First Deus Ex 3 Details Emerge

Ostracus writes "Deus Ex 3, the third entry in the influential FPS/RPG series, was confirmed to be in development by Eidos Montreal nearly a year ago — and now the first solid details on the game have finally emerged. UK magazine PC Zone has a cover story on Deus Ex 3 for their 200th issue (which has reportedly just begun reaching subscribers), and CVG has relayed a number of interesting tidbits from the preview: '... this time around combat won't be influenced by stats, but will rely purely on your personal marksmanship skills. Instead stats will influence "a vast array of fully upgradeable and customisable weapons," and you'll be able to tailor your arsenal to your play style with mag upgrades, scopes and other add-ons. What's more, stealth will now rely on a cover system rather than shadows, and damage will be dealt with by a very Call of Duty-style auto-heal.'"

Comments

Please please please please...

[kbrasee]

... please don't make it ANYTHING like Deus Ex 2. The original was fantastic, but the sequel was a horrifying dumbed-down heavy-handed console mess. Ugh, and the stupid intrusive HUD... I played through the original 3 or 4 times, but the demo of Deus Ex 2 was way more than enough.

soo hoping they wont ruin it like dx2

[Shadukar]

I have re-played original deus ex upwards of 20-30 times ...sometimes just for the pure reading joy, sometimes for discovering new/hidden stuff i always seem to stumble upon and sometimes to just try something different (I did give up one attempt after I got out of Paris catacombs without directly killing a single enemy in combat)

deus ex 2 was piece of crap. i had none of the depth, none of atmosphere (despite obvious attempts at it), it had none of the fun game play, none of the re-playability. The only two good things I liked about dx2 was: machine supremacy soundtrack and the idoru.

If they want to make successful sequel, they could have went into more detail about how they have learned from the mistakes of the 2nd one, not just saying "oh yeah the universal ammo was bad but we still think console game ideas are good so we'll be putting more of them in"

personally, i would love to see an expansion pack for deus ex 1 - upgrade engine/graphics, maybe add some additional content, incorporate some half-finished mods/add-ons,etc.

Also, a real prequel where you play Paul Denton - that would be awesome! Especially all the adventures that are alluded in hong kong, miss chow, tracer tong, etc. Maybe starting with the formation of unatco - the statue of liberty being bombed, the start of grey plague, the climb to power by illuminati, and let us not forget a certain young french lady and her chatteau :)

Oh well, there is still time, the released information was not much to go by ...maybe all of these things will be part of the story line.

Re:soo hoping they wont ruin it like dx2

[Toonol]

I don't think 2 was a piece of crap, but I played it first, so I probably didn't have your expectations. I thought it was a fairly typical example of FPS/RPG hybrid. Later, playing the first one, I understand how you feel. Going from superb to mediocre is a jolt, even if the mediocre game isn't really that bad.

Sounds like 3 will be worse, from the description.

Deus Ex3 features announced:

[Shadukar]

* Sinister voice of Simons will be returning to announce ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKS !
* mulitplayer death match via XBOX LIVE
* development focusing on volumetric 3d shadows.
* all NPCs that can offer quests will have a yellow exclamation mark over their head so you don't waste time talking to pointless NPCS!
* 2 ammo types. better than 1/universal ammo (see? we learn/listen to feedback)
* reading is for intellectualfags/pc fags. you play console games for fun, so there'll be none of that rubbish in dx3!
* It is a prequel where you play a character completely unrelated to the original game, in circumstances only vaguel related to the original game, in a storyline completely separate to the original game. It is a prequel.
* You will not be going anywhere near a certain chateau in France.
* maggie chow and tracer tong storylines unlockable via paid downloadable content.
* One install per device guaranteed by SecuROM

Re:Deus Ex3 features announced:

[johannesg]

Indeed, that's the impression I got as well. And that focus on weapons is just depressing. Remember where you start off at the dock in DX1, and you get berated for choosing the GEP-gun? *That* is how DX1 dealt with weapons. Sure, it was also a shooter, but the real draw was the fantastic storyline, the various RPG mechanics were a lot of fun, and you had to live with the choices that you made.

I have had my fill of nameless, faceless muscle guys with big guns. I have already stopped buying games that only seem to get reviews that focus on the details of the weapons instead of on gameplay or storyline - evidentally these games are now so much alike that there is no need to talk about anything else anymore.

Anyway, let's rejoice that we had games like DX1 at all, that there was a time when such things were possible. Like the 2D scrolling shooter they are dead now, but they are fondly remembered as the grand experiments that they were...

Re:Deus Ex3 features announced:

[Nick Ives]

I actually found realistic rather easy, mainly because stealth was so overpowered (as long as you were crouching in shadow, it didn't matter that you were right in front of the enemy).

Tongs lab was in the middle of the game, it's just that there's a moment right before the final level where someone gives you some advice. If Paul survives, he gets the honours. DX was full of moments like that; depending on what you'd said or done previously little story details would develop differently, often just a line or two of dialogue but still. I think those little details more than anything are what made DX unique and the lack of those details is what ruined DX2 and, by the looks of things, the upcoming sequel.

