The immersive sim has seen a revival in recent years. Not only from larger studios like Arkane, keeping the faith alive with their time loops and space stations, but also from a bunch of smaller developers bravely exploring a typically ambitious genre. RPS has always had an affinity for these systemically luxuriant simulations, historically lauding the likes of the original Deus Ex as the best game ever made. But given everything that has come since, is that still the case? Only one way to find out: make a big list.
]]>It's said that every time Deus Ex is mentioned, someone reinstalls it. If that's true and you read RPS, it's possible you've reinstalled Deus Ex around six hundred times by now.
That's where the comprehensive Randomizer mod comes in, which remixes the immersive sim's levels to make the experience fresh every time. It's also just received a major update which, among several other additions, lets you pet the game's dogs and cats.
]]>Following a report by Game Developer on the ESA’s refusal to budge during a hearing on easing copyright restrictions around academia’s remote access to legacy games, Deus Ex creator Warren Spector has written for the website on his own frustrations with, and efforts to aid, game preservation. Channeling some of the classic immersive sim resourcefulness he helped pioneer, he writes that he’s “literally dumpster dived to retrieve information other developers have simply thrown away, believing it to be worthless.”
]]>The latest Embracer studio to suffer under the megacorp’s ongoing restructuring efforts are Eidos Montreal, with a new Deus Ex title two years into development reportedly cancelled and dozens of staff confirmed to be laid off.
]]>Today I'm just tickled pink seeing an excellent Deus Ex cosplayer fully step into the role of JC Denton, funny walk and weird talk and all. Seeing as you voted the seminal immersive sim your seventh-favourite RPG of all time, I thought you might like to see it too. It's very good.
]]>If 2023 is remembered for one thing, it's that it was a 100% critical success year for the RPG. Role-players across the land have been feasting exceedingly well these past few months, what with the stonking success of Baldur's Gate 3 (and to lesser extents, Starfield and Diablo 4), so we thought it was about time to celebrate your favourite RPGs of all time. Your votes have been counted, your comments have been sorted, and the cream of the RPG crop has been assembled. But which of the many excellent RPGs have risen above all others? Come and find out below as we count down your top 25 favourite RPGs of all time.
]]>A return to the cyberpunk world of Deus Ex is coming courtesy of Human Revolution and Mankind Divided developers Eidos Montreal, it’s been claimed. The snippet of info that the new Deus Ex game is in the very, very early stages was reported by Bloomberg following yesterday’s revelation that sister studio Onoma is closing down. Eidos Montreal are also alleged to be working on a completely new game, as well as helping out with some co-development on some Microsoft-owned series, including the new Fable.
]]>Swedish media buyer-uppers Embracer Group have completed their $300 million (£253 million) acquisition of former Square Enix studios, begun in May this year. The deal sees Crystal Dynamics, Eidol Montréal and Square Enix Montréal become part of a 12th operating group within Embracer. Square Enix Montréal will now change their name.
]]>While writing a post about the Deus Ex randomiser mod last month, I tried to find a high-resolution clean version of the venerated immersive sim's box art to use as a header image. I trawled through archives of official sites hoping to discover that the marketing department had released it as a wallpaper or something, to no avail. But I did find a load of other official Deus Ex wallpapers which are so delightfully turn-of-the-millenium. Scanlines! Lensflare! Photoshop Difference Clouds filters! Come, admire, enjoy.
]]>Denton's Law states: whenever someone talks to you about Deus Ex, there is a 45.1% chance you will start a new playthrough. If it's your turn this time, reader dear, wait one second! Perhaps you might enjoy a twist on this classic immersive sim? The Deus Ex Randomizer mod shuffles just about everything in the game, adding random surprises and new challenges to an old favourite, and it recently released a new version. See its random surprises in the new trailer, below.
]]>Earlier this month, Embracer Group announced their intent to buy Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal from Square Enix in a $300 million (around £240m) deal. The acquisition includes the original IP associated with those studios, including Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy Of Kain and Tomb Raider.
In their quarterly earnings report, Embracer now say they see "great potential" in leveraging the heck out of that IP with sequels, remakes and more.
]]>Square Enix are to sell most of their Western studios and intellectual property such as Tomb Raider, Deux Ex, Thief and Legacy Of Kain to Sweden’s Embracer Group for $300 million (£240 million) in cash, it has been announced. The studios being sold to Embracer include Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal and Square Enix Montréal, but not the UK-based Square Enix Collective. This means Square will retain publishing rights to IP including Life Is Strange, Just Cause and Outriders.
]]>Next time you go to replay Deus Ex (which will be within one week, now that I have put the idea in your head), perhaps you'll want to try it with a twist. A brand new mod named The Lay D Denton Project turns JC Denton from a stoic fella into a stoic lady, complete with full voice acting and a script tweaked to fit. Meet the female JC in the trailer below.
]]>Ah, randomiser mods. They're truly some of the most fun you can have with a game you've completed hundreds of times, swapping out enemies, weapons and all sorts of things to make a game feel new - or incredibly chaotic. That's exactly what you'll find in the Deus Ex Randomiser. It's a most that shuffles everything around, and can even add some weird and wonderful effects to the game. The modder recently made the randomiser playable with Crowd Control too, which allows Twitch viewers to decide what interesting and downright unhelpful effects appear in a streamer's game.
