A Retrospect on One of The Most Under Appreciated Games of The Decade: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Hello IndianAgent47’s fans how are you alldoing? They are not your fans.

… And who might you be mister? Uh… My name is Adam Jensen and I’m an ex swatcovert task force (double) agent.

Well then you should be happy cause this video’sbased on you! Good.

But not in a very positive way.

I never asked for this.

Let me start off by saying taking your favoriteshow/game and calling it underrated has become a trend at this point.

Cause it makes some people feel better aboutwatching/playing it and thinking, ‘Wow, I’m appreciating this underrated gem whileother losers are enjoying mainstream media?! Boooo.

’ They think of themselves as some sort of artconnoisseurs.

And have you ever heard the saying, ‘Witcher3 the Underrated Indie Developer Gem’ (I’m not quoting this from r/gamingcirclejerk subredditby the way) Witcher 3.

Underrated.

Are you frigging kidding me! Liking something specific doesn’t make youcool! Enjoy what you enjoy.

So now when I say that Deus Ex: Mankind Dividedis underrated, um… it actually is underrated.

But before I begin I have some good news.

Recently Square Enix CEO himself conformedthat Deus Ex is not in fact abandoned and they will return to it when they ‘have time’and recently the developers, Eidos Montreal opened a new studio with this big ass AdamJensen statue, hmmmm… why do you think they did that? The Avengers game, for which Deus Ex was scrappedfor is coming to a close soon and all these point towards a sequel in the works.

Cyberpunk 2077 is releasing next year(howeverdelayed) and it would be the perfect opportunity to announce it(not release it) there! But anyways.

For introduction it’s one of the rare StealthRPG genre game with open ended hub style open worlds and travelling between exotic locationsmostly to uncover a global conspiracy.

I know the conspiracy.

I know the conspiracy part sounded cheesyas hell but believe me here did a pretty good job.

It only got major attention a couple of timesin its entire lifespan and a lot of them were for negative reasons.

The first time was during its announcementtrailer which was a positive one since it ignited hype and the 101 trailer was anotherpositive entry but the rest is one ugly picture.

It first got its controversy during the infamouspyramid-scheme-bonuses-pre-order bollocks.

Basically the more the pre orders are registeredthe more the bonuses you get.

It got so much backlash for this they actuallyremoved it.

The second one was during the release timeand perhaps the most attention this game ever got – the microtransactions.

I don’t think I need to explain what thisis.

And the third negative response backlash controversywas the fact that some dudes from Eidos Montreal, the developers of this game told this dudeabout how during its development they had to cut the game in half and keep the secondpart for a sequel.

And this one pretty much lessened the alreadylessened reputation of the game.

Enough of this sadness! Time for me to debunk.

1.

All of these stunts were done by SquareEnix! Don’t forget these are the same guys whoput Sleeping Dogs on ice because apparently selling 1.

5 copies in one month is a ‘failure’.

They were also going to destroy Hitman, whichis pretty much why I have the will to live.

2.

The micro-transactions.

This one is gonna be tricky cause a lot ofyou will disagree with this.

Look, on my first playthrough I did only oneside quest aside from the main campaign and I still had about 80% of the augmentations(forwhich the mtx were designed)! And the next time when I got my PC I did allside quests, explored all the hidden areas(like how this game is meant to be played) and inthe end had all the augs and weapons! Sooo I think here the developers deliberatelymade it so you won’t need to get the microtranactions and for this, Eidos Montreal, I love you.

3.

And about the half cutting, I’m reallyjust thinking.

If what I played was actually half of whatthey were going to make then entire game would have been 100 hours long! Cause this game is really big.

The massive campaign is about 30 hours anddoing all the well crafted and long side quests along with exploring the map can net you another30! This is my personal opinion but this thoughtof being ‘unfinished’ can only be justified if you rushed through the storyline withoutdoing any side content or exploration.

Deus Ex is one of those games where you takeyour time.

It’s doesn’t have a 3.

82 square mile openworld.

It’s a game with highly detailed and masterfullycrafted environments and cities with each area given a lot of thought and love.

I think Prague is one of the best environmentsever created(like I said in another video).

Just the vibe, the looks of it, the construction, the tons of secret areas and passages are well done, and the quests and missions giveyou all the more reason to stay there.

There are tons of rooms and stashes just waitingto be explored and things looted.

To top it all up this game acknowledges itby giving you exploration XP rewards.

A place which might seem like a normal apartmentmight have some valuables, or maybe it’s connected to a restricted area and servesas way of infiltrating into that OR you might find a dead body and a quest’s startingpoint with it.

It’s a work of art.

This design is pretty rare.

The other examples I can think of are Hitmanand Dishonored and talking about the latter, I was first gonna title this video, ‘DeusEx: Mankind Divided – The Cyberpunk Dishonored’ cause the similarities are endless.

