By Kieron Gillen on November 28th, 2007 at 9:41 pm.
So, we’re going to have a Deus Ex 3 then. As our hefty thread suggests, it’s something we’re all going to be interested in. In fact, with Bioshock 2 at least a couple of years away, this is the next hope for a hefty immersive sim. And we don’t know anything about it.
Except that’s not true. There’s clues out there and I thought a post which actually drags everything together in one place could be useful. From what I can see, there’s three major areas, and we’ll explore each beneath the cut. One, the absolute surface level. Second, the stuff which is buried a little. And thirdly, what we actually know about the developers – which is more than you may expect.
All beneath the cut, obviously. I suspect this may ramble. Oh – some spoilers for the first two games too.
Firstly, the surface. Which is the teaser trailer. If you weren’t here last time, here it is:
(Thanks again, Gamestrailers!)
To summarise: A close-up on a technologically enhanced foetus with a Hollywood-style voiceover:
“For centuries man has struggled to understand his true nature.
What is it which makes us who we are?
Soon, one answer will override all overs.”
Followed by a text logo…
“Who we are is but a stepping stone to what we can become.”
What can we take from that? Well, googling for the phrase without quotation marks brings us to a Girl Guide Ceremony, which I suspect we can reject as a direction unless Eidos Montreal really have a sharp-U turn in mind for Deus Ex. More generally, you can – in the context of the actual foetus – take it all as transhuman or posthuman rhetoric. The dual ideas that humanity’s ability to sidestep the basic evolutionary forces that have driven the world, and actively craft our future selves.
These are key themes which both Deus Ex games touched on, which – as far as it goes – is a good sign. Never forget that the original sole ending for Deus Ex was the merging with the machine and becoming a posthuman God-Empreror AI/Human hybrid, before Spector had other ones suggested to him. Deus Ex derives from Deus Ex Machina – literally, the God from the Machine.
(Er… I know most of you will know this, but I need to follow the working through)
So, at least on the surface, there’s a promise of some key Deus Ex elements.
Second element worth taking apart is the subliminals in the trailer, flashed too rapidly for the human eye to follow. Shacknews, bless their cotton socks, grabbed them all and put them in a gallery, which you can view here.
In the wikipedia age, bright sparks have already identified most of them. Taken from Wikipedia, the current list is…
* Leonardo Da Vinci’s application of the golden ratio to the human head
* A diagram of a logarithmic golden spiral whose growth factor is related to φ
* A drawing of a golden triangle and the golden function written inside it
* The title page of De human corporis fabrica liborum epitome by Vesalius, an image showing an Anatomical Theatre
* Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp by Rembrandt
* An unknown image
* Augmentation detail
* Lament For Icarus by Herbert James Draper
* An x-ray image of a human chest
* Two USG images of the biomodified fetus
* An x-ray image of a human skull
* An image of a couple, with the girl having a mechanical arm
* Prosthetic limbs in a box
* A ballot box for “Biopolitic Vote 2027″,with a voting card with a red X being inserted in it
* A sign saying ‘Augmented people enter from the back’
* A sign saying ‘We do not welcome augmented people here’
* A blurred picture of a street with demonstrants
* Photo of riot police
* An unknown building with a demonstrafion in front of it. One of the demonstrants holds a sign saying ‘No augs’
* Roman numbers III, IV, V and VI, possibly a reference to the decalogue
* A lowercase italic letter ‘h’ and a plus sign in brackets, a symbol used for Transhumanism.
When I decided to do this, I was excited as I suspected I’d hit on something other net commentators hadn’t. I’d seen forums talking about an image of Guy Fawkes. Now, this had me thinking of the most recent populist Guy Fawkes incarnations – the adaptation of Moore and Lloyd’s V For Vendetta. Lloyd’s original idea, which kicked the whole project into the faux-Fawkes area, was that we should actually celebrate Guy Fawkes for attempting to blow up the houses of Parliment. As an anarchist figure, he should be cheered. Which ties in perfectly with the Tracer Tong-end of the Deus Ex political spectrum, trying to demolish modern society into his imagined Syndicalist federation of independent towns or whatever it was.
Except there’s no Fawkes in there at all, and I presume Forum people are mistaking the figures in the Rembrandt (pictured above) for our cheery pro-papist terrorist. Pah.
In a list, the themes are fairly striking – we hit the primary icons of the human body and perfection in nature, with Da Vinci’s work as the perpetual primary shorthand. The other trend is that of social upheval and prejudice – the signs are all deliberately retro, harking back to the more obvious prejudice and societal injustices. The key bit relevant to the plot is the Biopolitic vote of 2027, which places it twenty-five years before the start of the first Deus Ex game.
Which would imply prequel or (as an outside bet, which is a shame, as it’s my preferred option) alternate time-line story.