]]>Whether you prefer wizards, sword-and-board warriors, the irradiated wasteland, vampires, or isometric text-heavy stories, the RPG is the genre that will never let you down. Accross the dizzing number of games available where you can play a role, there's something for everyone - and we've tried to reflect that in our list of the best RPGs on PC. The past couple of years have been great for RPGs, so there are some absolute classics as well as brand spanking new games on this list. And there's more to look forwards to, with rumblings of Dragon Age: Dread Wolf finally on the horizon, and space epic Starfield in our rear view mirror. Whatever else may happen, though, this list will provide you with the 50 best RPGs that you can download and play on PC right now.
]]>Ages ago I learned how to lockpick in real life, and ever since I've been so impressed at how video games emulate the feeling of managing to crack a lock open. I think maybe it's the noise, that signature *clunk* that makes it so satisfying. It's a staple of RPGs like Skyrim, where lockpicking is literally a skill you can level up. But loads of games have introduced their own unique minigames to let you unlock things, and now you can see most of them in one place thanks to the museum of lockpicking mechanics.
]]>Deus Ex director Warren Spector has always had very precise ideas about what games should be. A formative D&D campaign run by science fiction author Bruce Sterling. who helped to define the cyberpunk genre, showed Warren the importance of collaborative storytelling early on. “In a book or a movie the writer or director simply tells the audience what they think about a topic. You have nothing to do but decide whether you agree or disagree with the statement being made. There’s nothing wrong with that, but in a game we can do something different – we can set up a situation and let players decide for themselves,” Spector tells me over email.
]]>RPS threw Deus Ex a 20th anniversary birthday bash earlier in the week with a superb oral history of the game’s creation. Did you know that there was going to be a pirate island at one point? That and many other gems await you. To continue the ‘fun’, the RPS vid buds thought we’d revisit the game in a stream. If that earlier feature was the main party, then I guess we are handling the morning after clean-up. Sponging the wine out of the carpet. Unspooling the cat from streamers. Trying to work out where we put Warren Spector’s coat. It’ll be fun.
]]>Deus Ex is the king of the immersive sims - the blueprint from which an entire genre of ideas has been pilfered. If you’ve loved a Dishonored game, you’ve enjoyed Deus Ex by proxy; its design, and even some of its developers, can be found at the very centre of Arkane’s DNA.
For those who played it 20 years ago, Deus Ex set expectations for how malleable game worlds could be, and new standards for reactivity that the rest of the industry failed to match in the decade that followed. Deus Ex was ultimately so influential that, as one of our interviewees points out, its innovations now seem normal.
Here’s the story of how it was made, as told by the people who made it. The story begins in 1997, at a time when testosterone-fuelled first-person shooters still dominate PC gaming. Thief and System Shock developer Looking Glass has closed its Austin studio to save the ailing company, leaving Warren Spector and a team of crack simulation nerds without a project.
]]>Stuck for things to play this weekend? After offering their exhaustive JRPG lineup at a pittance last week, Square Enix have this week gutted the price of their Eidos Anthology bundle on Steam as part of their "Stay Home & Play" campaign - offering 54 PC classics, contemporary bangers and bizarre curiosities for just under 30 quid, in aid of charities affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
]]>Times are strange and frightening. But one point of great solace for me has been hearing people celebrating things in their lives. It feels especially important right now to hold on to what makes us all proud about what we do and who we are. And what I really love is people showing off things they’re proud of making.
So I’ve been asking a bunch of developers to pick out something they’ve created that brings them pleasure to look back on. And here they are, including Harvey Smith remembering his input on Deus Ex and Dishonored, Derek Yu on one of his first-ever games. There’s pride in doing something for someone else’s game, in the power of details and in little inventions, and ah gosh, shut up, let’s just tuck into a big slice of escapist positivity.
]]>Here we stand in the dark neo-year of 2020. The spam bots have risen to prominence, the governments of the world are bickering over follower counts, and history class has been renamed "meme studies". Somewhere, in a dusty room in the RPS treehouse, a rogue human is compiling a list article for a crumbling PC games website. It is a warning to all those who read it. A prophecy of the terrible things to come. Wars, invasions, disease, heat death. Videogames, it turns out, have predicted all this and more. Here we replicate this cautionary pre-chronicle, your guide to the harrowing times ahead. Here are the 11 worst years in our future history, according to games.
]]>I reckon that when I was growing up I spent longer reading the manuals for games than I did playing them. The thicker the better (as the someone said to the etc.), and if it were up to me every game would come with a chunky instruction booklet. The standard these days is the in-game tutorial, and many of them feel like afterthoughts. Either they’re too bare bones to properly teach you how to play, leaving you to scroll through Wikis, or they’re so boring that you rush through them and then forget everything you’re told.
]]>It has happened. The day spoken of in legend. After two years, I am finally to be set free of the Curse Of Steam Charts. All its taken is entirely leaving my job in four days time to end this purgatory. The only decision left is to whom I shall pass this vexation. That, and how to avoid mentioning the actual games for one more week. And this time I've come up with a self-indulgent doozy.