If they just made sure the game was full of meaningful little moments like those then they'd go a long way towards keeping the magic of the original DX.

Unfortunately, I read an interview with one of the DX developers a few months ago where he basically said DX was a massive fluke. He had now idea how they'd managed to bring all the plot together at the last minute and he'd have no idea how to do it again! Maybe they should just do a high-def remake and call it quits, eh?

Bad decision

[Kallahan]

One of the main reasons Deus Ex 2 was such a let down was the removal of the skill system affecting marksmanship. It was and extremely pivotal game device that affected how you'd play the game from level 1. You could not run in gun in the end game unless you were trained to run and gun.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No No No

[p0tat03]

What are they thinking with Call of Duty style regenerating health? Seriously... Deus Ex is not a run and gun game, it's a game that rewards resourcefulness and steathiness. The COD-style recharging health mechanic has *no place* here. The sole reason for recharging health is to keep the game pace up and allow the player to keep charging into frenetic combat in action games. Deus Ex is not one of these games.

I was looking forward to this, no longer following this now. Wake me up if this turns out to be good somehow.

Re:No No No

[p0tat03]

Regenerating health is an easy (and crappy) solution to a problem. The problem was that game pace was getting broken up when players ran low on health. Instead of having fun shooting things players were scrounging around for medkits (or worse, quickloading constantly).

Regenerating health gets you back into the action, back to shooting stuff, faster. But it's precisely this reason why it doesn't fit with a game like Deus Ex.

With DX half the fun isn't shooting people, it's avoiding them, hacking systems around them, or using indirect ways to kill them. The player is outgunned and in many cases outclassed by the enemy, which unlike most games doesn't mean constant medkit hunting, it simply means that you have to explore the various ways the game lets you outsmart your enemies... Hack that turret and turn it against the guards. Or, disable the security camera so the guards are never summoned. That was the fun of the game, because getting into a fight was a resource drain, and forced the player to think outside of the standard run and gun combination. I've had problems in many shooters from the Deus Ex era that had you constantly low on health and quickloading, but DX wasn't ever one of them.

Stuff up while getting past a guard, manage to barely take him out but the alarm is raised? Limp off to a hiding spot and wait for the alert to die down.

Or do it like the original game did. Raised the alarm? Get into a hiding spot quick, and use hit and run tactics to take out your enemies. Or, you race back to a room you were in before with thre auto-turret you conveniently hacked, instant death to your enemies. Or you drop a few tear gas grenades and get the hell out of there. Regenerating health removes the incentive to try ANY of the above options. All it does is tell the player "don't worry, don't bother thinking, just retreat, pull out your biggest gun, and keep shooting", which IMHO is really the wrong way for Deus Ex of all games to be going.

Now on the flip side you have GRAW regeneration, which I'm a fan of. GRAW divided your life bar into multiple segments. Your health will regenerate slowly up to your current life bar segment (e.g. you can recharge from 63 to 75, but not higher. To actually "heal" requires medpacks. This is a great way to keep the player from hanging on by a thread of a few health points, but at the same time institutes a real penalty for getting careless and getting shot. I would much prefer this system in DX.

!$%* third person

[Fweeky]

One of the points of a FPS being first person is to add immersion; you're looking out of the protagonist's eyes, so you *are* the protagonist. Even if most of the time it's really just a floating camera, at least it's a floating camera where your eyes should be.

Now, cover systems.. fair enough. They can be done well; see, for example, GRAW. All first person, with your body actually modelled so you can see yourself, and when you enter cover you get the impression of actually.. entering cover.

But noooo, that's too hard to get right, so they're going to do what everybody else does and give you an out of body experience every time you lean against a fucking wall. None of this nonsense where entering cover is an important tactical decision because it blocks your line of sight just as much as it blocks bullets; this is a console game, so we'll make it easy and let you look around corners with magic floating vision.

And why bother spending time balancing the game when they can just give you magic regenerating health? *sigh*, they could at least make them optional augmentations, you know, like in the critically acclaimed original?

Re:!$%* third person

[Whitemage12380]

Deus Ex allowed you to tilt your body to peek around corners. Just sayin'.

Understanding Deus Ex

[bonch]

I don't understand why developers apparently have a hard time understanding what made Deus Ex great, especially when they could just play the original and see for themselves. The mechanics of the original game were perfect. Why did DX2 abandon them? Why is DX3 doing the same? I think we must accept that Deus Ex was a one-time thing and that the sequels aren't up to the level of quality required to be considered canon.

Removing the effect of stats on markmanship is removing something that was fun and cool from the original game, coping with your character's wobbly sniper shots which disappeared over time as you upgraded his sniper skills--if you decided to play a sniper, of course. I don't even know what to say about recharging health other than, of all games, Deus Ex is not the franchise to implement it in.