So – a story which dwells on humans deciding to transform themselves in the near future. It has its possibilities, of course. I can’t help but think they’ve kind of skewed it uninterestingly though – by making the prejudice against enhanced people be so directly linked to racism, they’ve made a game which will really have to go some to have anything looking like balance. I mean, are you going to believe an NPC who’s anti-enhancements when the game is drawing a direct line between that position and the people who got Rosa Parks arrested? DX2 had a similar thing with the Templars, with them clearly being a bunch of nutters leading to a series of genocides. The future which JC offers may be soulless, but at least we’re still alive.
In other words, at the moment, it’s presenting itself as a pro-transhumanist story. Which doesn’t mean it is… just means that, at some level, the creators want us to think it’s pro-transhumanism.
(In passing, it’s worth noting that prejudice is a relative safe theme for a game which is always going to be a bit political. It’s an issue which everyone can mostly agree on. For a game which always was a little bit political, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. But still – early days yet.)
Thirdly, there’s the stuff that’s hiding in plain sight. That is, what we know about the developers. Eidos Montreal are a new studio. While they’re planning to hire 350 people over the new few years - mostly in Development and Quality Assurance, they’re planning to keep teams about the 80 person mark. So in other words, there will be at least four development teams at the studio, eventually. There’s also a list of testimonials from developers working there. Which means we have names, who we can go searching for history on.
(And, as a disclaimer, it’s also worth mentioning that it’s possible that anyone on the site may be in a team working on an unannounced game. And especially worth mentioning, I’m going digging here primarily off Mobygames, which is far from the most reliable source for what games people have worked on.)
Okay – head guy managing studio is Stéphane D’Astous, who’s got a history of management over at Ubisoft. But if we actually look at the teams, the more senior people listed include…
François Lapikas, Senior Game Designer, who’s primarily a Splinter Cell veteran. He says the following about working on DX3…
Deus Ex is a game I played when it came out. As soon as I heard this was happening in Montreal, I had to be part of it! This is the type of game I like to play, it’s a really good challenge. What’s nice is that we’re not starting from scratch. We have a foundation to build on. We already know what worked and what didn’t, and that’s worth gold. The design stage was really great. In the first months of the project, we decided what we wanted to do, and what direction we wanted to take. Things go really smoothly with Jean-François Dugas [the lead designer]. Often, in a video game, people get lost right from the start because they haven’t clearly defined what they want to do, and that can drag on for years: you see projects where people still don’t know where they’re going after a year and half, two years.
Which is a good point, actually. While 18-24 month development cycles (or more), which they claim they’re aiming for at Eidos: Montreal, are fairly long, it’s not as long as – say – DX:IW was in development. No matter what you make of Invisible War, they really were trying to reinvent the wheel and – as a project – was clearly experimental. Reading between the lines, they’re actually trying to make another Deus Ex game.
Two other things – from what all my IS/Looking Glass people have told me over the years, the Splinter Cell team were big fans of their work on Thief and DX, Which may add support to the gushing. Secondly, he gives us the name of the lead designer.
Jean-François Dugas‘s main credits are also over at Ubi – unsurprisingly, due to Ubisoft’s Canadian teams – on the console versions of Far Cry. Here’s an interview with him talking about one. Which, to be honest, is bland as hell and a long way from the high-faluting gubbins we’ve come to expect from Deus Ex designers. Bless them.
Stephan Carmignani is a Senior Level designer, whose main credit is Dead to Rights 2 in the PS2. He says on Deus Ex…
We’re working on an existing franchise, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to come out with a certified copy: gamers would see right through that! We’re going to take what’s good about it – after all, the first game came out several years ago, and games and gamers have changed a lot since – and develop it so that people find it even more interesting.
Finally – and there are more people, but I’m being biased towards the Design-specific ones – Mary Demarle who’s the Senior Narrative Game Designer. She’s got an actually properly written Mobygames page lifted from a profile over on an Ubi site, where she talks about her background in animation and writing on things like Myst III: Exile, Homeworld II and some more Myst games. Actually, a google reveals she too had a hand in a Splinter Cell game. She says the following about Deus Ex:
When I played the first game, I realized that so much of it is centered on the story that it automatically calls for a deep and interesting story line, and that was a big reason for me to want to be here and to work on it. Also the fact that [Eidos] games were very well recognized when they came out and built a lot of loyal fans. The development team saw opportunities to expand those games beyond their initial focus, and that’s always a very interesting challenge: to create another version of something that is much loved, [a version] that will grow beyond it without upsetting the people who love it, and yet will be interesting to people who may not have liked it or may never have heard of it.
So – interesting bunch of people, and if any of them are reading it and fancy a chat about their beliefs about games, drop us a line (Clearly, we know there’s no bloody way the PR would let you talk about the game yet).
Obvious things to note: none of them have worked on a game in any real way like Deus Ex before. Two takes on this.
1) This is an incredibly bad thing. Immersive Sims are one of the hardest things you can do in a videogame. There’s so many options in any situation, getting it all working is just plain monstrous and a lack of experience can be critical.
