Square Enix® and Eidos-Montréal®, the award-winning studio behind the critically acclaimed, multimillion-selling Deus Ex: Human Revolution®, today announced that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided™, the next chapter in the legendary Deus Ex® franchise, is in development for the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, Xbox One, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and Windows PC. The action role-playing game brings one of the most well-known, immersive and discussed worlds to the newest generation of consoles and high-end PCs.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided takes place in 2029, two years after the events of Human Revolution and the infamous ‘Aug Incident’ in Panchaea that resulted in the death of millions at the hands of those who had installed augmentations. This event has created a huge divide between those who have augmentations, and those who do not. Amongst this emotional turmoil are various factions looking to manipulate the public by twisting public opinion of augmentation to further their own agenda and hide the truth of what really happened.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided also continues the story of Adam Jensen, a former biotech company security chief turned super-augmented, anti-terrorist agent playing by his own rules. Jensen has been empowered with all new augmentations, enabling him and the player a greater sense of self-control as they explore all new locations in-game. As social and political tensions reach a major turning point, Jensen and conspiracies surrounding the Illuminati continue toward an inevitable crossroads … and possibly, an epic showdown.
“For 15 years, Deus Ex has been a point of conversation across the games industry and beyond, whether the topic is the franchise’s unique gameplay or topical narrative focused on advanced biotechnology and human augmentation,” said David Anfossi, Head of Studio, Eidos-Montréal. “What began with Deus Ex: Human Revolution goes to a whole new level in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, diving even deeper into this discussion and, in turn, offering fans an all-encompassing experience, one which will challenge their skills as players and emphasize decision-making based on real world topics.”
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will also mark a new era in Eidos-Montréal’s technology, utilizing the advanced visual and immersive capabilities of the Dawn Engine™, specifically built for the recent generation of consoles and PC. Under the umbrella of the Gaming Evolved program, AMD and Eidos-Montréal have been collaborating on Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and the game will feature Microsoft’s DirectX® 12 support as well as AMD’s TressFX™. These features will not only raise the bar in game performance but bring unrivalled visual fidelity to the Deus Ex franchise..
The release date for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be announced at a later date.
Exclusive details and developer commentary for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided can be found in Game Informer’s May issue. Visit GameInformer throughout the month for ongoing coverage.
Some seriously dumb shit they're pulling with this preorder campaign. And to top it off, oh boy, a 4-day early release! Who the hell can't wait less than a fucking week for their stupid game to come out, especially when they probably have several hundred other games they haven't even touched? Bunch of nonsense.
When Square Enix announced the release date for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, it also revealed a tiered pre-order scheme. The more pre-orders the game received, the more rewards players would unlock.
Today, the “Augment Your Pre-Order” plan is no more.
The publisher says that the negative feedback on the program led to the decision. “We’ve spent a lot of time reading through all of your comments, working to understand how we can try to make things right for you,” the publisher writes. “After much thought and reflection, we decided to close down the program and make all incentive content available to anyone who pre-orders Deus Ex: Makind Divided or purchases a Day 1 edition of the game.”
This means that players will no longer have to choose which pre-order bonus they receive at different tiers.
Everyone will get:
•Intruder (stealth), Enforcer (aggressive), and classic packs
•Skins
•Extra mission
•Comic Book
•Soundtrack
The release date is now fixed at February 23, and Square Enix no longer has plans to distribute it four days early based on pre-order numbers. The publisher says that the changes should be applied automatically to your order with no action required on your part.
If Mankind Divided has any major problems, it’s a difficulty in cashing the checks that its setting and narrative write.
There’s every indication that Mankind Divided will explore a global conspiracy, that it will seek to unravel both the mysterious Illuminati’s plans for the Augmented, and what happened to Jensen in the two years after the events of Human Revolution. Instead, Eidos Montreal is largely content to play in Prague, with minor detours to very limited spaces elsewhere that compose a small fraction of the game.
It’s strange, having played Human Revolution and now Mankind Divided, and being struck with a sense that the former was somehow more grandiose than the latter. The levels in Human Revolution were almost certainly smaller, allowed for somewhat less experimentation and were more segmented. But the game went places, both story-wise and geographically, and Mankind Divided feels like a yo-yo on a considerably shorter string.
But the most frustrating thing about Mankind Divided is how abruptly it’s all over.
