The look and feel of Human Revolution’s Detroit, Hengsha, Panchaea, and its level-hopping jet bear more than a passing resemblance to the original’s New York, Hong Kong, Area 51, and its stealth helicopter. Like Deus Ex’s JC Denton, Human Revolution protagonist Adam Jensen is a shades-sporting, trench coat-wearing, genetically marvelous chosen one with a gravelly voice and an attitude problem. But this approach also ensured that with time it would be forgotten in the shadow of the original. As a prequel, Human Revolution was able to sidestep the legacy of Invisible War and shrewdly position itself as its antithesis. It followed a subtle, carefully crafted, but ultimately conservative approach to the franchise: Rather than try to innovate on the setting and systems of the first game, in many ways it simply gave them a new coat of paint for a new generation of hardware. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided did a good job of expanding its predecessor’s systems and level design, but it also relied on a convoluted, unevenly paced story with an abrupt ending, dialed up the melodrama, and introduced a multiplayer, DLC, and micro-transaction plan that eventually put the franchise back on hiatus.īut I think the core issue is the design of Human Revolution itself. No doubt some of the blame rests with Eidos Montréal’s follow-up. Meanwhile, other immersive sims from the era ( Dishonored, BioShock) are still frequently discussed and top various lists and replay recommendations. Developed by Eidos Montréal, a studio that hadn’t shipped a single game and didn’t have Ion Storm’s Looking Glass Studios heritage, it nonetheless released to widespread community and critical acclaim, aggregating the same Metacritic score as the original.Īnd yet a decade later, while Human Revolution often features in digital sales and tracks well in recent Steam reviews, it rarely comes up in critics’ recommendations, features, or best-of lists. As if to prove the point, several Deus Ex projects were canceled, Ion Storm Austin folded, and the game’s leads moved on.įast forward to 2011 and Deus Ex: Human Revolution defied expectations. It may have been because both games were developed by Ion Storm Austin, or because Invisible War was still passable when judged purely on its own merits, but the fan base became convinced that a worthy sequel to Deus Ex was impossible. Its 2003 successor, Invisible War, was just as quickly reviled as one of the worst sequels ever made (though it was critically well received). The original Deus Ex, released in 2000, quickly cemented a lasting reputation for its level design, plot, and complex systems that encouraged player choice.
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