2) A mixture of professionalism and enthusiasm goes a long way. It’s worth remembering when Blue Sky/Looking Glass were inventing the subgenre, the vast majority of their team were fresh from MIT.
And that’s about all I can dig out for now. My impressions?
I suspect it’ll be a far less ambitious game than Deus Ex was at its time of release. This isn’t a problem – in fact, with the time they appear to be working under and a team who’ve never done this before, I’d hope they aimed a little lower for something which they could hit directly. It’ll be a shorter game than DX1, due to cost of assets, etc. On the brighter side, the ideas which Deus Ex brought to the table are more mainstream now than they were then. While people – understandably – fear a compromised version of the game for the consoles, the Elder Scroll games alone have educated a lot of people of what a more intricate game world can be like. Bioshock, KOTOR, Mass Effect…
So there’s no reason it won’t be good. But, really, I’ll be amazed if it’s Great.
So prove me wrong, Eidos: Montreal. We’re all hoping you do.
28/11/2007 at 22:15 Duncan says:
This is a great post, Kieron.
I think most of Eidos’s moves have been encouraging so far. They made the smart choice in divorcing themselves from the DX/IW continuity, and if the trailer is truly indicative then they have a great premise for a story.
I am a little worried about how the prejudice theme will manifest itself — for a series ostensibly about hard choices this is a remarkably easy one. And I wish they hadn’t drawn the parallel with segregation so directly in the teaser (“Augmented People Enter From The Back”?), but maybe when you have a fraction of a second to make your point you can’t afford to be subtle about it.
28/11/2007 at 22:23 Craig says:
Deus Ex 1 was awesome. I really hope they can pull it together this time and actually make a great game unlike that pile of rubbish IW.
28/11/2007 at 22:32 Phil says:
Boringly I agree with pretty much all you’ve just said, it’ll be smaller, safer but probably still good to great, though Mary’s CV is a little worrying. I’ve tried the various Myst squeals and got bored with all of them all, while Homeworld 2′s narrative couldn’t match the sense of mystery in the original – still, early, early days.
28/11/2007 at 22:36 Ian Dorsch says:
“In fact, with Bioshock 2 at least a couple of years away, this is the next hope for a hefty immersive sim.”
Far Cry 2 and STALKER Clear Sky both look appealing. They’re not exactly FPS/RPGs, but then neither was Bioshock.
As for Deus Ex 3, I remain cautiously optimistic.
28/11/2007 at 22:40 drunkymonkey says:
Apart from Lapikas, the previous credits for the designers make me positively squirm.
Far Cry console games? Pah!
28/11/2007 at 22:41 Kieron Gillen says:
Far Cry and STALKER you can just shoot people and that’s it. In Bioshock, you can shoot people in different ways. It’s the “Different ways” stuff which makes it tricky.
KG
28/11/2007 at 22:42 MedO says:
The music at the second half of the trailer is very Deus Ex 1-ish. Don’t know if the same music was present in Deus Ex 2 because I didn’t play that one very long. However, I would like it very much if they tried to get some of that feel of the first part again, that I’m reminded of by the music – I missed that when starting with the second part. Immersion just didn’t happen for me, and after a bit more than half an hour of playing, I stopped and tried out Doom3… and instantly liked it, so I continued there and never got back to DX2 since.
I know, that’s about one of the hardest (and hardest to describe) aspects of making a game, making it fun and immersive, giving it a smooth feel, but it was somehow so much off in DX2 that it killed the game for me.
28/11/2007 at 22:49 John P (Katsumoto) says:
DX2 did have the same music, just remixed a bit. I doubt very much they will use the same 2000 vintage OGG files in DX3, but I won’t complain if they do!
28/11/2007 at 23:03 Ian Dorsch says:
“Far Cry and STALKER you can just shoot people and that’s it.”
Nonsense! Far Cry 2 has shooting, stabbing and brush fires! And malaria!
28/11/2007 at 23:07 Kieron Gillen says:
I do like that malaria.
STALKER also has much vodka.
KG
28/11/2007 at 23:12 Andrew Doull says:
I sadly predict a section where you have to fight ‘post-humanist monsters’ who’ve gone too far in the transhuman process.
In narrow corridors. With a massive difficulty spike.
28/11/2007 at 23:18 Andrew Doull says:
Any thoughts as to what game engine they’ll be using? Unreal Tournament, CryENGINE2, id tech 5? Source? That’s a fairly tight deadline to come up with a custom game-engine for a AAA title…
Edit: Looks like Ubisoft have their own proprietary 3d engine. Ironically called JADE.
28/11/2007 at 23:32 Ian Dorsch says:
The first two Deus Ex games were of course built on Unreal tech, so if I had to take a wild guess I’d pick UE3. Who knows, though. Seems like Epic usually makes a big announcement when a major developer licenses their engine for something.
28/11/2007 at 23:52 Joe says:
Comparing Deus Ex to Bioshock is a joke, right? I mean, you are kidding? They don’t even deserve to be in the same sentence.
