Eidos confirms Deus Ex 3 is prequel

By Tom Bramwell Published 6 October, 2008

Details from first magazine preview.

Eidos has confirmed that Deus Ex 3 is a prequel and features biological augmentations, a cover-based stealth system and customisable and upgradeable weaponry.

Speaking to PC Zone in a long-awaited preview, Eidos Montreal explained that the game is set in 2027, and that players take on the role of a private security officer called Adam Jensen at a lab specialising in biomods. Jensen's life gets interesting when black ops break into his work.

Clarifying the preview's contents, Eidos Montreal's community manager told Voodoo Extreme that the game is a "hybrid/action RPG just like the first game", and that, "There is a skill system where you upgrade your character (Adam) based off experience points you earn and you can do the same thing with weapons."

The unnamed community manager felt the need to point this out after fans went a bit potty about some of the preview's contents. Apart from the cover-based stealth system, which replaces stealth based on light and shadow, there's an auto-healing system a bit like Call of Duty's or Halo's shield, and weapons skill rather than statistics will be central to combat.

Eidos also said that players would not be limited to a single ammo type, and that weapons can be modified with scopes and mag upgrades amongst other things.

As for augmentations, the prequel still has 'em, and they include one that fires bungee cord-style tentacles out of your back to stop you plummeting to your death when you jump off a building, and one that allows you to punch through walls to reach enemies next door.

In broader terms, "The gameplay takes the form of a consequence-driven multi-path, multi-solution approach in a non-linear space," according to the Eidos chap who emailed Voodoo Extreme.

There was less specific information on how other RPG-style elements will work, but Eidos has previously said that it will keep faith with the first game's principles. "I think the dialogue, choice versus consequences, the depth and richness of the game is something that we will certainly conserve. There are other more specific features that we want to keep," Eidos Montreal general manager Stephane D'Astous noted last year.

Deus Ex 3 - announced almost a year ago - is thought to be in development for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, and will use the same technology Crystal Dynamics did for Tomb Raider: Legend. Be sure to check out the original Deus Ex 3 teaser trailer to get an even vaguer sense of it all.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (28) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Muneeb #1 3 years ago

    People remember to check out this thread on Eidos Forums - [link url=h ttp://forums.eidosgames.com/showthread.php?t=80786
    ]http://fo rums.eidosgames.com/showthread....[/link]

    Contains all the FACTS straight from the horses mouth. And updated regularly. Looking forward to DX3.

  • PearOfAnguish #2 3 years ago

    Auto-heal and the cover system sound crap. Not very Deus Ex at all.

  • the_dudefather #3 3 years ago

    hope they add QTE sequences!

  • Muneeb #4 3 years ago

    QTE's?! Was that a joke?

    I agree though that auto-heal is crap but hopefully its optional. Cover system is in third person and is based around stealth I think. It doesn't sound too bad t me anyway.

  • X201 #5 3 years ago

    As long as they make the Bio-mod choice irreversible then I'll be happy.

  • groovychainsaw #6 3 years ago

    Please be good, please be good, please be good! Deus ex remains probably my favourite game of all time, but what a mess they made of the sequel. Keep it technical and complex, give it depth and a genuinely wide array of approaches to a given situation and maybe they can come close to the original...

  • agparrot #7 3 years ago

    /feels faint

    /echoes please-be-good sentiments.

  • RazorObsession #8 3 years ago

    i want them more than anything to get this game right. its unfortunate that i simply cannot believe that they will. you'd think that you might play as Paul Denton wouldn't you?

  • skillian #9 3 years ago

    Keep it technical and complex

    I agree, but I have to think that sadly it is unlikely.

  • Farfarer #10 3 years ago

    Fuck auto-healing (unless it's something that's a compromise - like Resistance's health system). Fuck cover systems. Fuck removing weapon skills. Deus Ex's audience are not ADD-riddled Gears of War or Halo junkies, we're intelligent RPG playing gamers who like to have to think in our games

    The choices about your upgrades better be permenant. Bollocks that BioShock/DX2 nonsense.