]]>Welcome to the freshly relaunched RPS podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show! You might think this is episode 31, but actually it’s episode 1 again. We’re rebooting it, even though we just did that last year. We’ve started by making it more accessible. Instead of three of us chatting about videogames between snippets of jaunty music, there’s just a sad man saying “Sonic the Hedgehog” over and over. We’re confident you’ll like it.
]]>What Works And Why is a new monthly column where Gunpoint and Heat Signature designer Tom Francis digs into the design of a game and analyses what makes it good.
I love Deus Ex, System Shock 2, and Dishonored 2, and the name for these games is dumb: they're 'immersive sims'. If you asked me what I liked about them, my answer would be a phrase almost as dumb: 'emergent gameplay!'
I always used to think of these as virtually the same thing, but of course they're not. Immersive sims usually have a whole list of traits, things like:
]]>The CEO of Square Enix, Yosuke Matsuda, has spoken out about the future of Deus Ex. At the start of this year, Eurogamer reported that we shouldn't expect a new Deus Ex game anytime soon - and they're right, though we should get one eventually. It simply isn't Deus Ex's turn yet, with the studio first focusing on other projects such as the next Tomb Raider and an Avengers game.
Matsuda explained all this in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, where he also talked about Final Fantasy's anime spin off, the studio's approach to the Eastern and Western markets, as well as augmented and virtual reality.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
There are lots of things I love about NEO Scavenger [official site]. I love how, despite its lo-fi visuals, it conveys the fickle fortunes and indifferent cruelty of a wilderness better than many technologically superior survival games. I love its ridiculously detailed combat system that lets you rugby-tackle feral dogs. I love the ambient sound effects that convey the misleading serenity of its natural environments; the chirping of birds, the wind in the trees, the soft crunch of grass underfoot. Delightful.
]]>If magic isn't real, you explain why me chanting ＤＥＵＳ ＥＸ ＤＥＵＳ ＥＸ ＤＥＵＳ ＥＸ has just caused sent several dozen people to, without even realising, reinstall the vintage FPS-RPG. But hold up, bewitched nostalgics! After years of development, the overhaul mod Give Me Deus Ex [official site] has launched its final version. GMDX shakes things up with more-advanced AI for a tougher challenge, improved mantling for agile Dentons, expanded physics for fancier mayhem, and new textures and bits for people who say "Ew, is that a pixel?" If the magic words compel you to return to Deus Ex, you might fancy a few surprises. Observe, a trailer showcasing newnesss:
]]>Your mate Adam Jensen is telling a story to his psychologist in the latest DLC for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] – a flashback episode, if you will. He’s telling her all about the time he went undercover in a maximum security prison for augmented people and how that made him feel. But this being Adam, the paranoid wreck with conspiracy theories coming out of his robot orifices, he’s likely exaggerated for the shrink’s sake. He probably just got sent to the drunk tank for wandering into a clothes shop and smashing all the mirrors again.
]]>A second PC patch has been released for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, hopefully leaving fewer players divided (do you see, because "divided" is in the title of the game) over the annoying mouse issues, as well as other tidying up.
]]>Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] has received its first patch-me-do, now ready to be added via Steam. It's not a biggun by any means, but should stop some of the more immediately annoying crashes people have experienced. They've also made some suggestions about improving performance by, well, telling you to switch off MSAA altogether.
]]>With Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] coming out on Tuesday (read our review), Pip comes to Alice with an important request.
Pip: ALICE!
Alice: Hullo there, old chum! What's cracking?
Pip: The internet under the strain of all the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided reviews popping out of their embargo wombs, through the various CMS birth canals and into the digital world, I should think. On a related note, I have a question...
Alice: You evidently already know where babies come from, so what can I help you with?
Pip: Alice, I don't get Deus Ex. Explain to me Deus Ex.
]]>Shower scenes seldom Make You Think, unless it's about what exactly you're getting for that Premium Netflix subscription, but if anything sticks out for me about the impressive yet oddly unexciting Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site], it's the sight of Adam Jensen washing his hair. Eidos Montreal's latest presentation begins in Jensen's new Prague apartment - a casually affluent man-den where you can phone other characters, watch newscasts that track your decisions through the story, answer emails, tinker with crafting resources, and generally get acquainted with the sleek, cadaverous sort-of-human in your charge.
]]>Everything looked rosy when I traveled to Montreal to take a look at Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] earlier this year. The areas I played improved on Human Revolution in every way that matters and Adam Jensen controlled better than ever. All was well and I was looking forward to playing the game in February, right around my birthday. Moments ago, word arrived of a six month delay - the game will now be coming out on August 23rd.
]]>Below you will find the 25 best stealth games ever released on PC. There are sneaking missions, grand thefts, assassinations, escapes and infiltrations. Stay low, keep quiet and we'll make it to the end.
]]>I've played Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] and I liked what I saw. A brief visit to just two areas suggested a more confident and open approach to first-person stealth-action. My preview focused on the level design because that's where most of the improvements seemed to be but Eidos Montreal are also determined to improve player character Adam Jensen. That's already evident in the improved control scheme, particularly as it relates to use of cover, but it'll also be felt in his new augmented abilities. You can see some of those in the new trailer below.
