Mankind Divided shocked me. It’s the latest instalment of my favourite series. I excitedly
booted it up the moment it was released. And yet it took me MONTHS to finish. Never before
have I had that with a Deus Ex game. Usually I’m glued to the screen, day in, day out,
until I reach the end. So what was different this time? Well, maybe I’m just getting
old. But as much as I enjoyed Mankind Divided, it took so much willpower to load it up when
I could be doing something more instantly gratifying instead, like GTA, Shadow of Mordor
or… browsing dank memes. You can’t just pick Deus Ex up and play it. You have to think
about your actions and the consequences that they’ll have. And for the first playthrough
at least, this game was hard work. But it’s worth the investment.
You see, I wanted to play this game right. You don’t get a new Deus Ex game every year
so I wanted to savour this one. I replayed that training level at the beginning over
and over. Experimenting with different play-styles, different weapons, different augmentations.
I wanted to learn the game’s mechanics. What I could get away with and where to draw
the line. The moment I reached the end of this segment I’d tease myself by starting
again. I did this for hours, feeling I was being left behind by everybody else who was
probably already racing through the main storyline. But I wanted to do it right before entering
the main hub. But here’s the thing. I still don’t feel
I’ve played this game ‘right.’ After having invested dozens of hours into this
game I still feel I’ve barely scratched the surface and that I’m in no position
to review it! Only to give you my impressions of it. There are so many augmentations I haven’t
used, so many side missions I haven’t completed. I’ve barely touched the crafting system!
I spent all game collecting parts in the fear I’d require them later on, then much like
I did with elixirs in Final Fantasy… I didn’t. There are always enough alternative methods
to do anything you want to in this game. It’s massive. Not necessarily longer, but far broader
than the previous games. And this was the highlight for me.
Indeed, the game properly starts once you reach City 17- oh sorry, I mean Prague. But
it’s pretty much Half Life 2, complete with a woman called Alex and an oppressive police
state that can be seen almost everywhere. Throughout the game you can feel the tension
as you’re stopped at every checkpoint and harassed into showing them your papers. It’s
a real step back for civilisation. A knee-jerk reaction from the state once they realise
how out of control technology has become. But the joke’s on them ‘cos you’re a
super soldier who can bypass everything and evade checkpoints via incredible parkour!
It’s at this point that the game opens up and up and up and up- more than ever before
from a Deus Ex game- until you’re drowning in things to do. It’s as overwhelming as
those first few hours on Skyrim. Forget Hong Kong from the first game. Prague’s city
hub is unprecedented in scale, teeming with optional side-quests and places just to explore.
And the key-word is ‘optional’. You can spend as little or as long as you like here.
But you can’t help but explore beyond the beaten path and it could easily be dozens
of hours before you even pick up the main storyline.
And it would be a shame to ignore this freedom. This game is boring at times, but it’s Deus
Ex at its best when it gives you a sandbox and lets you run with it and that moment I
stepped into Prague I was like a child again! I promised myself that I’d take this play-through
seriously. That I’d play as though I was Adam Jensen. Yet as I entered what can only
be described as this game’s UNATCO, something all-too-familiar happened. The whole place
got hacked. Every vent was explored and half the employees found random props raining down
from above them. Oh Deus Ex, it’s good to be home.
There were some moments where it surpassed even how much I enjoyed the first game. My
biggest regret is only that I couldn’t have experienced this game 15 years ago. I have
fallen in love with this game’s rendition of Prague. Its grand buildings and dark, dirty
interiors. For a futuristic game it’s surprisingly reserved. Don’t expect moon bases or nanotube
cities. This is a much more believable look at the near-future.
The optimistic technological renaissance of Deus Ex Human Revolution (set 2 years before
this game) is long gone. Following that game’s cataclysmic events, people have grown weary
of future advancements and have slammed on the brakes of progress. I’d go as far as
to say that it’s gone in reverse since the exciting piss-stained future of the prequel.
But I don’t care. Deus Ex is the one depiction of the future
that I care about, in part because it is so believable. Instead of being some unrelatable
future utopia, this series has always tried to tackle issues that we could be facing in
the not-too-distant-future. Today’s stuff hasn’t been torn out and replaced with new
shiny structures. Because why would that happen? Instead, the old stuff remains in place, occasionally
contrasted against something futuristic that has sprung up. In the previous game it would
have been a second city built on top of the first. In this one, you’re lucky if you
find a futuristic advertising billboard. I marvelled at these juxtapositions as I wondered
around the streets, feeling like a real tourist since all of the NPCs in the game behave as
though it’s nothing special. Because I guess for them it isn’t. I also liked how they
all seemed to have their own opinions on augmentation. Some are sympathetic, very few are downright
nasty. The world of Mankind Divided is depressing but very believable. It’s hard to hate most
people in this game since they all have their reasons for being the way they are.
