to the classic, Blade Runner. During a period when I was really learning to appreciate movies, I think it was one of the works that really opened my eyes. I’m actually really proud because the remakes is being directed by a fellow French Canadian, so it’s a moment of pride in Montreal.
PF: Combat, social, stealth, or tech?
OP: It’s great being a developer, but with fresh eyes, I like to play stealth. I like to be aggressive and take on the NPCs and AI, the tension of being close to being discovered and figuring out all the controls. Whether or not I kill depends on who I’m dealing with, if it’s cops or the mob. There is nothing in the game telling you whether it’s right or wrong, but I like viewing it through that lense as well.
FM: When I played Human Revolution, I ghosted it. Saving Malik while ghosting was, uh, challenge. I probably loaded that save more times than I’d like to admit. I’m more of an opportunist now and not so much a control freak anymore. I try to sneak as much as possible but, once I’m discovered, I’m all about combat, killing everybody, then going back to stealth.
PF: Alright, guys. Thanks so much.
With my interview time up, I quickly returned to my station to do some more exploration. What had seemed like an excessive amount of play time before turned was quickly running out. The open areas filled with side quests, hidden equipment, and extra flavor for the setting were constant temptations that seemed to swallow up entire hours. I wanted to get as far as possible to see how much of the story I could uncover.
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Peter Fobian is an Associate Features Editor for Crunchyroll, author of Monthly Mangaka Spotlight, and streams on Crunchyroll's official Twitch channel. You can follow him on Twitter at @PeterFobian.
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