    I think I've learned the hard way not to even hope for anything good to come from Deus Ex sequels (and, by extension, prequels). Games like BioShock and Fallout 3 only serve to prove that sentiment to be true.

    DX3 could still be a great game, but they'll have to prove it to me - I'm not taking anything on faith any more.

  • Artemus #11 3 years ago

    With this being a prequel I hope they bring back some of characters from the original.

  • Ninja_Tino #12 3 years ago

    I dare you to play Halo or Gears on their hardest difficulty and say you don't have to think.

  • PearOfAnguish #13 3 years ago

    It had better feature characters from the original. Being a prequel it'd be cool to bump into Anna Navarre, Gunther, Manderely, Walton Simons and so on.

  • sneetch #14 3 years ago

    @Farfarer
    "Fuck auto-healing (unless it's something that's a compromise - like Resistance's health system). Fuck cover systems. Fuck removing weapon skills. Deus Ex's audience are not ADD-riddled Gears of War or Halo junkies, we're intelligent RPG playing gamers who like to have to think in our games"

    Yes, that's right, the people who like Gears of War or Halo are ADD-riddled, people who like RPGs are intelligent. Man, isn't it great how the world neatly fits your narrow-minded stereotypical view of things? It's amazing how people with these kind of views always manage to find themselves in the intelligent camp. Sheer coincidence I bet.

    But wait, are those who like both types of games some kind of intelligent, ADD-riddled RPG junkies who like cover systems and guns and thinking? Or are they just some kind of unholy abomination, against the laws of God and man? Damn these shades of grey ruining your wonderful black and white world!

    How does a cover system or the removal of weapon skills (and returning the skill to the player) remove the necessity of thinking? How would removing a cover system make the player have to think again? If anything having a cover system enables the developer to ratchet up the difficulty and deadliness of the enemies and forces you to think; "how can I use this system of cover to get into position to either take out that guy/get past undetected". A magical stealth button, super stealth meter or guards who can't see more than twenty feet down a brightly lit corridor will not do that nor will the run and gun mechanics you get in most games without cover.

    I'm looking forward to hearing more about this, Deus Ex was a fantastic game, a little flawed but generally excellent. I'm sure they can improve on it in many ways.

  • Krelle #15 3 years ago

    Yes! QTE!

  • mkreku #16 3 years ago

    Hm.. Using the Tomb Raider: Legend tech? I would have hoped for Assassin's Creed tech. Now THAT was impressive! And part of why Deus Ex: Invisible Walls er.. War was so bad was the constrained maps. Oh well, just wait and see.

  • BobsUncle #17 3 years ago

    "one that allows you to punch through walls to reach enemies next door."

    Just like Robocop!

    @Farfarer
    "Deus Ex's audience are not ADD-riddled Gears of War or Halo junkies"

    Bit of a sweeping statement there. I rate DX as probably my favourite game ever, but I have to say GoW is also a fav (not so much Halo, CoD4 instead)

  • RedSparrows #18 3 years ago

    Thank you sneetch, I was gearing up my righteous anger skill (+10 from reading an anti-Daily Mail blog in past 30 minutes) to say what you did, but I find I am now sated.

  • rudedudejude #19 3 years ago

    crappy console port!

    woooooooooooo!

    I hope the pc version has a picture of a 360 controller in the control options, that's always a cracker :p

  • FooAtari #20 3 years ago

    @sneetch

    While Farfarer didn't get his point across to well, I think I know what he meant.

    Cover mechanics and auto healing are both very GoW/CoD. Nothing wrong with those games, I enjoyed them both a lot, but I really don't want to see Deus Ex turn out like those games. In an effort to make Deus Ex more accessible and to appeal to a wider audience we ended up with the average Invisible War. An OK game, but it didn't feel anything like Deus Ex.