Kieron, I know you’re a massive fan of Deus Ex from your (brilliant) article written a way back, and surely you can’t consider them comparable.
The hype for Bioshock just offends me. Are we that lacking in original, brilliant titles that we have to hype that so much?
29/11/2007 at 00:01 Kieron Gillen says:
They’re vaguely in the same wing of the gallery. I don’t think a compare and contrast serves either of them.
KG
29/11/2007 at 00:42 Flibster says:
Wow, this is just awesome… Hearing the opening of the original Deus Ex theme at the end sent a shiver or two down my spine.
Can’t wait!
29/11/2007 at 01:17 Ging says:
Andrew: “Looks like Ubisoft have their own proprietary 3d engine. Ironically called JADE.”
It’s Eidos Montreal (rather than Ubisoft Montreal) that are making DX3 (there are lots of references to Ubisoft in the article though, bit of brain drain from the looks of things) and Ubisoft came up with a new engine (Scimitar) for Assassin’s Creed. I’d put my money on UE3, with something “home” brewed a close second. I highly doubt they’ll go for Tech 5, Source or CryEngine 2.
The more I think about it, the more it’s likely to be a proprietary, in house engine – the studio is so new that it would be worthwhile writing a solid engine that all their teams can use for future projects (especially if they maintain a core “tech” team that only work on the engine).
29/11/2007 at 01:46 Will Tomas says:
I do rather feel that the original Deus Ex was very much part of its time. You can certainly see the parallels between the aura that surrounded Deus Ex at the time it came out and that which surrounded the first Matrix film before the sequels destroyed that aura. In a sense they were both part of that turn of the millennium mindset, with the growth of the internet and the vague paranoia of the moment. The fact that they were stylistically similar is obvious as well, but they both created the geek zeitgeist circa 2000.
Personally what I’d really love to see is a game do for gaming what Deus Ex attempted with its mechanics and relative depth of story. But for me, as much as I loved the first game, I’d rather see something original that was trying to be as creative as the first Deus Ex. Pity all we’ll get is a watered down sequel.
Although I’m yet to play Bioshock, my not-that-outdated PC sadly lacking Shaders 3. Ah, well. Back to the Valve ensemble…
29/11/2007 at 01:48 Namagem says:
That intro music is just so nostalgic…
I WILL get this game, if it means prostituting myself.
…provided it’s released on PC.
Which, if it isn’t, I may just kill myself.
29/11/2007 at 01:54 JakethePirate says:
The images seem, to me, a history of augmentations starting with our first modern studies of anatomy and ending with “The Collapse” that supposedly followed DX. If that means that DX3 will bet set during the collapse period, I’m very happy.
I preferred the environment in the original to those in IW. The places in DX looked like modern environments with “footure technology” bolted on, which gave then a real grounding in reality. On the other hand, the environments in IW looked like the designer copy and pasted a map from some other generic sci-fi shooter and just added some office furniture and friendly NPCs.
My initial reaction to Hell’s Kitchen was “wow, future New York could look like this”; my initial reaction to The Seattle Enclave was “this isn’t really supposed to be a city, is it?”
Setting it during the collapse would allow them to use DX style aesthetics over IW style aesthetics as well as new plot concepts that aren’t “lol, new Denton! Again!”.
I will say, however, that the apartment buildings in IW were perfect.
29/11/2007 at 02:54 etho says:
I kind of liked IW. It seems like part of the reason it gets such bad press is because of the stunning greatness of the first game. And it’s certainly true that IW was nowhere near as good as DX, I still enjoyed it and thought it was better than many comparable games at the time(except, of course, DX).
Now, that’s not to say I want another game like IW. I would much rather that DX3 be as stunningly great as the first game, and as little as we know about it, I’m still comfortable hoping for that. But even if it’s not as mind bogglingly awesome as Deus Ex, I’ll still be happy if it’s just good.
29/11/2007 at 07:10 James T says:
Much as I’m trying to retain my skepticism, I’m absolutely delighted that a few ex-Splinter Cell people are on this gig (and that they’re obviously ex-Montreal rather than Shanghai). ‘Chaos Theory’ was the first new game I played after discovering DX (I was a latecomer to DX, obviously), and I loved getting that dose of updated stealth gameplay immediately after enjoying the admittedly outdated stealth mechanisms/AI of DX. If the DX3 team can muster up the talent and ambition to create a game as versatile as DX1 and as slick and successful in its approach as CT, then I’m so very sold.
(Yes, I know that’s a big ‘if’)
29/11/2007 at 09:53 roryok says:
I know IW didn’t quite live up to the greatest game of all time, but calling it a “pile of rubbish” might be going a bit far. It wasn’t a bad game, it just wasn’t as good as Deus Ex. And in fairness, Deus Ex is often recognised as The greatest game of all time. It tops most of those “greatest games of all time” chart things that magazines do to draw a few readers.