]]>Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] is already looking like a worthy follow-up to Human Revolution as well as an inventive prequel to Ion Storm's original cyberpunk classic. When we visited the studio to play the game earlier this month, we also spent time talking to two of the brains behind the game about the inspirations and processes that go into this bleak vision of the future.
First up, here's Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, executive art director at the studio. We spoke to him about collaborative storytelling, fashion, architecture and graphic design. Along the way we learned about content cut from Human Revolution, the places that Deus Ex is going next and why Jacques-Belletête believes that India could be a perfect cyberpunk setting.
]]>Deus Ex: Revision [official site] is a project that overhauls "the environments and soundtrack" of Ion Storm's classic, and it's out now on Steam. The release has the backing of Deus Ex's current publishers and developers (Square Enix and Eidos Montreal), and is designed to work exclusively with the Steam release of the original.
]]>This month, it seems like just about every major RPG out there is getting a major update. Divinity: Original Sin. Wasteland 2. Guild Wars 2. Even Deus Ex! All we need is for someone to announce that they've secretly been upgrading Darklands on the sly and we'll have the whole set. Here's a quick look at what's taking a level up on a PC near you.
]]>The Deus Ex series, with its highest of highs and most middling of lows, is 15 years old. Old men, running the world. But not complicated pre-order schemes. They can't run those, it appears. The anniversary is being used to promote upcoming fourth game Mankind Divided, due out in February (thus I will be a man divided between it and XCOM 2), and so we get this animated trailer which is mostly tease for the new title but does include various shots of characters from the first game. Who ever would have thought glimpses of Bob Page and Walton Simmons could make us feel so warm and fuzzy?
]]>Deus Ex: Human Revolution had the best ceilings of any game ever made. I'm not kidding. I've had screenshots of that game's ceilings as desktop wallpapers and I know others who have done the same. Each one was a sculptural work designed to communicate the cyber renaissance setting. I spoke to gameplay director Patrick Fortier about this at Gamescom and unfortunately it sounds as if sequel Deus Ex: Mankind Divided [official site] won't carry on the game's ceiling-based legacy in quite the same way. "That dream is dying," he said.
]]>We shared our memories of Deus Ex on the seminal FPS-RPG's 15th birthday in June, but who are we? Your best Internet pals, sure, but nobodies in the field of Deus Ex compared to director Warren Spector, its writer Sheldon Pacotti, and its lead programmer and assistant director Chris Norden. Nobodies. We're baby birds in our gamenest with open beaks cheeping for them to nourish us. Which is exactly what they do in a new video, playing through the first fifty minutes of Deus Ex to celebrate the birthday.
Yes, they're late, but I imagine electronic old men get tired and disoriented running the world.
]]>Fail Forward is a series of videos all about the bits of games which don’t quite work and why. In this episode, Marsh Davies discusses Deus Ex: Human Revolution [official site], its beards, its many lovely desks and what it says about power.
]]>Deus Ex is 15 years old, which means it's almost old enough to move out of our house and stop having to do what we say. For now though, John, Alec, Adam and Alice decided to celebrate the relentless passing of time by jotting down some memories of Ion Storm's beloved immersive sim.
]]>This took rather longer than we thought. But after five entries, and two weeks, I've come to my conclusions. You can read the whole saga here, if you've not yet caught up, as I chronicle my experience of replaying Deus Ex - a game I've always maintained is the Best Game Ever - fifteen years later. Was I wrong? Is it even possible for me to be wrong? Read on.
]]>My chronicle of returning to Deus Ex fifteen years later, to see if I'm right when I tell anyone who comes near that it's the best game ever, is nearing its end. You can read the whole saga here.
In this fifth part I contemplate the significant change in approach in the last third of the game, and then make my choice for the ending.
]]>And so continues my chronicle of returning to Deus Ex fifteen years later, to see if I'm right when I tell anyone who comes near that it's the best game ever. You can read the whole saga here.
In this fourth edition, I once more fail to save my brother, become increasingly frustrated with the limits of the game's intelligence, and ponder whether real choice is actually usefully conveyed to the player.
]]>As my re-exploration of Deus Ex continues, I find my memories clashing with the reality of the game, as I try to establish if it's still the Best Game Ever™. You can read the whole saga here. It's accusing me of crimes I didn't commit, an in turn, I start committing some crimes.
]]>Here continues my attempt to discover if Deus Ex really is the best game ever, like my brain thinks. Part One is here. Today I yet again struggle to get the game working, then struggle to work within the game. But cheer myself up reading some newspapers.
]]>When asked, “What is the best game ever?” I always give one reply. “Deus Ex.” Back in the days when my passport still allowed me into PC Gamer Top 100 meetings, I would furiously argue that it should be no. 1, and indeed become furious whenever it did not. While I may pick another name if asked for my favourite game, when it comes to “best”, I always say Looking Glass/Ion Storm’s greatest moment.
But what if I’m wrong?
