Deus Ex Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Pre-Release Thread

[FUDU]

Shouldn't this be in the general gaming forum?

No. When are these people going to understand, that all games are Role Playing Games.

 

[Jaesun]

If only there was a shit games forum, labeled as RPG's....

 

[sullynathan]

 

[DosBuster]

What do people have against Denuvo? It's never affected my performance or really been intrusive at all from my experience.

 

[Tito Anic]

Why is this game called Deus Ex?

 

[DosBuster]

Why is this game called Deus Ex?

r u for real

 

[Tito Anic]

r u for real

I may be wrong but i dont see atmosphere of the first game. It reminds me more of CoD.

 

[sullynathan]

 

[Kem0sabe]

Looks good!

 

[Daedalos]

Of course it looks good. I'm excited to play this. HR was great (with the DC) and I'm expecting this to give me lots of hours of fun. Come on auguust.

Actually, Jensens' face does look abit off. Look at the intro video, when the military guy is talking to him. His face looks kind of bloated and fat, or just weird proportions.. Only me noticing that? :-x

 

[thesheeep]

Talking about bloating fat faces reminded me of something:

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

https://www.destructoid.com/hands-on-with-a-near-finished-deus-ex-mankind-divided-375603.phtml

Jensen Is Good: And the Real World Is Faker than Deus Ex

The eviction noticed burned pink on the apartment door. Neighbors stood callously outside on the second floor walk basking in the white foglight of the open-air atrium whispering at eavesdrop levels about his financials woes. He sat on the couch whimpering, burying his head in his hands as if he were trying to see through them.

I threw a potted plant at his head.

Because I'm Adam Jensen.

Last week I got a chance to go hands-on with an "almost final build" of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided ahead of next month's release. While it was slow-going with my right thumb still recovering from dislocation -- oh you better believe Square representatives and Deus Ex devs combined to insist an augmentation would've served me well -- I managed to ghost through the entire tutorial level because I'm a bad bitch. The introduction takes place in an unfinished building development in Dubai and re-introduces us to, to quote Mankind Divided's producer Olivier Proulx, "Adam Jensen, our pretty cool hero."

Actually, very early in development there were "a few moments of doubt" as to whether or not the team would bring Jensen back -- it was noted that this would be the first repeat protagonist in the series -- but, "the fans loved Adam so much and it's not that easy to build a very strong hero."

Two years after the events of Human Revolution, Jensen now works for Interpol doing counter-terrorism work (the world is fraught following an incident that saw mechanically-augmented humans go haywire). The story opens with a shit-ton of exposition and cutscenes as Jensen and his non-augmented co-workers fly to Dubai to intercept a deal brokered by one of their undercover agents. Naturally only one character on the aircraft talks aside from Jensen and the stoic, blabbing commander: a guy what might have something against the augmented, of course. So Asshole McAsshole gives the requisite sass to hint at the segregation the game hopes to explore while Jensen gruffly ignores it or snarks about it and away we go.

Actually, first, right after pressing New Game your difficulty options are: Give Me Story, Give Me a Challenge (ostensibly "normal"), Give Me Deus Ex, and I Never Asked For This, a nod to the meme spawned by the last entry. Then, surprise, you're asked to choose a controller layout (rather than the choice be hidden in the menus). I went with the default Mankind Divided scheme, but there's one that tries to closely replicate Human Revolution, one that feels more like a standard first-person shooter, as well as the control scheme used in the Metal Gear VR Missions-y Breach mode we detailed a few months back.

So I get to the end of the level and suddenly a third-party interrupts the deal, some highly-trained mercs with golden, polygonal masks. They swarm the area just as a sandstorm rolls in, limiting visibility and threatening the life of our narc. Thankfully I am am, as mentioned, a bad bitch and snuck by all those Jabbawockeez-looking motherfuckers and took the battery out of the escape helicopter. Then it's time for a lot more exposition! There's a virtual-reality meeting of ominous old men, including a politician that looks like Ralph Fiennes' Voldemort, multiple mentions of the Illuminati, and an option to view a 12-minute recap of the last game.

