Interview Deus Ex: Human Revolution Interview

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Deus Ex: Human Revolution; Eidos Montreal

<p>Gamasutra chatted up with Eidos Montreal's general manager Stéphane D'Astous. Seems Deus Ex: HR is a <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6114/deus_ex_the_human_question.php" target="_blank">labor of love.</a></p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>It's not the only game, but it stands out as one of the earliest games that said, "You can play this how you want," and that is why people still talk about and people still play the original.</strong><br />SD: You can replay. It's the replay value, and it's a sophisticated game in the sense that there's not single way to play it, so I guess that was recognized by the fans. One of our mottos for Deus Ex: Human Revolution is "choice and consequences."<br />I mean, we hear that quite often, but it's truly important to the team to have, let's say, four different ways to enter the police station. You can go through the front door, dialogue, try to win [with] your dialogue, or you could come in with guns blazing. You can go hacking. You can go through the sewers. So, this is an example of a multi-path game.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Those kinds of choices, is that a design question, or is it also a tech and art even, in terms of how you structure things?</strong><br />SD: I think it starts with the design. I think Eidos has always had a great history of character and design. The games, if I take two things, it's characters with the Lara Crofts, with the Hitmans, and all this, but also with the design. These two components were truly important. To answer your question, I think it starts with the design, and tech... There's always a way to make it work somehow. Tech shouldn't be leading the design, but it has to be compatible. I think design is king.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/99590-deus-ex-human-revolution-interview.html">GB</a></p>

 

[Achilles]

One of our mottos for Deus Ex: Human Revolution is "choice and consequences.

Oh my, it's like he's deliberately trying to troll the Codex

But anyway, if they do all the things that they're promising, the game might actually be (gasp!) good! How's that for a plot twist?

 

[denizsi]

Four pages of nothing.

 

[treave]

When the hell did the marketing departments for these game companies start whoring out the "choices and consequences" schtick anyway? They never used to be concerned with it some years back, but now everyone wants a piece of the pie.

 

[zeitgeist]

When the hell did the marketing departments for these game companies start whoring out the "choices and consequences" schtick anyway? They never used to be concerned with it some years back, but now everyone wants a piece of the pie.

I'm guessing it has to do with the popularity of Bioware games.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

One of our mottos for Deus Ex: Human Revolution is "choice and consequences."
I mean, we hear that quite often, but it's truly important to the team to have, let's say, four different ways to enter the police station. You can go through the front door, dialogue, try to win [with] your dialogue, or you could come in with guns blazing. You can go hacking. You can go through the sewers. So, this is an example of a multi-path game.

Do different ways of reaching the same point count as c&c? Lots of choices, yeah, but if the same thing happens when inside...

 

[Cassidy]

So different ways of reaching the same point count as c&c? Lots of choices, yeah, but if the same thing happens when inside...

If the viability of using one of several different ways depends upon the skills you've chosen to develop for a character, yes(which obviously won't be the case here as all "skills" will just make minigames for retards easier). However, considering all the "features" and typical "100% straight-line path linear" console shit level design, I am very skeptical that this will feature any of the same multiple approaches through missions the original Deus Ex had. I bet these "choices and consequences" spurred by marketing drones will in the end be something like this:

 

[Roguey]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3 ... eus_ex.php

And finally, Deus Ex is like adventure games in that it's story-driven, linear in narrative structure, and involves character interaction and item accumulation to advance the plot. However, unlike most adventure games (in which you spend the bulk of your time solving clever puzzles in a search for the next static, but very pretty, screen), Deus Ex asks players to determine how they will solve game problems and forces them to deal with the consequences of their choices.

Deus Ex was designed from the start to combine elements of all of these genres. But more important than any genre classification, the game was conceived with the idea that we'd accept players as our collaborators, that we'd put power back in their hands, ask them to make choices, and let them deal with the consequences of those choices.
...
Are you willing to pay the price? "Choice" and "consequence" were the two most frequently uttered words during our two to three years of development. What good is player control if all choices lead to the same result? Without real, predictable consequences, choice is irrelevant. (Which is probably why so many games seem so trivial -- they are trivial!)
...
Players would always know, with absolute certainty, based on their character development choices, whether they could accomplish something or not. The trick would be whether they wanted to do something or not, based on an assessment of the likely outcome and the likely consequences (for example, blowing down a door and setting off alarms versus the risk of picking a lock and being caught while doing it).

Who knew that Spector was an idiot retard moron who didn't know the proper definition of C&C years before VD coined the term?

 

[SoupNazi]

Well the demo they're using to present the C&C makes it look like there's /some/ consequence - different approaches to the police station result in different things found out (and via different ways) inside later. Question is whether that affects anything later in the game. That said though, it's not like that the original Deus Ex' C&C wasn't purely cosmetic - the most you could get for a stealth approach was a pat on the back by Paul and some scoffing from Anna Navarre.
The C&C in the original game was much simpler, it was more like "the choice is whether you go quietly or loudly, and the consequence is an alarm or no alarm" etc. and not actual in-game consequences. After all, the story was fairly linear.

 

[denizsi]

Who knew that Spector was an idiot retard moron who didn't know the proper definition of C&C years before VD coined the term?

VD coined the term, now? Saying this is as bad as saying Bethesda invented First Person Shooter genre.

Newfags.

 

[Roguey]

Denise fails his "intentionally absurd statement" perception check. I was referencing the argument over the True Definition of C&C in this thread among others. Gawd, do I have to dumb down my attempts at humor even further?

 

[Irxy]

When the hell did the marketing departments for these game companies start whoring out the "choices and consequences" schtick anyway? They never used to be concerned with it some years back, but now everyone wants a piece of the pie.

I'm guessing it has to do with the popularity of Bioware games.

I believe both C&C idea and exact phrase were originally stressed/popularized by The Witcher devs during its development in 2005-2007 as part of marketing campaign (not that they invented it, of course). One of the few bright ideas of current gen rpgs, imho, at least potentially.

 

[Grunker]

They're not really saying anything. Four ways to enter a police station can be anything.

I want to be optimistic, but I'm really not. I'm not even sure this will beat IW.