]]>The reveal trailer for the new Deus Ex game [official site] shows the full meaning of that subtitle - almost every man in the video ends up divided right down the middle by a stonking great stabby cybernetic implant. Packed with ultraviolence, it's the sort of trailer that tells me absolutely nothing about how I'll actually play the game but I can't deny that it's done the trick. I'm even more excited than I was earlier today when I explained to Graham why Deus Ex makes my plastanium heart skip a beat.
It's the haves against the have-nots - that's the have-augmented-bits against the have-not-got-augmented-bits - and it looks spectacular.
]]>Deus Ex: Mankind Divided has been announced. Adam and Graham decided to activate their social augs and discuss their reasons for being united in excitement for Adam Jensen's return.
Graham: Adam, Adam, get this. I have… great Deus Expectations. The title for this (potentially regular?) feature is already paying dividends.
Adam: Oh lord, give me the augmented strength to bear this load.
]]>Square Enix have been teasing a project for the last couple of days, with the codename Project CKP - Can't Kill Progress. Now, Neogaf user arturkrang has revealed what appears to be confirmation that CKP was building toward the long-awaited Deux Ex: Mankind Divided reveal. The leak comes via Kanobu, a Russian website (as detailed here), and contains images, including the one above. The rest are below.
]]>I've seen Adam Jensen from Deus Ex 4* and his hair is lustrous.
I like to make the time at every GDC to attend one talk I almost certainly won't understand, because it's useful to remind ourselves every now and then of the absurd technology that underpins the games we play. This year I picked Augmented Hair In Deus Ex Universe Projects, because not only does it fit this mission, but I thought I might get lucky and hear a few hints about Deus Ex 4.
Instead I left the talk with a question: does anyone really care this much about hair?
]]>I like to think that last week's post about new Bloodlines mods got a few folks reinstalling the game, so let's go for The Big One of "when someone mentions it, you're driven to replay it" games: Deus Ex. Mega-overhaul mod GMDX released a new version last week with even more tweaks making the immersive sim more immersive sim-y, new facets to systems creating new ways for you to be clever and for things to go wrong.
To single out one tiny change from a huge update, I really like this: "If holding a carcass or TNT crate friendly NPCs may get frightened or attack." I mean, you would be worried, wouldn't you?
]]>Every Sunday, we reach deep into Rock, Paper, Shotgun's 141-year history to pull out one of the best moments from the archive. This week, we re-visit Kieron's Dark Futures series, which spoke to the leaders of the immersive sim. This is part five, an essay written by Clint Hocking.
Clint Hocking's career started with sending his resume into Ubisoft Monreal "on a lark". Six week's later, he's working on the original Splinter Cell, ending up as a designer/scriptwriter. After its enormous success, he rose to the position of Creative Director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2 before leaving this year to chase new horizons. Away from his game design, he's a prolific essayist on his own blog. And in keeping in that, rather than a traditional interview, Clint has wrote us an essay...
]]>Eidos Montreal aren't saying this is a screenshot from the next Deus Ex game, right. Today they announced the shiny new(ish) engine that'll power their next cyberfest, and simply wanted to illustrate that with an image. This here Dawn Engine is based on "a heavily modified version" of Glacier 2, the engine IO Interactive created for Hitman: Absolution. This Dawn demo screenshot is perhaps not Newus Ex, but it is quite Human Revolution-y in its gold-washed technohole with metal walls, metal floors, and so many cables and tube lights, yet incongruously swanky furniture.
]]>Some moments in some games stay with you. The right event, the right surprise or the right hats at the right time, and it's imprinted on your memory forever. I've been playing PC games for almost 25 years: I've got a million of these, and so have you. I'll show you just a few of mine if you show me yours.
]]>A rather strange addition to Steam's Early Access list popped up over the weekend - the Eidos Anthology. Eidos, which sort of exists inside the maw of Square Enix, is no slouch when it comes to noteworthy games, and Eidos Montreal recently picked up a Golden Joystick for Best Hair or similar. An anthology of their games is quite the thing.
In a collection of quite enormous proportions, Square are selling 34 games (including all the Tomb Raiders, all the Thiefs, all the Deus Exes) and about forty-nine billion DLC packs at just over half the price of buying them individually. That price, however, is £160. Cor.
]]>Texture packs, replacement models, and post-processing mods can do a lot to pretty a game up, but they can't conceal that jagged old level geometry. It's an awful lot more work to re-do and update levels but by gum, the folks at Deus Ex: Revision are putting in the time. The Caustic Creative team have been tarting up and reworking Deus Ex's levels with more props, more decorative architecture, and fancier lighting.
Version 1.0 of the "re-imagining" mod had been due on May 12 but due a mysterious alluring offer it's pushed back into the nebulous "near future," those PC Gamer chaps have spotted. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with a new video showing off a few of the reworked levels.
]]>Warren Spector is a busy man. He's directing the University of Texas at Austin's game design academy, he's teaching part-time, he's traveling and giving talks - the list goes on. But while the Deus Ex and, er, Epic Mickey creator is surrounded by games and relentlessly stalked by his legacy, he's not actually making anything right now. He didn't exactly go out on a high note last time, either. Between the new gig(s) and enough accolades to craft cyberpunk augments and a Mickey hat made of pure gold, he could easily call it a career right now. But that, he told me on D.I.C.E.'s red carpet, simply isn't in the cards. Go below for my brief chat with Spector and special guest star The Internet's (and also Vlambeer's) Rami Ismail.