Eventually the game slows down and you get Adam, beat up after the train bombing, in his apartment, taking robo-showers and listening to a radio host that sounds like Alex Jones (I don't know why all of Jensen's radios are tuned to his channel, nor why I cannot scan for some motown, or something). The game "take a step back and let the player breath in what's happening," Proulx said. It was the most delightful part of my hands-on, reading Jensen's email and opening all of his wall safes (one can stow items). My favorite aspect of Human Revolution was the exploration and voyeurism. I liked breaking into peoples' apartments and putting their fridge on their bed.

This is not weird, apparently!

Aside from the largely-lampooned boss fights, Proulx also admits, "we knew that the combat aspect was not the best aspect of the game" (while the team is also committed to avoiding the "choose-your-own ending" conclusion, as far as feedback goes). Part of this means adding new gadgets and gameplay possibilities to shore up those areas that, in Human Revolution, left my disengaged; part of this means ensuring the world is as vibrant as possible. The goal of Deus Ex is, partially, to create a "living, breathing world," Proulx explains. Because of "the density of the hubs," he said, "we don't have an open-world game, but an open-ended sandbox."

Proulx compared the new Deus Ex to open-world titles various members of the team play (and love), noting, "we didn't want to have a crowd system with hundreds of characters. It's really impressive to look at...but our game is, you see a character, you should be able to talk to them."

While I was tasked with visiting an underground doctor to manage my busted 'augs, as soon as I exited Jensen's apartment I noticed he had a neighbor. I immediately hacked the door (the mini-game is back, apparently expanded though I couldn't tell, or wasn't trying difficult enough hacks) and broke in. The tenants were surprisingly chill with it; it was some kind of cult with a snoozing grand leader. It was some thick "environmental story-telling," with mutterings of a Machine God and "the void that binds" and a mannequin nailed up on the wall with imagery that echoes the heavy-handed Icarus wings that book-end Jensen in his dreams and in much of the promotional materials.

On the way out of the complex I broke into the home of the aforementioned evicted man sobbing on his couch and stole money right in front of him. When he didn't react I tossed a blunt object at his head and he started cowering in place. I didn't get any further than Prague and the doctor's appointment, as is partially outlined in the developer commentary video embedded way up top due to a combination of my injury-slowed pace and a series of something like five fun blackouts at venue, but next on the itinerary would've Golem, a ghetto outside of Prague inhabited mostly by cast-out augs. The team is still sticking with the "mechanical apartheid" term (ignoring the difference between what is likely majority-voluntary mechanical augmentation and race-based segregation) and Golem would've really highlighted Mick Foley Divided's "darker setting."

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is going to be involved and meaty. For the time being, I'm happy enough that the super see-through-walls vision is less piss-colored (as is everything else) and hoping that the combat/stealth sections -- the parts where enemies are after you -- are better than in Human Revolution. I may not have asked for a sequel, but I'm not going to be a mechano-racist about it.

 

[SwiftCrack]

Wonder how much of an uptick it'll be from DXHR which was pretty good for the time.

Trailer looks great.

 

[vortex]

Game info and structure
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/exploring-deus-ex-mankind-divideds-open-world-side/1100-6441874/

Spoiler

Deus Ex games have consistently shared several central pillars: there's the first-person, firearm-focused combat and the rich, challenging stealth gameplay, of course, but the games also allow players to hack, explore, and even talk their way to victory. We've previously seen plenty of the stealth and combat pillars from Deus Ex: Mankind Divided thanks to some early hands-on time with a few self-contained story missions, but the team at Eidos Montreal revealed almost nothing about the connective tissue that will flesh out the campaign between firefights.

That finally changed last week when I sat down with a new six-hour chunk of the game, which contained two open world sections, several side missions, and nearly a dozen decision-driven conversations. I also got an early look at the game's added crafting system, as well as antihero Adam Jensen's new augments. Here's what I learned about all five features.