Indeed, one of the most futuristic looking things in this game is the Burj Khalifa, a
structure that already exists! But this is to be expected: this is the closest Deus Ex
has ever been to the present day, set just 13 years in the future! To think we’re speeding
towards a year where things might be similar to these games just… takes my breath away.
It’s exciting and a little scary. Come 2029 I’ll be roughly the same age as Adam Jensen.
He could have first gamed on a Playstation 1 in the 90’s and lived a very similar life
to the one that I’ve lived, though I suspect with fewer dank memes. Sometimes he can just
be so cold. But so would I in this dystopian future. One
where people have lost faith in science and have turned to the occult. There’s definitely
a more ‘spiritual’ feeling to this game’s environments and quests. It really feels like
the end times are approaching, complete with mass suicides and hidden shrines within unassuming
buildings. Don’t expect the same enthusiasm about progress as the other games have had.
But I’m liking this reserved style. In fact, I think the game’s storyline compliments
this nicely. Others have complained that it’s on a much smaller scale than past games. You’re
not trying to save the world, globetrotting between exotic places every mission. You’re
effectively a policeman investigating a crime scene. Personally, I don’t care. The scale
may be smaller but the world feels bigger than ever. Deus Ex has shown that doesn’t
need to be grand in scale to be… Deus Ex. Indeed, I feel this game’s main hub is like
what the first game aspired to be, were it not for technical limitations. You could spend
hours exploring the streets and sewers, breaking into houses and assisting in side-missions.
It took me longer than it should have to realise that within the hubs there wasn’t a single
loading-screen in sight! This may be a small change but it vastly improves how immersive
this game is. You can no longer evade guards by hopping across a level boundary. And those
buildings feel more like buildings than closed off mini-levels. Mankind Divided is one of
the most connected games I’ve ever played and I hope that more games follow its lead.
The team behind this game should be proud of themselves. They’ve done Warren Spector
proud. And once again this is aided by an incredible
soundtrack. For me, McCann’s music has become an essential part of the Deus Ex experience.
There are a number of fantastic tracks of a similar style to those from Human Revolution.
The soundtrack is well worth buying separately. But it’s also integrated into the game very
well. It provides memorable tracks for key locations and events. But it also knows when
to stay in the background, providing ambient chords and encouraging drumbeats that manage
to add to the experience without ever being a distraction. 2029 wouldn’t be the same
without his music playing from every speaker. Even when I’m fumbling about in a hostile
environment, his techy beats reassure me that I’m still a super secret agent and not some
guy messing up a simple task. I also love how it’s in time with background music found
throughout Prague. It can’t just be coincidence. I believe this game’s music contributes
massively to what I love so much about this game. I can only hope that Michael McCann
remains the composer for future titles, I really don’t know any one better suited
to the task. If I had long enough fingers to reach him wherever he is right now I’d
stroke his head in respect. Really can’t praise him enough. He’s wonderful. Amazing.
Brutal. Savage. Rekt. The thrill of breaking into a place. Of knowing
where you belong, and knowing that the NPCs respect this. 16 years have passed and Deus
Ex is only doing exploration more sexily than ever. At its worst, this game can be a bit
dull. But at its best, when some of its many elements combine then it can be magical. For
example, I spotted an inaccessible high-up apartment and somehow botched my way up there,
breaking the game’s level design! That is, until I realised that I was allowed to enter
and to explore it like anywhere else in the city. I could almost TASTE the atmosphere!
I was getting serious flashbacks of the Hong Kong and Hell’s Kitchen areas from the original
game. And despite my best intentions I’m slipping
into my old quick-saving habits. I can’t help it. When you’re detected through no
fault of your own, why should you have to fight your way out when a quick-load will
restore balance to the world? One occasion I remember well was breaking into some dodgy
dealer’s toilet through the vent system – classic Deus Ex- yet somehow they were
all alerted immediately. Fortunately I glanced at the minimap and saw them all queuing for
the toilet with their guns out and I beat a hasty retreat. Followed by a quickload,
because I swear it wasn’t my fault. Another highlight, and perhaps the ultimate
one for me actually, was the bank. Just across the road from that place I was tasting the
atmosphere of, actually! And just like it, it’s an optional location that you may miss
entirely. I felt like I was playing a level from Hitman, gradually gaining access to more
and more of it until the entire building was my playground. I was in my element. I just
wanted somebody to show this to. At one point I was casually hacking a computer system in
what I thought was an empty room, only to hear a guard casually telling me that ‘sorry
you can’t do this sir’… immediately followed by a hail of bullets and the alarms
sounding! A game hasn’t had such an impact on me since the first Deus Ex… and maybe
even before that. It just came together so nicely. A building with its own set of rules
and regulations and a million pointless offices just waiting to be explored. It was like the
Police Station from Human Revolution but on steroids.