]]>In this second part of my conversation with Warren Spector, we discuss the good and bad of Disney, Spector’s new role as an Academy director, the benefits and drawbacks of growing up as a gamer, and the parallels between Hollywood in the late forties and the games industry now. Also, why indie development is the place to be.
]]>There are a lot of words being written about the new consoles this week but when I spoke to Warren Spector a few days ago, he was clear about where his future lies: “I think all the interesting stuff is happening on PC now… Assuming I make more games, which I intend to do, PC and Mac are going to be my targets.”
It’s good to hear. We spoke at the Bradford Animation Festival and covered a wide range of topics, from his theories of design and pioneering role in PC gaming to thoughts on the current state of the industry. In this first part of our conversation, there’s insight into how Spector see his own legacy and the work of his former colleagues, and how frustrations with Thief’s difficulty inspired the player empowerment of Deus Ex.
]]>Against all odds, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was marvelous. It wasn't quite a perfect continuation of the original's legendary legacy (and those boss fights were utterly atrocious), but it let us dissect a rich and, um, very gold cyberpunk world with a surgeon's belt of clever tech toys. Also vents. Just the right number of vents. But what's next? Well, Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut is coming out on October 22nd, but that's just tying up some loose ends. Deus Ex: Universe, however, is the future, and it promises to be quite grand in scope indeed.
]]>Why wait until the increasingly plausible cyberfuture for life-extending augments, nano enhancements, and modifications? Our PC games are getting them right now, as they have been pretty much since the inception of our humble hobby. Case in point: Deus Ex. It still sees the occasional hugely ambitious mod now and then, and it's more than a decade old. Deus Ex: Nihilum, especially, fits the bill quite nicely, lining its worn but hardly ragged trench coat with more than ten hours of content, 2200 lines of new dialogue, an entire, completely new soundtrack, and tons of nooks and crannies to explore and hack. It's a labor of love that's been several years in the making, and you can finally download it now.
]]>For the first time in ages, Deus Ex director Warren Spector is unemployed. The man who created what's regarded by many as the greatest game of all time isn't cracking any whips, cooking up cyber conspiracies, or teaching cartoon mice to sing. Instead, he's taking some time to both teach and learn, which is what brought him to UC Santa Cruz's recent Interactive Storytelling Symposium. There, he echoed the refrain that's recently become his calling card: take games to new, interesting places, and don't just lean on crutches from film, TV, and the like to do it. It was a call to action - a plea for tomorrow's burgeoning brains to break outside the box and then burn the remains. Do not, however, mistake that for an admission of inaction on Spector's part. Unemployed or not, his gears are churning again, and he's starting to think about his next big move. After his session, Spector and I discussed why he can't simply make another Deus-Ex-esque game, why he really wants to put a “no weapons restriction" on his next project, Kickstarter's popularity among his pioneering peers, Epic Mickey in retrospect, and more.
]]>Following his exploration of that murky world of game-to-film adaptations, movie brat David Valjalo finds himself in deep debate with Deus Ex overlord David Anfossi, talking cyberpunk, Sergio Leone and why the forthcoming Deus Ex film will break the trend and be one to watch.
]]>Now, don't go jumping to any conclusions just yet. That's how poor old Richard Kimble ended up having such a hard time of things. All that's happened is that Squeenix have taken out a trademark in the name of 'Deus Ex: Human Defiance.' It could be anything. It could be nothing. It could be a game. It could be a movie. It could be another ropey spin-off comic. It could be a typo. It could be the official Deus Ex pancake mix.
It's probably a game though, innit?
]]>Sheldon J. Pacotti, writer of Deus Ex, provided us with a very surprising, and very odd, indie game last year. Cell: emergence bemused me. It asked you to Fantastic Voyage your way through voxelly insides to fight off infection, and I couldn't do it. But now the man is back with something quite different.
Described as "a free library of visual programming 'blocks' for first-time game developers," Game Blocks is the result of something Pacotti built for an interactive writing course he teaches at the University of Texas. The idea being to encourage others to create non-linear storytelling in games. It's a visually simple tool, based on BYOB, that lets you construct scenes without being stuck in a linear path, as well as include simple physics, and even platforming. Confused? There's a free lecture below to explain!
]]>Remember Deus Ex's long-awaited New Vision mod? Of course you do. We brought you word of its incomplete release last year, and obviously, you've calibrated your cyber-brain's nanomachines to remember every last detail of every last revision of every last RPS post. I mean, what else would you use flawless memory superpowers for? At any rate, for those still running inferior flesh hardware, New Vision repaves the original Deus Ex with crisp modern textures. All of them. It's a labor of love that's been in the works for the past five years, but it's finally completely and totally finished.
]]>Videogame movies! No one really asked for them, but we're getting them anyway. I now imagine Ezio and Adam Jensen leaping hand-in-hand off the rooftop that is their medium of choice, but with Jensen engaging the Icarus Landing System while Ezio dies horribly because hay doesn't work that way. At any rate, Deus Ex's film rights have officially fallen into the hands of CBS Films, and Human Revolution - not the original or Invisible War - will be its foundation.