Structure
Mankind Divided may have relocated its ongoing story to Prague, but the new setting retains the same overall structure we saw in predecessor Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Rather than a single contiguous map, the game contains several discrete open areas that are connected by a subway system--walk into a station, select a destination on the map, and enjoy a brief cutscene as you're whisked away to another part of the city.

Much like the streets of Detroit, Prague's neighborhoods feel slightly unnatural and claustrophobic. Though you're free to explore these areas at your own pace--tracking down hidden areas and items, talking to civilians, and maybe even stumbling onto a side quest or two--I was frequently met by empty cul de sacs. Rather than feeling like an authentic city, the section of Prague I saw felt like, well, just a level in a video game, too tubular and artificial to function as a believable, immersive world.

That said, the buildings and sewers I could access were densely packed with hidden vents, hackable computer terminals, shady weapons dealers, and more. And judging by the healthy number of locations displayed on the subway map (and the fact that certain story missions take place in different locations entirely), Mankind Divided's world will likely dwarf that of Human Revolution. With so much more to see, it's a bit too early to fully judge this component of the game.

Side Missions
While I may not be totally sold on the world, Mankind Divided definitely delivers a heavier dose of side content than its predecessor. Not only are there more side missions, the missions themselves are now more elaborate, nearly rivaling the complexity of the main story content in some cases.

For example, while exploring the streets of Prague, I was stopped at a checkpoint by a crooked cop who informed me a certain acquaintance of his could provide me with some expertly forged ID papers--a necessity for any augmented individual hoping to move freely through the bitterly divided city. Wanting to shut down his little extortion racket, I played along and quickly found myself sneaking into a warehouse, subduing some thugs, avoiding trip lasers, hacking a door, and confronting the forger herself in a tense, thoughtful conversation. And that wasn't even the end of the mission.

Of course, this type of content remains totally optional. The game always gave me an option to decline when speaking with quest-givers, and the mission menu displays all active side quests, implying you're under no obligation to complete them quickly...or at all. Interestingly, though, I did receive a warning screen before I boarded a chopper to head to the next major story mission in another area. Apparently progressing through the campaign eliminates the option to complete certain side quests.

Conversations
Like the side content, Mankind Divided's social systems feel more fully-realized than ever. I encountered full conversations more frequently during my hands-on time with Mankind Divided than I did while playing through Human Revolution, including several optional interactions that existed solely to provide insight into the world. And within those conversations, I generally found more opportunities to make dialogue choices that diverted the exchange.

My conversation with that crooked cop, for example, could have ended any number of ways depending on how hard I pushed him. During one playthrough, I took a hardline and openly threatened to expose his corruption. He responded by opening fire on me, and when other nearby officers followed suit, I was dead in an instant. When I tried again and humored him instead, I was rewarded with a side quest that ultimately allowed me to sabotage his extortion racket without getting murdered.

Other conversations were a bit more mixed. My talk with the forger was tense and intricate and forced me into several morally ambiguous decisions, but conversations between Jensen and his secretive ally Alex were generally thinly veiled exposition dumps rather than real, human interactions. Still, there's plenty more to see, and in all likelihood, conversations will carry more weight once the story has had a chance to develop.

New Augments
As expected, Jensen's sporting several new augments--the controversial cybernetic enhancements at the center of the game's story. Among the new options: a concussive blast that's essentially a Force Push, a non-lethal option for the Typhoon area attack, a speed burst that allows Jensen to dash across short distances, a remote hacking ability, and straight-up bullet time.

While these added upgrades are of course welcome, they do come at a cost. Basically, Jensen's existing augments get a little wonky after he's involved in a serious incident early in the game. When he goes in for the repairs, his eccentric engineer discovers these dormant augments hidden inside Jensen's body. They're cool and powerful and stuff, sure, but activating any of them raises Jensen's heat output over 100%, which, according to the engineer, could cause his body to "malfunction." In order to reduce Jensen's heat to an acceptable level, you have to permanently disable an existing augment for each experimental augment you activate.