I try not to exaggerate in reviews, so believe me when I describe my reaction to Mankind Divided’s conclusion as "stunned." There’s a host of story threads presented that are explored over the game’s 30 hours and dropped without comment or resolution after a fairly anticlimactic boss battle. Very little of the conspiracy Jensen is investigating is revealed, and by the end, there are few answers and a pile of new questions. There’s only a faint whiff of resolution, and the prospect of waiting another five years to see how Eidos Montreal’s mechanical augmentations ultimately give way to the nanotech dystopia of the original Deus Ex left me feeling pretty deflated.
As it stands, the narrative is fine, if somewhat forgettable. Jensen spends the vast majority of the game in different sections of Prague, which has become a ground zero of sorts for human/aug tension. There are plenty of different factions at play, from the shadowy government-controlling conspiracy at the center of it to an augmented rights organization that swears they're non-violent to Russian mobsters, dirty cops, a hilarious little underground newspaper, and so on. By the end I felt like I had stopped "the bad guys" without getting any more insight into who "the bad guys behind the bad guys" actually are or why any of it matters.
The game also doesn't come up with many meaningful combat encounters. On one hand, this solves the boss fight issue some had with the previous game, though I don't know that "remove almost all boss fights" is the most exciting solution. Perhaps that speaks more to my non-lethal, very conversation-focused approach to the action, but by the time I got to the boss fight in Mankind Divided, it felt like I hadn't had enough trigger time to be actually comfortable with the combat controls, making the endgame more of a hassle than a satisfying conclusion.
I ended up enjoying more of the side missions than the actual story itself, though the narrative does provide a good setup for why, exactly, you aren't starting out just as powerful as you were at the end of the previous game.
Mankind Divided feels smaller-scale and less ambitious than its first act led me to believe it would be, and as the credits rolled, I felt faintly unsatisfied. As much as I liked the game overall, I was let down by the abrupt ending, which feels like it is missing an act somewhere. Several plot points are rushed to their conclusion or wrapped up offscreen, while others are left unresolved.
I was also disappointed that the bulk of the tale occurs in and around the city of Prague. Aside from a brief detour to a nearby Aug ghetto called Golem City, there aren’t any other meaningful non-combat hubs in the game. Throughout the first few hours, characters are constantly talking about events in London and the augs-only city of Rabi’ah, which led me to assume that we’d relocate to those two cities in due course. We never did.
Hard for me to get excited about this. As a huge fan of the original Deus Ex... I just think the series lost what made that game great. I never played the previous one before this – it seems to me that this is much more like Hitman and Metal Gear Solid than an immersive first-person RPG. Any thoughts on that?It's tough to say since it really depends on the way you play.
It's tough to say since it really depends on the way you play.
Admittedly, DX: Human Revolution (DX:HR) was more suited to stealth gameplay, which makes the boss battles in that game even more baffling since they all relied on firepower and brute force. However, the experience itself was very much a traditional Deus Ex first-person RPG. It proved that the core gameplay principles of Deus Ex were very much viable and desirable to the current consumer base. That was quite an achievement considering how poorly DX: Invisible War turned out (critically and financially); also bearing in mind that Square-Enix canceled the 3rd Deus Ex game and re-branded it as Project Snowblind, which was a pretty decent game but did not carry the Deus Ex name. Human Revolution revitalized the brand and it's really worth checking out if you liked the original Deus Ex.
That's why I'm pretty excited about Mankind Divided since I've set my expectation on it being more refined than DX:HR.
Ender, X, are you guys talking about DX:HR in that last exchange, or another DX game? I got HR free a while back, and dabbled in it a bit, but then I moved on. (That's my problem with free games--I don't feel I owe myself the time to persevere through rough or slow spots.) Maybe I need to try it again.I was informing Ender on DX:HR, since he hadn't played it yet. If he likes it, chances are DX:MD will be next on his list :)
I've been reading this thread. My reaction in the last couple of days has been rather negative. Here's one more incomplete (rushed?) game, which may be completed with a sequel or DLC. New normal, I guess.