]]>I understand that retail excitement and stealth aren't all that compatible, so I'll allow GOG.com the opportunity to loudly gloat over nabbing Square Enix's (nee: Eidos) stealthy pair of classics. Both Hitman: Codename 47 and Deus Ex are waiting for your money in exchange for discreet but deadly dalliances.
]]>Do you want to know what happens in the second half of the Deus Ex DLC, The Missing Link? No, nor me. But for some reason that's information Eidos have put into a walkthrough trailer, narrated by game designer Antoine Thisdale. You can watch it below, if you like to know what happens far in games before you've played them.
]]>Can there really be someone who hasn't played Deus Ex yet? Surely not. But just in case, or just in case your copy has exploded, you can pick it up today from Games For Windows Marketplace for 75p. For today only. SEVENTY FIVE PENCE. What on Earth is going on? If you dropped that much money out of your helicopter you'd not bother to land to pick it up! If you're American you're paying 99 of your "cents". (Interesting fact: this doesn't derive from the Latin for 100, but in fact directly from the word "centaur". When the dollar was first created it was based on the value of one hundred centaurs, clearly hugely depreciating since.) Just bloody buy it, you idiots.
]]>Harvey Smith flags up Trouble At The 'Ton, a cell-shaded Deus Ex fan film released back in July, on Twitter. It's a prequellete of sorts, starring two of DX's most beloved bitplayers. Seems like a decent start to the day.
]]>The rumours are true! Yesterday, clad in black jacket and sunglasses, I rode a train to the Square Enix offices in cyber-Wimbledon to get the latest on Deus Ex 3, no matter the cost. Gaining entrance was challenging- I tried hacking a keypad and going in through the back, with no luck. I'd just started climbing a drainpipe to the roof when a PR came out and asked if I wanted to see Deus Ex 3. I said yes.
Don't worry if you're keen to not spoil a single bit of Deus Ex 3 for yourself. The following is entirely spoiler free.
]]>We've an entire internet's worth images from Deus Ex: Human Revolution for you - a heady mix of screens and concept art, which we've posted below. All the images in this article are clickable for larger versions. Go browse, it's got some serious cyberpunk prettiness going on. Also, some brown. Finally, check back later today for our intricate and edifying preview of the game, written by the handsome, wily, and dexterous Quintin Smith.
]]>Clint Hocking's career started with sending his resume into Ubisoft Monreal "on a lark". Six week's later, he's working on the original Splinter Cell, ending up as a designer/scriptwriter. After its enormous success, he rose to the position of Creative Director on Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Far Cry 2 before leaving this year to chase new horizons. Away from his game design, he's a prolific essayist on his own blog. And in keeping in that, rather than a traditional interview, Clint has wrote us an essay...
]]>Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith are game designers who are currently co-directing an unannounced project at Arkane Studios, working across offices in Lyon and Austin. They've been making games professionally since 1993, with a keen interest in first-person games with detailed environments and RPG features. Colantonio is the founder, CEO and Creative Director at Arkane. Under his direction, Arkane created Arx Fatalis and the PC version of Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. Over the years, he has worked with Electronic Arts, Valve, Ubisoft and 2K. In 2005, Colantonio expanded Arkane, opening a new office in Austin. At Ion Storm, Smith was lead designer of the award winning game Deus Ex, which received a BAFTA ward in 2000, and project director of Deus Ex: Invisible War. He was lead designer of FireTeam at Multitude and studio creative director at Midway Games (Austin). In the early 90's, Smith worked at legendary RPG studio Origin Systems. Both Colantonio and Smith have spoken at numerous game conferences, and are passionate about immersive, highly interactive games with simulation elements.
]]>Jordan Thomas first came to our attention with Thief: Deadly Shadows where he co-designed the Cradle with Randy Smith. Next he was on Bioshock, with his fingerprints over all Fort Frolic. Then, he stepped up to Creative Director at 2k Marin with Bioshock 2. He's highly verbal, scarily optimistic and wants to talk to you about the Immersive Sim as an Anti-genre, the death of seriousness and the growth of snark, Thomas Moore Utopian fiction and what Ion Storm Austin were considering doing with Deus Ex 3...
]]>And just one last one here, unless Obama suddenly mails us to tell us how Deus Ex inspired his political career or something. It's the lovely Ed Stern, Writer at Splash Damage who finds himself thinking about what actually writing these articles says about games...
]]>Emil Pagliarulo started his career this side of the fence, writing for the venerable Adrenaline Vault. Since kicking his way into development, he worked in the twilight years of Looking Glass - where he was designer on the eternal Life Of The Party - before moving to work on Bethesda, where he was Designer on Oblivion (Think "Dark Brotherhood") before becoming Lead Designer on Fallout 3. He's optimistic about the future, will surprise you by how big an influence Deus Ex was on Fallout 3 and has enormous sympathy for Eidos Montreal...