At least, that's the idea. However, I actually left Jensen's heat level at 150% and never noticed any side effects, though it's possible I missed something or simply misunderstood the system. The real limiting factor, as before, is the ungenerous energy bar, which drains quickly any time you use an augment and only recharges to a point unless you use a consumable.

Crafting
Mankind Divided's crafting system is the weakest of all the additions. By collecting generic "crafting parts" scattered around the environments, you can purchase basic upgrades for your weapons such as increased damage or a higher rate of fire--nothing that drastically alters or augments the way the gun functions in-game. You can also craft various consumables like armor piercing rounds and special one-use hacking tools. All of this can be accomplished in the menu system, so no need to find a workbench or anything like that.

While it's possible the crafting system grows more robust as you progress deeper into the campaign, I didn't see any indications of how the system might grow or evolve. In reality, it seems like less of a crafting system and more of a simple way to improve your gear's stats over time, which is honestly fine. With all the stealth, hacking, augments, and combat at play, there's already more than enough complexity in Mankind Divided to keep even the most fickle gamer engaged.

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Hi-Res screenshots and I believe new footage:
http://gamersyde.com/news_preview_deus_ex_mankind_divided-18139_en.html

Or this:

 

[SwiftCrack]

Crafting.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Lol at this shit dialogue... lost my hard on for this game completely

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

I think I'll pass, but will remove soundtrack from inventory gladly.

 

[Daedalos]

Looks fine to me :-x

 

[Coma White]

I really liked Human Revolution. It had issues, but at least it was trying to be more than the next typical AAA POS. I'm really looking forward to this.

 

[Infinitron]

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Previews, Gameplay Footage

An embargo seems to have lifted, because a large number of outlets has started publishing previews and gameplay footage videos of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Eidos Montreal's sequel to the 2011 Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It makes sense, given that the game is coming out next month, something that had slipped my radar until recently.

IGN:

For example, while looking for a low-key way to meet up with returning hero Adam Jensen’s local augmentation specialist in Prague, I stumbled across a fake police checkpoint that was actually a front for an extortion ring. I guess I could have pulled out a gun and shot my way through, but with cops circling, I’d be risking getting caught in the middle of a bloodbath. If I’d put some points into my cloaking device, that would have gotten me past the thugs and the infrared sensors they were using to keep intruders out, but alas, I was not so equipped. I’d have to do it the old fashioned way. What I thought would be a simple smash-and-grab turned into an hour-long story unto itself, complete with a mix of stealth and gunplay, some family drama, and a healthy dose of moral ambiguity. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say Mankind Divided’s world is a cruel one, where even the best intentions can’t fully protect the weak and innocent.

TrustedReviews:

And this doesn’t even begin to discuss the myriad ways you can complete a mission. After the opening tutorial in Dubai, Jensen’s aug’s suffer a bit of a glitch, so he needs to go and see his “tech guy” to get them fixed. Without spoiling too much, something happens during the fix that leads Adam to discover new aug upgrades within his system, many of which you’ll have seen in the trailers.

However, in order to avoid Jensen completely frying his circuits, the tech whizz had to do a factory reset. As I said, this game demands your attention, but in a momentary lapse I didn’t notice Adam’s Ctrl+Alt+Del had removed all upgrade points on his system. When the game notified me that I had 11 points to spend on improving him, I spent everything on hacking and conversation perks, meaning I had nothing in terms of combat or exploration. I couldn’t even jump that high.

This meant my way of playing the game was entirely different to that of everyone else. What at first felt like a terrible error in fact opened my eyes to the other ways to play the game. In Human Revolution, I played like a stealthy Hitman. In Mankind Divided, I had to become a smooth-talking hacker: analysing people’s speech patterns, knowing how to respond (the Alpha, Bravo, Omega chat-analysis tool returns from HR) and avoiding combat at all costs. It was the polar opposite to my experience in Human Revolution, but equally enthralling and rewarding.

PlayStation Blog:

And then there’s the narrative itself, a byzantine behemoth of social commentary, conspiracy theory, and old-school speculative fiction. What would happen if society discriminated between “naturals” and the augmented, who are equipped with artificial arms, legs, or organs? The team behind Mankind Divided thinks the resulting conflict would look eerily familiar.