On another note, any chance of RPS doing its all “Top PC games of all time” bit? Maybe something different, top failed games, top unknown games, or something like that?
29/11/2007 at 11:31 simonkaye says:
I have to say, possible in betrayal of everything this site stands for: If DX3 is console-only, I’m sure as hell buying a console.
But maybe that’s what they want? Maybe they think that DX’s medium sized yet rabid fanbase will jump ship? Maybe it’s just a ploy to get us onto the carpet floor with all the other gamers?
And what does MJ12 have to do with all of it?
29/11/2007 at 12:33 Homunculus says:
Development team that didn’t work on the original seeking to recapture its desirable qualities for the third installment.
So, optimistically, this’ll be the Two Thrones of the series then.
29/11/2007 at 12:45 Kast says:
I think it’s time to dig out the only thing that will satisfy DX fan boys like me…
Deus Ex itself.
29/11/2007 at 14:58 Feet says:
I reckon I’ll install IW and give that another go. It’s been a long while. Maybe it’ ll have grown old gracefully.
29/11/2007 at 15:06 Garth says:
I think the major thing the developers, creators, etc. of Deus Ex are going to come up against is just how much of an impact the original Deus Ex had on the people who played it. As has been mentioned, just that little bit at the end of the trailer where the theme from the original is played. It brings up so much emotion in we, the rabid fanbase, that clearly the impact it had was enormous.
Think about it; what part of the original Deus Ex failed to instill in you some kind of awe at the time. Even things like the importance of stealth – it wasn’t a priority, it was a necessity. No game before, or after, had the sheer amount of customization involved as Deus Ex. You could modify the starting pistol with an extra six (?eight?) rounds, one at a time; you could add a laser-sight; you could add a range increase; you could add a kickback reducer; you could add… and so on. It got to the point where you had tailored every part of the game to your playstyle. I never had another person play even close to the way I did. The starting level had, what, five ways to complete it? You could steal every single credit possible in the game, or avoid that entirely. You could avoid killing at all costs and be a hero to your brother, or kill everything that moved and be loved by your co-workers. You could step on a vacuum-machine and have it spark and make irritated noises at you.
And this was all done in 1999. No game since has come close to Deus Ex, and I doubt this game will. It would require a huge production backing, in terms of time, that I don’t think they’ll be allowed. But by God, they could do it.
I think it’s a great thing they are using relatively new staff. They won’t be jaded and robotic in their production. They have something to prove.
29/11/2007 at 16:10 Crispy says:
29/11/2007 at 16:11 Jim Rossignol says:
Crispy, did you want all that to be in blockquote?
29/11/2007 at 16:22 Man Raised By Puffins says:
The ballot box only has the words “Biopolitic vote” on it in the Gametrailers version, but the date is clearly visible on the original teaser. Clearly some manner of slap-dash cover-up has been perpetrated here.
As for DX3 itself, I’m cautiously awaiting it in the same way as I am with Fallout 3 (although with perhaps slightly less optimism).
29/11/2007 at 16:23 Kadayi says:
One of the aspects I admired about DX was the fact that despite the limitations of the Unreal engine, the developers did try and convey a sense of the player being within City environments. The greatest disappointment for me with regard to IW was that the opposite was true. IW was full of near empty bars, coffee shops, animal fights & streets, because of poor engine choice and it just detracted from any sense of immersion for me personally. I hope the developers of DX3 chose an engine that can handle numerical complexity in terms of NPCs and AI, and deliver the crowded city streets & locations the original game aspired to, rather than one that concentrates purely on graphical splendour (if you’ve the rig to run it) at the expense of everything else.
29/11/2007 at 18:36 Mitch says:
Good article! DX had something no other game has done as well at. Namely, complex puzzle solving by the use of dialogs garnered through seemingly innocent and random encounters with NPC’s and AI. While playing, you always had to pay attention to what was said/overheard and you had to evaluate the relative merit of the information source. This blended so well with the stealth aspect of the game. I remember having to go back and read prior dialog to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. As well, I remember I learned to not kill too fast because information could be lost. Great game!
29/11/2007 at 19:21 Zeio says:
Common ammunition in DXIW: suck. Weapons: suck. No skills system: stupid. Less biomods: dumb. Biomod efficacy: ranges from complete uselessness to moderately useful – sucked. Real choices actually effecting outcome, few and far between and more near the endgame. Weapon modes, a lot of mutual exclusion and mostly suck. Ammo consumption of the useful weapons: alarmingly high, even with mods. Hacking terminals defocused – dumb. Encumbrance / inventory system – complete trash, it was a horrible setback going from DX to DXIW in terms of game play with the total loss of a useful inventory system. Readable content related to the storyline (newspapers, computer hacks, etc): complete trash in DXIW. Depth of world (desire to look under every pillow to find everything: nearly zero in DXIW )
I have never seen a game fo from such highs in DX to such horrible lows in DXIW. Everything that made DX great was either excluded or nerfed in DX.