Everywhere you visit in this game feels like a real, lived-in place that in the not-too-distant
future may be uncannily close to our own reality. You can tell that the team behind this game
really cared about it, giving every place its own backstory and small touches that I’m
pretty sure 99.9% of players will walk past and think nothing of. This place is alive,
bubbling over with details. You can hack computers to read emails, but they’re mostly pointless.
You can read newspapers, but they’re useless too. But at the same time, these are what
make this game a work of art, going far beyond what was required to craft a believable world.
The only thing that annoyed me was how every TV show seems obsessed about a 12 year old
boy who was voted for president. I picked this out time and time again when exploring.
Fortunately this talented game development team has been given an equally impressive
game engine to work with. With the exception of the RAM-starved Invisible War game, I believe
this is the first time that a Deus Ex game has had cutting-edge graphics. When turned
up to max it really does look like it did in the early preview screenshots. Almost pre-rendered,
or stylised in photoshop. This is all thanks to PBR, a spooky new technology where the
computer decides how things should be lit and so on. It gives the visuals an eerily
reflective yet somewhat grainy quality and compliments the futuristic setting nicely.
Just be sure to enable subsurface scattering or it looks as though Adam Jensen has AIDs.
The downside of this is that you need a computer from the future to be able to run it. My DinoPC
is kind of a big deal. It’s really fast and everything. But even I had to say good
bye to running this game smoothly at 4K, even on lowest settings. This game is pretty and
all that but it doesn’t justify this level of slow-down. Also, this engine suffers from
an irritating amount of mouse-lag, even if you do manage 60 fps. It wasn’t until I
jumped to an HD screen and hundreds of FPS that it felt as responsive as it could have
been. So in short, this game demands high framerates but won’t let you have them.
Way to go, Deus Ex. Real good of you. I’m not too keen on the animations either.
Adam enthusiastically flails his head and body around mid-conversation and it’s really
off-putting. Give me the reserved stances of Human Revolution over this any day.
But these faults didn’t stop me from enjoying my time with the game. What almost did was
the fear that I’d never finish it. That beginning hub is so big and sprawling! I forgot
what I was supposed to be doing and instead began to care far too much about the play-through.
I began wanting to 100% complete it, perfectly hacking everything first time and maxing the
EXP rewarded by taking down guards in the RIGHT WAY. And I didn’t want to become a
quick-save enthusiast. Not again. So I forced myself to start again and to avoid
the side-missions completely, instead grinding through the main campaign to the end, accepting
my mistakes and shortcomings as part of the experience. And I’ve got to say, I think
this is the weak part of the game. Plus, and this is an confession- I don’t think I enjoyed
it as much as if I had quick-saved my way through. In a way I’m pleased that I failed
that chat-sequences and that people I wanted to save got killed, as though this is the
way the game’s meant to be played. And these scars on my play-through are certainly an
incentive to play through it again but better. But at the same time I felt I was ruining
the game by being a mediocre and flawed character. And don’t even ask me what I think of the
storyline. Believe me, I tried to keep up but I’ve always struggled to follow plots
the first time I play a game. I see them as a necessary evil to give your character a
reason to do what he does rather than as an actual reason to play the game. And sure enough,
although I gave it my best and stuck religiously to the main campaign, it wasn’t long before
I forgot who was who, who I was doing things for and why I was infiltrating generic factory
number 3. I feel I got the gist of it, but I didn’t understand it enough to appreciate
the potential consequences of any choices I made. And even now the game is over, I don’t
think I could name all those loose ends that everybody else has been complaining about.
I just wasn’t paying enough attention. Though I guess my playthrough was spread over several
months. But even with this, I was disappointed with
the characters. You’re introduced to some pretty memorable characters early on, only
for them to disappear for most of the game. I wondered if this was just me but it seems
that other reviewers have had the same experiences. A lot of this game is too brief or simply
undercooked. I will play through this game again and I will familiarise myself with more,
but it certainly feels like large chunks of the game were planned and then removed. I
wouldn’t call them loose ends. Just… underwhelming compared with how it could have been.
Personally, I didn’t pay attention to the whole DLC thing. I even waited until the game
had been reviewed before buying it, forgoing all those pre-release bonuses! I regret nothing.
I chose the basic game and have judged it on that. I didn’t feel that extra weapons
or praxis kits would have made the game better and I don’t want to encourage that sort
of DLC by paying extra for it. But I will say the main characters’ story arcs felt…
incomplete. And in a way I’d be happier that this was just a flaw with the game, rather
than content that was deliberately ripped out to be resold as DLC. If that happens then
I WILL complain, because it did detract from what the game could have been.
