“Looking at Invisible War was a cautionary tale”- Eidos Montreal

Deus Ex: Human Revolution designer designer Frank Lapikas says while developing Human Revolution, the development team often looked at Invisible War- the second Deus Ex game- to see what not to do.

“The truth about Invisible War is that I personally did not get as much enjoyment out of it as I did the original Deus Ex,” he said on the Human Revolution Tumblr.

“Looking at Invisible War was a cautionary tale. The game showed us how some apparently simple design decisions such as universal ammo could alter the essence of what Deus Ex is.”

While Deus Ex: Invisible War had all the elements from the original Deus Ex in it, Lapis said the game just “doesn’t feel quite right”.

“It made us realize that it would be very easy for us to screw up Human Revolution. We had a fine line to tread after all,” he continued.

“So in essence we used Invisible War and compared it to Deus Ex 1 in order to operate a ‘course correction’, which means we reverted most decisions in Invisible War in favor of what Deus Ex 1 had done.”

He said the development team took no ideas from Invisible War which weren’t already present in Deus Ex 1. “Doesn’t mean Invisible War was a bad game. But it’s not the game we were trying to live up to.”

Deus Ex: Human Revolution releases on August 23 and August 26 in US and UK respectively. Stay tuned for more info on the game.