They seriously would do well to simply update the DX to UT2004 or better, and simply add content with the same characters, and forget what they are doing now. I have little faith.
Without Warren Specter, this thing is doomed. I really feel bad how they are destroying the Deus Ex name and how they cater to horrible console play.
29/11/2007 at 21:58 Vilhelm says:
I’m very dissapointed at the total lack of actual theories in this article!
29/11/2007 at 22:47 Will Tomas says:
JC Denton is the G-Man.
29/11/2007 at 23:18 Patrick Bateman says:
Wishlist:
- DON’T make it some crappy “stealth” themed game (stealth should be an option but not the dominant one) – all those Splinter Cell people worry me
- DO restore the sheer scale of the original
- DO basically make a version of Oblivion set in a near future techno-dystopia with overtones of Blade Runner and Syndicate and with a slightly more coherent plotline… god that would be awesome
- DO make sure that FANS test it and feel that it is genuinely faithful to the original game
- DO make it run on a reasonable rig – the art and design is much more important than using an utterly high end engine
- DON’T design it for use on a console… do that later if you must, once a great PC game is complete
29/11/2007 at 23:29 CrashT says:
My mind simply refuses to accept that this will be anything other than fundementally disappointing.
30/11/2007 at 00:04 Patrick Bateman says:
Oh, and let me echo the sentiments of those saying that comparing Deus Ex 1 to Bioshock is like comparing… something really great to something really over-rated.
DX with Bioshock graphics… now that’d be something…
30/11/2007 at 01:39 Crispy says:
No, I just suck at HTML. I was actually trying to quote what KG said about the Bioshock-STALKER comparison.
30/11/2007 at 03:31 Garth says:
“DO basically make a version of Oblivion set in a near future techno-dystopia with overtones of Blade Runner and Syndicate and with a slightly more coherent plotline… god that would be awesome”
You want huge cities with more guards than named NPC’s?
I found Oblivion to be bizarrely barren of actual people. Also, enemy level scaling with yours? Bad. Level scaling system itself (if you chose stealth as a primary, you poor bastard.) Bad.
I’m hoping this game is done with the feel of Deus Ex. As long as it has the same feel, I’ll be at least happy.
30/11/2007 at 03:36 halycon404 says:
Really, if they can just get weapon balanace, and all the alternative advancement stuff in.. I’ll be happy. Half the fun of the original DX is they built these huge sweeping 3d levels that go up multipul stories. Then trying to break it, adding X Biomod with Y Skill, and a well loaded out version of Z weapon. The original DX was almost a sandbox game I felt in its design. There was a plot, and an important one, but how you went about doing whatever you did, was completely up to you. There were multiple paths to completion and not every one was always available if you hadn’t built your character for that type of play. It gave the game so much depth and replay value.
30/11/2007 at 19:19 CrashT says:
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50146
30/11/2007 at 22:05 cHeal says:
Well it ain’t gonna be too pretty if that is the case.
01/12/2007 at 02:06 Crispy says:
So Eidos are using the same engine they have already used to make Tomb Raider: Umpteenth Edition.
…aaaaand because they are familiar with porting it to the XBox 360 and other consoles. I just wonder whether it will be a Bioshock or an Invisible War.
01/12/2007 at 14:42 Tom says:
Deus Ex 3 will be an incredible difficult game to produce I’d imagine simply due to it’s themes.
The teaser instantly made me think of Ghost in the Shell 2 and the philosophies being explored in that film, and personally I’d say that’s it. Those themes are what make Deus Ex Deus Ex.
The original Deus Ex, although still an amazing example, probably isn’t the best game to judge a 2008/9 game on.
But to make Deus Ex 3 work it’ll need crowd scenes like Ass Creed has, the city scapes and detail of Bladerunner or Ghost in a Shell 2. Bladerunner if you want that real dirty kinda sci-fi where technology and society has blended in to one mass, over-populated mess with back street hackers, ninjas and nano-tech or GitS for that more clinical and apparent separation of class from technology which i think would be a far more interesting. And that’s the problem really. The original was so huge for it’s time that Deus Ex 3 is going to have to be equivalently huge for it’s time. God i hope they do it! LOL. Can’t help but get excited! Basically I just want to be able to explore the world of GotS 2.
Another interested reference could be the ol’ System Shock 1 inspired fan novel Free Radical. Obviously not the entire book, just the beginning corp. infiltration and the end air port scenes if it’s going to be a prequel. Well worth the read everyone – http://www.shamusyoung.com/shocked/
Even if you just read the beginning and the end.
01/12/2007 at 14:52 CornerUnitSofa says:
I enjoyed Project Snowblind a lot more than Invisible War. PS being developed by Crystal Dynamics, and so, using an earlier version of the same engine, I believe.
All this has happened before and will happen again
01/12/2007 at 17:01 Namagem says:
My biggest worry is putting this game one such a dated engine, even if they plan to update it for DX3.