One surreal sequence set in Prague played like a highly evolved game of Papers, Please. Most of the unmodified, “natural” NPCs I encountered mistrusted or even disparaged me, simply because protagonist Adam Jensen is augmented — a “clank.” It was an unnerving and dehumanizing ordeal, but it firmly planted me in the game’s universe. I’m betting all that societal strife pays off nicely in the final game.

PC Gamer:

Start climbing and the other apartments in Jensen’s block might be empty of people, but true to Deus Ex there’s ways and means to sneak into them. And they’re packed with story. Indeed, DeMarle tells me that there was a level designer who was solely devoted to environmental storytelling in the city hubs. “She’d work with artists to decorate these (flats) to tell these stories, and later work with the narrative team to craft these stories… the environmental stories are akin to writing poetry—you’re just putting in glimpses through emails and it’s the reader’s responsibility to connect the dots and make up their own story.”

Go lower, into the sewers and there are environmental puzzles involving electricity and poisonous gases. There are augs hiding out from the cops. There are shortcuts and secret entrances to half the buildings in the city. And, at the far end of one sewer pipe, there’s even a group of mesmerised people led by a persuasive man called Richard and surrounded by even more persuasive turrets.

“The side quests are made to be scalable, depending on your choices.” says DeMarle. Though I've been asked not to spoil any of the quests, I can see that expansiveness in the ones I completed. At several points in each quest chain, Jensen is given a chance to back out of further commitment, perhaps to solve the problem by violence or money—or even just walk away and leave them unresolved. “Or you can go farther and each step along the way, based on your choices, it can expand and introduce new characters, who might come back later.”

Venture Beat has a short interview focused on the Breach mode:

GamesBeat: How does the leaderboard add a social component to it?

Marty: As I was saying, there’s a lighter turn to it. It’s very arcade. We embraced that aspect. When you shoot the [A.I. enemies], damage appears in the air. The HUD feels very much like an arcade game. The leaderboard element, I hope the players will enjoy it as much as we did on the floor because we spent hours challenging each other, trying to beat each other.

We have two leaderboards. One is for score. Your main objective in a map, 90 percent of the time, is to find some data. You rack up your score for finding the data, but also for all the actions you perform inside the map, like finishing undetected or killing [A.I. enemies]. The other leaderboard is the time leaderboard. The quicker you finish, the higher you’ll rank on the leaderboard. What I love about having both is that if you want to be the best at both, you have to find completely different ways to play the map. Obviously, if you want to get a lot of points, that takes time.

 

[DosBuster]

Lol at this shit dialogue... lost my hard on for this game completely

I don't think it's the quality of the dialogue or voice acting, if they were by themselves just in text/audio form you'd probably think nothing of it. It's the facial and body animation which really detract, the lip syncing is kinda off and the way the body moves doesn't match up to how the actor is reading the lines. A real shame we still can't get good procedural lip sync in 2016.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I've been replaying DXHR and wew boy as goofey as the animations are in this footage, it's still a big step up from what it was.

 

[imweasel]

Lol at this shit dialogue... lost my hard on for this game completely

The trash lady nigga in Human Revolution was certainly much more entertaining.

Spoiler

I've been replaying DXHR and wew boy as goofey as the animations are in this footage, it's still a big step up from what it was.

Yep. I like the graphics, but the animations still aren't very hot.

 

[Siobhan]

I chuckled quite hard at the way Jensen moves his arms at 0:39. As all modern games it's right in the uncanny valley: the more detailed the models get, the worse they actually look in motion. The same for voice acting, it's mostly flat and dull and even the best performances barely exceed Saturday morning cartoon show levels. And it takes much longer to listen to all that stuff than reading the text yourself, which increases the downtime from gameplay. A nice hand-drawn character portrait with written text would work a million times better at a fraction of the cost, but that ship has sailed a long time ago. Well I got kinda off track here, but I'm too lazy to edit it down.