It’s been a long time since gamers have had a chance to step back into the cyberpunk
themed world of Deus Ex, but with the release of Mankind Divided that’s finally about
to change.
Debuting in 2000, Deus Ex has garnered fans everywhere with its unique blend of stealth,
action and paranoia.
But these themes didn’t appear out of nowhere, so this week we’re going to take a look
at a few things that inspired the franchise and especially Mankind Divided.
We’ll start with what may be the movie that influenced the series the most: Blade Runner.
Based on the Philip K. Dick novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, the 1982 movie
proved to be a cyberpunk classic.
Talking about the influence it had on Mankind Divided, Jonathan Jacques-Belletâte, the
game’s Executive Art Director, said ““Blade Runner” is the first thing you think of
when you think of cyberpunk, especially visually speaking: the clutter, the fog and smoke,
the contrast of shadows and lighting, and the idea of mixing Asian culture and Western
culture.
Blade Runner was a big influence on the look and feel of the game.
Though also the tone.
If you look at how the story in our game is told, and how [our hero] Adam Jensen reflects
sometimes, you can draw parallels with the tone and some of the characters in Blade Runner.”
One thing the Deus Ex series is known for is having a very distinct, stylized look,
with the original game drawing heavily from the trench-coat-and-sunglasses style of The
Matrix, and while that is still a major influence on Mankind Divided, the team also looked to
newer sources when creating the fashion of the game’s characters.
Jacques-Belletâte expanded on this, saying “We actually treated the design of the clothing
like fashion design.
Especially those of Alexander McQueen and Gareth Pugh, who were huge influences on me.
There’s no way I could’ve pulled this off without the influence of those two guys,
their style and their work.”
Alexander McQueen is a British fashion designer known for his strange and futuristic work,
especially with dresses.
Gareth Pugh, another Englishman, is known more for his menswear, which features a lot
of leather and out-there design.
Making both a perfect fit for the Deus Ex Universe.
Jumping from high-fashion to superheroes, it has also been revealed that one of the
biggest sources of inspiration for Mankind Divided was none other than the Marvel’s
Mutant team, the X-Men, specifically the original X-Men movie trilogy.
According to the game’s art director, the developers wanted to focus more on how mankind
fears a new caste of people with powers, saying “It wasn’t a core theme in Deus Ex: Human
Revolution, but it was there, and in Mankind Divided, we’re coming into it in the height
of this divide.
We watched all three movies at the beginning specifically to see how they treated it, and
how we could transpose those ideas to our game.”
And of course, no discussion of the cyberpunk genre would be complete without talking about
legendary author William Gibson, whose book Neuromancer help put the genre on the map.
According to Jacques-Belletâte: “All of his books were a go-to for all the cyberpunk
themes: the paranoia, conspiracies, the megacorporations, all that stuff.
Though I wouldn’t say it was any one book of his, but rather his whole library.”
In fact, Gibson’s work didn’t just help inspire the overall development of the game,
it even inspired specific modes.
According to the team, the new 'Breach’ mode, where you play as an avatar in a computer
system, was based on Gibson’s work.
Specifically the way the author depicted virtual reality.
So it’s safe to say that without the work of William Gibson, Deus Ex would be a very
different series.
Jean-François Dugas, Mankind Divided’s director, has also spoken about what game
inspired him most, and his answer is pretty surprising.
He picked the 1993 Sierra point and click adventure game Gabriel Knight: Sins of the
Father.
Though fairly obscure today, the game was released to great reviews and according to
Dugas: “It had adventure, mystery, intriguing characters and, very importantly, mature plots
about aspects of world history such as voodoo and the lineage of Christ.”
This maturity and character-based drama would later go on to be a driving force in his career,
and what he strives for when creating games.
Okay so usually on this show, we talk about things in the real world which had an impact
on the games we play, but sometimes it works the other way too.
That’s definitely the case with Deus Ex, whose hero Adam Jensen’s prosthetic hand
has inspired a real prosthetic to be created.
According to the development team, they had been receiving positive feedback from gamers
for years about how cool the hand was, when they were approached by prosthetics company
Open Bionics to create one for real people, they jumped at the opportunity.
The idea was clear the team, they “"Wanted something to touch upon high fashion... something
that looks very slick and you could be very proud to wear it”.
And from what we’ve seen of the prototypes, it looks like they’ve succeeded.
No comment showcase this week, but we will leave you with some trivia.
Last week we asked you just how many planets there were in No Man’s Sky and many of you
got it right, it was C) 18 Quintillion.
This week we have a Deus Ex question: in what year is Mankind Divided set?