    Developers seem intent on fitting in as many game styes as possible into a game. If I were to compare it to movies I'd say Gears was a great action flick but you could leave your brain at home. Where as Deus Ex was more like a thriller with a deeper and more complex plot. I wouldn't want to see it turn into a straight forward action romp just to maximise sales.

    But as developers seem to simply want to make as much money as possible, rather than make the game it's fans (and maybe even the developers themselves) want I'm very sceptical about Deus Ex 3 at the moment. It seems that simply making a great successful game isn't good enough any more, if you are not getting GTA/CoD/Halo sales its pretty much a failure.

  • SomaticSense #21 3 years ago

    I think a cover system would be a perfect fit for the game.

    I loved the first to bits and played it through multiple times and loved the rpg side and the freeform gameplay. But there was also a hell of a lot of shooty bits, so why shouldn't the cover be able to go hand in hand with that aspect of the game? Cover systems don't have to be about just rushing forward from cover to cover with streams of bullets and mortars going of around your head, they can also work even better in slower paced stealthy infiltration type games. So there's no reason why having a cover system at all is particularly 'un-Deus Ex', if they get it right of course.

    The CoD-style auto healing is utter shit though. I don't care if it makes sense within the augmentation part of the plot, gameplay-wise it just isn't Deus Ex at all.
    Edited by 5 at 06/10/08 @ 15:11

  • Orange #22 3 years ago

    I'm fully expecting it to suck, EIDOS game and not involving Warren Spector or any of the original devs. Just can't see it working at all.

  • dredd97 #23 3 years ago

    be careful PS3 owners! if this is multi-platform you can bet your bottom dollar (or Microsofts!) that MS will pay for exclusive DLC, and exclusive demos!.. and remember Eidos would do this because they love all PS3 owners!

  • sneetch #24 3 years ago

    @FooAtari

    Fair enough and I don't think that features like this should necessarily be included just to tick some boxes on some "hot" features list but you're right undoubtedly some game developers are doing just that. It's just think that they could (cover especially, I like cover systems since playing R6Vegas 1 & 2) add to the game if implemented correctly. I'm looking for something like the first Deus Ex and from the facts thread that Muneeb has linked at the top, I'm quietly confident that they know what they're doing. :)

    It was more the presumptuous and derogatory tone of Farfarers post that I was objecting to (the "people who play my kind of games are intelligent, those who don't aren't" thing especially).

  • InsoFox #25 3 years ago

    Once you got past some of the poor decisions like the ammo system in Deus Ex 2, it was actually a pretty good game on its own merits. My problem with it is that while it's good to have some change, the way deus ex 1 did it had legs, they could have easily made minor improvements to that formula and got maybe 2 sequels out of it and nobody would have thought any worse of them. It wasn't broke, and they keep trying to fix it.

  • peppergomez #26 3 years ago

    keep that harvey smith loser far far away from this game
    a prequel is a no brainer, given how many sharks the sequel jumped (basically, an entire feeding frenzy's worth)

  • Farfarer #27 3 years ago

    It's sounding better.

    I'm still pissed at the cover system and especially the auto-heal.

  • helios31907 #28 3 years ago

    O.O fan"fuckin"tastic.....sigh this is horse shit! on ign they said they were taking out the RPG elements! their jokeing....right? might as well be another gears of war/halo knock off, as if we don't have enough of those running around. some of the key elements of deus ex were that it was a fps/rpg hybrid and had semi non liner gameplay, and now these fucktards want to totally butcher one of my favorite games! oh warren spector how the hell could you let this happen? i for one am not even gonna bother with this title. and i hope each person involved in this project gets stabbed in the fucking kidney. sigh......is it really so horrible for you devs to do something other than halo/Gears/CoD/GTA knock offs?
    Edited by 3 at 19/05/09 @ 05:29