03/12/2007 at 02:23 rb_lester says:
Personally i found the TRA engine quite detailed and appealing, i liked a good chunk of the lighting and the physics arn’t bad.
If this game isn’t done right there will be hell to pay.
04/12/2007 at 12:04 Uriel says:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3164708
Looks like it’s a really long way off. They’re saying PC and ‘next gen’ not ‘current gen or last gen’ consoles. Could the PC be the primary platform after all.
They’re brave by the way. Those boys have just gone and invited all the crazed Deux Ex fans onto their forums already…
05/12/2007 at 11:46 Henni says:
heh, I was reading this off a link without paying attention to the site. I was thinking “Not bad for a fanboy blogger, this”, and the first comment made me realise it was KG.
Great post- Like most Deus Ex fans I’m approaching this cautiously. In particular, playing Mass Effect made me appreciate that the way forward (on this generation of consoles) is not to “upgrade” your ambitions to scale on the new machines, but to pick out a core experience and do it well. The reprieve, for DX3, then, is that if the devcos are likely to be forced into making a solid but less ambitious Deus Ex they might actually nail the original’s legacy.
05/12/2007 at 18:46 Garth says:
I’d recommend anyone who enjoys the English language avoid the Deus Ex 3 forums. They are… an affront to at least three of my five senses.
I did make a post, however. I’m hoping seeing a post written by someone who can spell two words in a row correctly will help put forth the idea that Deus Ex fans can put words together into sentences, those sentences into paragraphs, and so on.
09/12/2007 at 01:06 CHUH says:
It has been confirmed that the game will be developed using the Crystal Dynamics Engine, which was originally used for the games Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend and Project: Snowblind
12/12/2007 at 23:33 Leon says:
I’m concerned that it’s their first production. DX:IW suffered from being the fall-guy to the (slightly) more refined Thief 3. KG has already picked up on the commercial challenges of emergent gameplay, so I’d expect this game to be a safer AAA FPS / RPG based on augmentation, with a more scripted story but selected opportunities for player agency, not dissimilar to but probably less than DX1.
My real hope is that they manage significantly more expansive environments than many games of late. In some ways the dev links to Far Cry give me hope, but the tight dev schedules (even their 24 month ones) probably won’t allow that either.
All this points to a tighter, less radical and smaller game than DX1 and away from the even braver but costlier and less successful DX:IW. Not necessarily a bad thing, but as KG says: not ‘great’ either.
15/12/2007 at 01:30 Davo says:
http://www.eegra.com/pages/show/title/12_12_2007_Feature__Deus_Ex_3_and_the_Things_What_Should_Be_in_There/
and
http://www.eegra.com/pages/show/title/11_10_2007_Great_Moments_in_Videogame_Voice_Acting__Deus_Ex/
15/12/2007 at 01:38 sillyboobooindeed says:
sorry :-/
18/12/2007 at 22:30 matte_k says:
hmmm… seeing the post higher up made me think it’s about time someone got off their arse and updated syndicate for the current console/pc tech. I know i said elsewhere on RPS that sequels are usually not as good as the first instalments, but there are exceptions to the rule…
15/01/2008 at 19:38 Jeff says:
I’m not sure how anyone could make a sequel to Deus Ex to begin with. It seemed to me like the game ended with nothing left to develop, plot-wise. Sure, there were loose ends to tie up, but nothing worth playing through. Also, what was great about Deus Ex was that it was set in the NEAR future with somewhat reasonably believable technology. Finally, what made Deus Ex feel a bit more real to me was that much of it was taken directly from real world conspiracy theories (The Illuminati, Majestic 12, RX 84, etc.).
With so many of these key elements necessarily lacking in a sequel, it’s no wonder that DX:IW went so far astray.
20/01/2008 at 13:40 Drew says:
I don’t agree with your assessment that DXIII will be a prequel. Or at least, it doesn’t HAVE to be. I think it would be more interesting if the Biopolitic Vote 2027 was a delayed catalyst for the events of the game. Maybe flashback to the days preceding and following the Biopolitic vote, but put it in a context to further the Deus Ex story beyond the second game rather than add the “Oh, so THAT’S how that came about” element to the first two games. The structure of the story should be such that the present and the past inform one another and just add more layers, context and weight to the events of the present. Show us exactly how the DX world has deviated from our own. Or show us how our world is heading for the events prophesied in the games. Regardless, the history we see in the trailer should be repeating itself in the game’s present. THAT would be interesting to me.
Of course, if the gameplay was crap…
20/01/2008 at 14:07 Kieron Gillen says:
I’ll stand by what I said at the end of DX1 – I’d throw the whole universe in the bin and start from scratch in a contemporary setting, and do the Final Fantasy approach to sequels. What’s the point of a Conspiracy-based game when you know so much going in?
KG
20/01/2008 at 14:25 WCAYPAHWAT says:
you also used to stand by your salut’s, kieron.