]]>When Deus Ex debuted back in 2000 it was showered with universal critical kudos. Well... almost universal critical kudos. The exception was Tom Chick, now one of the most respected American games journalists currently writing about the medium, who gave it a sub-50% mark. And no-one's ever forgot it, though it's long since been lost even to archive.org... though the lovely Crumbsucker has unearthed it. I felt I couldn't finish our looking-backwards at Deus Ex without talking to Tom about his infamous running-joke provoking review...
]]>Following on from the first two parts, here's the influence of Deus Ex on two developers in very different places. EA's RTS Lead Designer Saul Bass was in the industry for five years... and then left. Meanwhile, Aubrey Hesselgren was in Tiverton. There's a dark future for you...
]]>Following on from yesterday's first part, here's another couple of developers who were just entering the industry when Deus Ex hit, and the influence it had on them. Both 2k-Mariners of Bioshock 2 fame, Lead Level Designer Jean-Paul LeBreton was starting his career at Human Head when Deus Ex hit while Senior System Designer Kent Hudson was at college making game maps on any SDK he could find...
]]>It's been a decade since Deus Ex. A realisation struck me: the industry will now be peppered with people whose formative experiences were with Deus Ex. For them it was, in one way or another, inspirational. I decided to hunt down a few and talk to them, about what Deus Ex said to them, how it shaped them, what it taught them and how they bring it into what they make today. By which I mean, drop 'em a line and say "Deus Ex, eh? Thoughts?". First up are 2k Marin Designer Steve Gaynor (Bioshock 2) and Ninja Theory Senior Technical Designer Rob Hale (Enslaved: Odyssey To The West)...
]]>The_B's just noticed that RPS isn't the only people doing stupid things on the birthday of Deus Ex. Steam are having a 75% off sale, which ends at 3PST on the 23rd. 75% off is £1.50 each, or three quid for the pair. It's the sort of price which I'd be tempted to spend just to have on my Steam-Account in case I can't be bothered finding whichever box your original DX is in. Go gets. Unless you've got it already. Then don't go gets, unless you want to go gets for a friend.
]]>A quick refresher on the epochal events of everyone's favourite ten-year-old videogame... If you find any inaccuracies in this meticulously-researched document, that's because you're wrong. Spoilers, obv.
INT: A BIG RED ROOM WITH A GIGANTIC CREEPY HAND IN IT BOB PAGE: Underneath this gigantic creepy hand is the perfect place to openly discuss our plans to take over the world. WALTON SIMMONS: Yes. And I seem to have been promoted into a position of immense power despite being incredibly and obviously sinister. No-one would ever suspect me of unleashing synthetic plagues and killer cyborgs. BOB PAGE: Aquinas spoke of the mythical City on the Hill. Soon that city will be a reality, and we will be crowned its kings. Or better than kings. Gods. THE PLAYER: I do hope you're not expecting me to be surprised when you two turn out to be evil later.
]]>It's been a while since we got together to do a verdict. That splendid Deus Ex anniversary seems like the right kind of time to do so. Below we judge the game, ten years on. Does it live up to the legend?
]]>Deus Ex is ten years old today. That's ten years since JC first stormed the Statue Of Liberty in front of a paying audience. Ten years since people really started talking about Best Game Ever status for another science fiction game made in Texas. Ten years since greasels. Ten years since the bit where Gunther Hermann didn't get the right flavour of fizzy drink. If nothing else, it means the all the RPS staff are now basically very old, and should probably have a rest. But we cannot! For we have more Deus Ex birthday things coming up, and we shall not stop until this particular anniversary is well and truly celebrated.
]]>Well I'll be, I'm mentioned on Jaunty RPS Tribute Blog PCGamer.com. They've posted up a feature about the endings of the original Deus Ex, which apparently I contributed to. For someone who doesn't drink or take drugs, I have a really shocking amount of my past that I can't remember. But wow, do I sound smart and interesting and handsome. It's a lovely feature, going through the three possible endings (and one rather silly extra one), and their consequences in Deus Ex 2. You're allowed to read it if you want. And then share with the class which ending you picked, and why. Show your working.
]]>Via the great Harvey Smith's twittersome feedington, I bring news of an excellent graphical upgrade to the electric videogame for personal computer systems known as Deus Ex. It has made me want to purchase three monitors. Please stop me from doing this. Please.
]]>As we inch towards ten years of Deus Ex (10! That's almost as old as my 48th child), there's bound to be a ton of fun'n'hyper-nerdy celebrations. The members of RPS, for instance, will each be dressing up as their favourite pair of sunglasses for the entire month of June. Here's a little pre-birthday celebration, though - Steam's flogging Deus Ex for a mere £1.50/$2.50 in its mid-week sale. (£1.50! That's almost as much as I spend annually on food for my 47th child.) Alternatively, £3/$5 buys you a pack containing DX and something called 'Invisible War.' Huh. Wonder what that is? It's not as though there was ever a Deus Ex sequel.
]]>Earlier in the week we had a look at The Nameless Mod for Deus Ex, which was announced complete a few days ago following seven years in development. Here we chat to Chief Creative Officer Jonas Wæver of Off Topic Productions about how you create one of the largest mods ever made, why you'd set it in a virtual messageboard and how to deal with the Dunce Gamers' League.
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