You have a cyberpunk blink and a lot otherawesome augments which are really, really fun to play with! The only difference is MD is not that popular:(.

The beauty of this game’s system is that it allows for a very personal type ofgameplay experience where you decide what augs to use, how to use and them and how youcan chain them up and make your own paths/obscure scenarios! There’s also lethal or non lethal playthroughstyle option, again similar to Dishonored and you have tons of options for both thestyles.

The also did a really good job at the ‘Stealth’aspect of this game, multiple path and ways into an enemy territory and every little area, every cover, every enemy and every item so well placed it’s a great combination ofstealth, espionage and exploration.

For example here in the city’s mafia ganghideout I can go to the bar on the left of it(It’s not a bar but anyways) and on thetop if you look up you will find this red platform.

Now chances are you might think it’s a simpledecoration and part of the out of bounds or an inaccessible area of the map but if youtry just in case, Jensen actually climbs up! And from there you’ll find a passeway amongthe apartments which lead straight to the hideout.

You can also go to the right and find thisapartment, well nothing special about it but as you go through the first door you’reautomatically in the enemy territory! Another option is to transverse the sewerswhere a simple ladder will take you to the mafia grounds.

Yet another option is to find a keycard, multipleof which are scattered around the city and use it to enter from the main door! Wait there’s more! You can even just shoot it! And I’m just talking about the outskirtsof the area there’s a huge building to infiltrate with the same intricate and complex design.

There are tons of areas like this throughoutthe game, each vastly different in styles, look and size but maintaining the design philosophy.

This side quests of this game are like theextras you buy with your meal but somehow they turn out to better than the main course, in this case the main campaign.

There are about 15 side quests, not includingthe points of interest and now you might say, ‘Well Witcher 3 had 400!’ While that’s true every side quest in thisgame can take up to 3 hours.

They are really open ended with multiple choicesto make at each turn and with multiple endings.

They are less in number sure but here theyhave applied quality over quantity rule here unlike many other games.

The dialogue options and choices are again, one of the good points.

This is the perhaps the only game which actuallytells you what Adam is going to say.

And it’s all accompanied with Elias Toufexis’sawesome gravely voice.

The cast has done a pretty darn good job aswell as the writing team.

And the soundtrack, again like HR, has beenknocked out of the park, it’s the best cyberpunkish style music in the market and it goes beautifullywith the game.

Michael Mcann and this time two new composers, Sonic Mayhem and Ed Harrison have added some have done a great job and created one of thebest video game soundtracks of all time.

But this was all good talk and good vibesbut with every good talk comes a bad responsibility.

Huh.

I have got two major problems.

The narrative which has been done by the sameteam as that of HR has been slightly… downgraded per say.

This time they picked up, in my opinion, oneof the most overdone scenarios in cinemas.

About racism! Yay! With this mechanical apartheid stuff and all.

The plot of HR was really good with Jensensetting out this conspiracy and war within gangs and companies and protests and stuffbut here the entire story is about a train attack in the beginning of the game.

I’m not talking about the side quest narrativesthough they are miles better.

Another thing is that this game rewards youkilling or knocking enemies out so in other words you have to clear a place to get themost XP out of it.

And there’s no motivation to do no-knockoutstyle runs cause there’s no reward for it.

This was thing done pretty well in the firstDeus Ex.

The only reason to knock enemies out was tosteal their loot and the main focus was on getting to the destination.

Here you are busy knocking everyone out andwhile it’s a lot of fun, there should be rewards for other style runs too.

And this one is a pet peeve but there’sno head bobbing.

It’s the worst thing to ever happen to afps! It really messes with immersion and took meout of the game sometimes! It’s as if Jensen has a non budging heador something.

Which would make sense as he’s a god tiercyborg but using my detective mode I found out that in the official gameplay demo headbobbing was actually present! The only reason I think why it was scrappedoff was because of optimisation which is pretty unfortunate.

I actually found a lot of other stuff to likehow the Rucker Extarction, the 6th mission of the game was originally the 2nd.

And if you’ve played the storyline it wouldactually make sense if this was second! And with this game being cut in half and allthat I don’t know what else they changed or scrapped.

And everyone says the two DLCs are actuallyscrapped content but I will honest I can say that about the first one which could’vebeen a big side mission but the second one, A Criminal Past is massive.

Jensen infiltrates a prison and I really don’twant to spoil it but both of amazing.

But ultimately Deus Ex: Mankind Divided isa really fine game and in no means bad.

It’s a shame what corporations can do toworks of art.

It’s available for like 1$(with all dlcsincluded) nowadays so I really suggest buying it.

That was it about this video you all enjoyedit! Comment down what you think of this greatgame and I’ll be happy to discuss! Thank a lot for watching and I’ll see youall later!.