I just started DX:MD, I'll share my impressions soon.Looking forward to your impressions, of course. :)
Yeah, that's horrible (about MTs). But how necessary or beneficial are they? The last 2 Assassin's Creed games do this (like with helix credits), but since I never stoop to that shit, I've never missed its perks, or felt impeded by the lack of them. The biggest issue with this insidious practice is that games can be made too tedious to play enjoyably without letting yourself get fleeced as you play. The revenue-stream mentality means devs are going to be pressured into doing just that. (I remember asking the same questions about the AC games before buying them too.)That's a very good example. The MTs are set up in a very similar (if not identical) fashion as the recent Assassin's Creed games. I don't feel impeded by the lack of them either and luckily they're not blasting you in the face with adverts or "pay here" options. SO I guess I ought to be grateful for that at least.
You'll get four free Praxis kits, 1,000 crafting materials, and 5,000 credits stuffed into your wallet - Praxis kits are how you gain new powers, so this essentially means free upgrades, better guns, and the ability to buy more stuff and more expensive gear sooner. No more skulking around in the vents hunting for randomly discarded items for you!
You'll also get your own miniature armory thanks to the Assault Pack and Tactical Pack. The former contains a custom skinned Battle Rifle, the Chaff Augmentation, one pack of regular Battle Rifle ammo, one pack of armor piercing Battle Rifle ammo, 2 Frag Grenades, and 2 EMP Grenades. The latter holds a custom skinned Tranquilizer Rifle, the Micro Assembler Augmentation, one pack of tranquilizer ammo, 3 Smoke Grenades, and 2 Gas Grenades.
If you plan on checking out the new Deus Ex multiplayer mode, Breach, you can take advantage of the five Breach booster packs and 20 Breach chipsets. Booster packs unlock things like new weapons and items, Praxis points, premium ammo, while chipsets are the in-game currency used to purchase them. Again, you're both getting power and an easing of the financial burden that comes with buying more power.
Lastly, the Mankind Divided season pass will include two story missions. "System Rift" will be available later this fall, and "A Criminal Past" will be available in early 2017. No word on what these missions will be about, but if they're anything like the main game, it's safe to say there will be cyborgs, morally-grey conundrums, and lots of triangles.
Square Enix has shared some information about the first Deus Ex: Mankind Divided story add-on.
Titled "System Rift," the DLC pack will see the return of Frank Pritchard and will have him team up with Adam Jensen to hack into the Santeau Group.
"In System Rift you will re-unite with Frank Pritchard, Adam's friend and former colleague at Sarif Industries, and assist him in hunting down information on the mysterious Santeau Group," the publisher explains in a press release.
"Desperate to get more information, Pritchard targets one of the most secure data banks ever created--the Palisade Blade. In agreeing to help, Adam may also be able to uncover hints as to who the illuminati really are."
This first story pack will be available on September 23 for all formats (PC, PS4 and Xbox One).
No prices for the US have been listed, but the original article mentions it is 10 cents more on Xbox One. I can't fathom why, but we all know a pretty good response to that; something about never asking for or not wanting this.
So arrogant and irritating, and so right. Good thing I'm lukewarm on the DX franchise. I can wait for a price drop. It doesn't seem right to be paying full price for this.
I'm just going to chime in here with this - no matter how on point Jim Sterling may be in a video, I can never bring myself to watch him. Just to arrogant and irritating, as you say. I find everything about the guy hard to stomach
I really liked the original Deus Ex and Human Revolution. I recall playing a bit of Invisible War but it was one of those games that did not play well on the PC as it was designed for the console. I am interested in trying Mankind Divided but reviews for the game were mixed, if I recall. To be honest, I was surprised to hear that since they could have recycled Human Revolution in a new setting and advanced the plot line and it should have worked brilliantly. Not sure where they went wrong. When the price of the latest game goes down, I will pick it up and give it a shot.
I personally have never been interested in this series and they've never done anything to get me in. I know that's anathema to a lot of people, especially old-school PC gamers like myself, but I got super bored with the first one each of the 3 times I tried to play it. Just never got very far. None of the other entries ever felt like a good place to jump in, really, so I just sort of stayed out forever.
Part of my issue with these games is I've never really understood what they were about. Not really. All the stuff I'd see or read felt kind of vague and cryptic. Whatever they were doing for marketing, it wasn't very good, and that's a problem I see pretty frequently lately. I feel like too many AAA franchises are relying on names and either not making the interesting stuff the game is doing known, or the game in question just isn't actually doing anything interesting to begin with. Too much marketing is thrown at the names and not at anything substantive. I'm more interested in seeing something original, and AAA consistently delivers the least of that these days, it seems. I'm almost less inclined to look at a game if it's a franchise deal, to be honest.