25/01/2008 at 14:21 Heavyarms says:
As it is looking like a prequel to DX it would be nice to be Paul Denton doing whatever he did just before DX. it would mean alot of established chars could be used as well as locations.
i hope the engine choice will mean story is a driving factor not graphics as the original wasn’t that graphically advanced for its time but you could run it on a normall rig.
i can only hope they get close to the atmosphere and immersion of the 1st title. IW was just a waste of time and effort it took the story to the wrong places with no feel of the original. very conceerning about the people so far involved with its design i hate splinter cell with a passion (almost as much as i hate IW) but its early days and i really want this to be a good game.
11/02/2008 at 19:17 ThomasinaCei says:
Most games these days are really short games (like Portal and Dark Messiah: Might and Magic), so I expect Deus Ex 3 to be short. I am hoping that they bring back the interactive part of Deus Ex by letting you input the codes, usernames and passwords. How cool was that to do in Deus Ex? Especially since no other game was really like that… I’m not too sure if I want Deus Ex inventory or a more life like inventory like getting gun holsters and using your pockets or spots on your belt for bioelectric cells (if they are still involved in this game). But yeah those are my views lol they’re terrible, oh well!
P.S. I hope i wont need a whole new computer to run this game. I understand i’ll prolly have to upgrade from a P4 3Ghz., a Nvidia GeForce NX6600, a motherboard found at your local school/library and 2 Gbs. memory. I just hope i wont have to buy like a quad processor m/b and put like 4 gigs and a brand new ATI or NVIDIA video card to get the game running lol.
14/02/2008 at 10:23 Alex says:
My pearls of wisdom in terms of recapturing the magic of DW1 -
BIG BIG BIG BIG BIG MAPS
Massive variety of pick-upable objects and interactive things
Never for a second speak down to the audience. Some of us actually read all 38 walls of the Neverhood Hall of Records. And some of us loved reading all the literature in DW1 as much as the sniping and bomb throwing.
Make the game open ended but don’t overextend yourselves. Sometimes the small details are more enjoyable than the large – when you got snapped for entering the womens toilets, you felt like the world actually was real. Having that simple effect was just as valuable as allowing you to kill or not kill an npc.
BIG MAPS AND EXPLORATION = REAL WORLD SIMULATION
BIG MAPS
LOTS OF NON-ESSENTIAL EXPLORABLE AREAS
LOTS AND LOTS
Extremely in-depth npc dialogue writing. I want to be able to talk to a random person who’s house I’ve broken into about the ethics of breaking in for 10 minutes if I want to!
26/03/2008 at 10:22 andrew says:
keeping the maps to all real places in the world was totaly awsome about dx1, IW sucked at that.
thats it its all about the real world links and belivibility which was so awsome in dx1. IW was a bit look at me i shoot plasma outa my ass and cars fly in the sky. AND FFS have individual ammo for wepons – WTF WAS THAT?
What made DX1 totaly awsome which u have 2 bring back…
the plot was cool and imersive, how you got to see both sides of the story – eg. the poor people on the street and the corupt goverment powers and there opinions, this gave the player a real reason 2 play on and fight. getting ur hands dirty and finding stuff out for yourself is cool.
getting totaly tricked into beliving unatco was doing the right thing at the start was intense -u gotta have sweet plot twists FTW.
doing stuff for homless bums, random chaps that sing the natinal anthom, want u to kill them or just want 2 dance with u. the npc all had there own storys in dx1 and the books/diarys linked in with it. – that was totaly awsome.
cool books and newsarticals everywhere which told you extra stuff about the plot and what was going on, but also other random stuff that give u an idea of other stuff hapnen in the world unrealated.
non linier plot and explorable areas. And a LOOONG game – screw graphics, make it on the dx1 engine and ill pay $150 idc.
26/03/2008 at 10:32 andrew says:
btw i actualy think u guys making dx3 have got the point about what we all like about dx1 by the way you made the trailer – it doesnt say HEY HERE I AM THIS IS WHAT IM ALL ABOUT, it makes u draw ur own conclusions and read into it. i like it and have great hopes for what u are gona do.
31/03/2008 at 09:24 Me says:
Let’s see if it turns out to be more than great escapism… who needs another Deus Ex Reloaded?
02/04/2008 at 15:09 Hélder Pinto says:
I dunno if I should be exited or with low hopes for this one.
When i first heard TR engine for a DX game? :(
But then, I thought that maybe, maybe they can actually do something out of it.
Just bring back the Hacks, the f1 to f12 augs, the plot, the NPC’s conversations, the scramble grenades, the survailance bots, the possibility to hack PC’s or use a login, keypads.
I hope Eidos wont screw this up, I hope they DID played DX1 aloooot, because that’s what fans want to see, a game that reassembles the original game.
Good luck
23/05/2008 at 20:12 SMS says:
I think that this game will be a very good addition to DX1 and DXIW. But the graphics won´t be so good!
28/05/2008 at 07:01 Michael says:
Why wouldn’t they be? I can’t imagine they’d be worse than the graphics of Deus Ex.