Before there was Deus Ex: Human Revolution, there was Deus Ex itself, a seminal cRPG/shooter hybrid that was launched at the dawn of the millennium. Human Revolution and the upcoming sequel, Mankind Divided, have since then tried to stay clear of the original game, trying to not tread on its toes by setting themselves in a time far before that game’s, within the series’ chronology. However, Deus Ex Manking Divided executive art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête believes that the new games might one day come full circle, connecting to the original.
“I think we could totally connect our games exactly to how the first Deus ex went,” he said to OXM. “I think so. it just makes sense. Because you see in the first one, the stage is already set. Gunther and Anna, they’re relics, mechanically augmented, and there are tons of jokes about that in the game – ‘rusty old toasters’, ‘tin cans’ – because the new augmented people are [genetically enhanced] guys like JC Denton and Walton Simons. so the stage is all set.”
He did point out some things that would need to be changed- “There are things we’d need to change because the game was obviously designed in 1998, 1999, so there’s a lot of stuff where the televisions are still a 4:3 ratio, the phones all have lines, there are no real cellphones. Obviously these are things we wouldn’t repeat if we had to redo the first game. But the story itself, the core of what it’s all about – perfectly fine.”
Personally, I would like that. But for now, I am content if Mankind Divided turns out to be every bit as awesome as Human Revolution was, back when it launched.