And when it comes to this game’s gameplay, think Human Revolution but with souped up
combat. The levels contain more enemies than ever and once they begin using augmentations
themselves they can pose a real challenge. Don’t expect to be able to opportunistically
take out a few guards. In its quest to cater for run-and-gun players, it’s removed that
as an option for everybody else. The enemies become too hard and too numerous to attempt
for your average player. Once the alarm is raised it’s a choice of running and hiding
or mowing down a small army. Before playing it, I thought the Titan augmentation – one
that makes you invincible for a brief period of time – would be overpowered. But as you
venture through the later levels, the enemies begin using it as well and you suddenly realise
it’s probably more to protect enemies from yourself! This really does raise the stakes
if you try to be a sneaky pacifist like I was. In early levels it was manageable. By
the end, a stealthy play-through either requires OP invisibility augmentations or an itchy
quick-save finger. But in a way I feel this game tries too hard
to cater for every sort of play-style. As good as this sounds, it means that (if you’re
patient enough) you’ll always be able to find a route that’s…. too easy. If you
come across a room filled with gas, sure you could get the breather augmentation, but you
know that there’s another route just around the corner if you bother looking. Room full
of enemies? Probably a vent that bypasses the whole area. I quickly learned that using
augmentations was more just to save time and I felt was a cheap way of completing objectives.
So no. For the most part I stuck to the shadows, doing things the old-fashioned way. It became
a running joke on my play-through that I’d spend hours slowly and carefully creeping
through every room, learning the routes of and evading dozens of guards… only to reach
the end room and to find a vent that connects it to the reception area that would have let
me bypass everything. Every single time. But it’s okay Deus Ex, I still love you.
But I do miss the lop-sided, unbalanced attitude of the original game somewhat. This game could
almost benefit from ruining OCD play-styles by occasionally forcing you down a shooty
route, or actually requiring you to stack a load of boxes up to get to an objective
that can’t be reached any other way. I never had my back up against a wall. I felt too
safe in this game, protected from difficulty spikes by years of polish and testing.
And in response to the criticism they got in the previous game, the boss battles have
been replaced with dialogue trees rather than conflict. Which I really like. And it’s
not as predictable as in Human Revolution either- there are some interesting twists
on the formula, like where you’re clearly trying to insult somebody who would tear you
apart in a fight, or when you’re trying to lie to a home security system or where
you’re catfishing people online. There are some great little ideas on this game that
really do suit the Deus Ex formula. But you still have to fight one guy. This
person servers as the game’s final boss and was absolutely terrifying and pushed the
difficulty level up considerably. But saying that it was an enjoyable sequence, far beyond
the scope of Human Revolution’s boss battles and was a great way of putting everything
I had learned to good use. I feel the criticism the end of the game got
was a little unwarranted. You’re pretty much sat down in the longest end sequence
since Metal Gear Solid and are told how all the subplots ended, based on the choices you
made. A little cheap perhaps. But what did the other games do? They didn’t even cover
these smaller plots, just your final decision about how it should all end! So I think this
game covering the smaller points is a step in the right direction, though I do miss the
profound sounding endings from Human Revolution where Adam Jensen tries to justify the final
choice you made and how it will determine the future. It certainly sounds like they
have another game planned that’s set just after this one, leaving no room for future
speculation. In conclusion, Mankind Divided is on a smaller
scale but feels bigger than the earlier games. And it certainly doesn’t need them to be
relevant; it can stand on its own two feet. And right now, I’m in a good place with
Mankind Divided. It feels like a TV series that’s taken a while to get in to, but now
I am and I’m excited to see the rest of. I can’t wait to play through this game again,
knowing roughly what to expect. I’m in love with Deus Ex. Or more specifically,
the city hub of Prague. I wouldn’t have expected such a place to finally surpass Hong
Kong from the original game, but I feel that it’s done it. My child self would have been
so excited. You know when something has that special nostalgic feeling? Like it’s more
than the sum of its parts? Yeah the streets of this game are already littered with places
like that for me. I get that same giddy sense of wonder and exploration as I did when I
played the original 15 years ago. Very few things manage it these days. But Deus Ex is
still a future that I can get utterly engrossed in. And it’s worth playing for this reason
alone. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s testament to the game that it can get
so much wrong and yet still deliver more memorable sequences than other games can ever hope to.
My advice to you, if you want to enjoy this game, is to ignore the story that’s forced
on you. Instead, wander off and find stuff that matters to you and enjoy how open this
game can be. And maybe, once you’ve mastered the streets, look to the main campaign as
a challenge of your abilities. But for me, Deus Ex’s strengths have always been when
it gives you the freedom to explore. And in this respect, this latest game is better than ever.
More of this, please.