"Will there be a Deus Ex 3 ?"

Twist on 19/5/2007 at 18:38

Quote Posted by Jeshibu

What's your source on this?

I couldn't find a direct reference (although I remember seeing it... grr...), but the (http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14623) interview with Sheldon Pacotti at Evil Avatar briefly refers to it:

Quote:

Jonathan: Care to shed some light on the planned prequel to Deus Ex, the one set in modern day?

Sheldon: Hmmm, don't know if I'm allowed to confirm or deny anything about a "prequel," but I do wish some of the stuff we were working on post-Invisible War could have seen the light of day. I think we were finally on the right track. Kind of like the Bad Religion album Back to the Known, after their strange experimental Into the Unknown.

demagogue on 19/5/2007 at 19:55

How many really great (or would have been great) in-development games have been lost after things fall apart? Too many, I'm sure. (LGS lost a few potential jewels iirc, too.)

Anyway, I quite like the idea of a prequel, just because the opening situation of DX is interesting enough, there has to be a good story how our world got from the present to that ... with lots of potential for connections - Bob's rise to power, the early days of Gunther et al, a pre-vegetative Lucius DeBeers calling the shots. It'd also be a return to the delightful ambiguity in genre that plays better with the imagination than the alternative.

Digital Nightfall on 20/5/2007 at 02:23

Quote Posted by Jeshibu

What's your source on this?

My visit to ION's office a few years back.

Papy on 20/5/2007 at 04:43

I'm not sure a prequel to Deus Ex 1 would be a good idea. With a prequel, we already know what will happen, we just don't know how it happened. This can make an interesting story, but I have some difficulty understanding how it can make an interesting video game. It certainly kills the illusion of my choices influencing the outcome as I know how things will end, no matter what I do.

I think the easiest way to do a new Deus Ex would be to make a sequel to Deus Ex 1 (the game could be called "Deus Ex 2") and forget almost completely about Invisible War. I believe a sequel happening during the first few days of the collapse is possible because Invisible War is so far into the future that it doesn't really matter anyway. I don't think the game should be about the Dentons or any characters still present in Invisible War. We could find newspapers or other references from the day before the collapse to explain the world to people who didn't play the first Deus Ex, and have a sequel/prequel feeling for the others. We could even see some of those characters, but we should not have any kind of interactions with them (like when we see Maggie Chow behind an glass in Versalife). There is nothing wrong with a bulletproof window limiting my "freedom", but acting as if I didn't know the future when I interact with someone is absolutely unacceptable. I don't like the idea of having to play dumb.

I think one interesting twist would be to make the game about local fights for power instead of a global one. This would certainly put what Tong said in perspective.

Sulphur on 20/5/2007 at 11:10

Well, we still don't know what it's going to turn up as. Though, actually, a prequel would be an interesting idea because of the fact that the future's already decided. It's almost like that X-Files movie tagline: Fight the Future. It'd be an interestingly tragic story, at the least. :)

However. Given the context, this would remove any shades of grey from decisions made in the game, effectively turning it into a binary choice - do you want to work for the good guys, or the bad?

I'd take the obvious course of action in that scenario.

Which means that, if it comes down to it, a prequel would actually have to be a more linear sort of beast by definition. Which pretty much ensures you have your normal FPS rules with less room for our heretofore 'emergent' gameplay.

Unless, of course, the game goes for a completely different perspective. How about playing as an AI? That'd be cool. For a short while, anyway.

Oh, well. Speculation and whatnot aside, I'd like to know what team they've assembled to do it. It'd be nice to know if the revival is going to be a stripped-down consolisation like what's happened to the Rainbow Six series.

Vigil on 20/5/2007 at 12:15

Let's be fair though - DX1 didn't give you the slightest bit of choice over who you worked for, so in that regard was just as linear. Instead it tried to conceal (with varying degrees of success) who the good and bad guys were for the first quarter of the game.

A prequel could work just as well by concealing the nature of the organisations you (choose to/are forced to) work for and what they will eventually evolve into.

Papy on 20/5/2007 at 15:08

As long as we are able to do what we want, we'll think we're free. Deus Ex, as several other linear games, didn't really felt linear to me because the story never went in a direction I didn't wish. I couldn't choose whatever I wanted, but it felt like it was because of what was happening to me in the world, and not because it was a stupid linear game. By comparison, Invisible War felt a lot more linear because the story clearly pretended I had choices, and yet, whatever I chose, it didn't have any effect. Each time I chose something in IW, by seeing the story continuing as usual, I was immediately reminded that it was only a linear game and that my choice was pointless.

I believe a prequel will have exactly the same effect, no matter how well the story hide for whom I work for. As I know the future, I will know that my actions are completely pointless. Maybe I lack imagination, but I simply don't see how a prequel could give me the illusion that my actions could have any meaningful effect. Could someone give me an example of how this could be done ?

Sulphur on 20/5/2007 at 18:25

Quote Posted by Vigil

Absolutely. I agree that the original did a pretty good job at providing the illusion of free choice; so much so, that I thought that you actually could make a difference as to the outcome. (And those alternate endings really made it look like it did.)

Of course, any plot branches twined back to the overarching story, so your choices never really made a difference. I'm hoping, though, that if Eidos does a prequel, they can do it with some measure of success just as the original did.

Because as ham-handed as the plot could be, it was executed quite well.

redrain85 on 20/5/2007 at 20:09

I'd been hearing the rumors for months, but to now hear that it's actually been confirmed . . . I have little to no faith in EA creating a System Shock 3, but in this case I do have some hope. Please Eidos, don't fuck this up.

Just out of curiosity, what was Project Snowblind like? Any good? Since it was developed by Eidos' Crystal Dynamics studio: it could give us a vague idea of how good a possible Deus Ex 3 could be, perhaps?

Briareos H on 20/5/2007 at 20:25

To be perfectly exact, no "Deus Ex 3" has been mentioned. Reviving the franchise could mean a more traditional FPS in the Deus Ex universe, like what Project Snowblind was supposed to be at first (it received lightly favorable reviews by the way, see for example the one from (http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=58135) eurogamer).