Deus Dead

 

So by now you're probably well aware of my many feelings about the horrific world destroying entity we all loving know as 'The Embracer Group'. A hellish concoction of primordial evils broiling and scheming before the first grass sprouted in the seraphim gardens and the dew of light first glinted some spark of creation. Now risen and collated into a tumorous leech clinging onto the edge of the ever-changing ocean of the corporate world, dangling flush green power with a gambler's wink, toppling empires and establishing dynasties with the flick of a wrist. Embracer's subtle reach snakes around our infrastructure enclosing about us like the ocean wall, embracing us all within the confines of their malignant machinations. Either that or they are a company well in over their heads that is just leaving the world scratching their noggins with every out-of-nowhere split decision!

Point in case being the recent reveal that Deus Ex- a storied video game franchise that holds two the greatest games ever made within the confines of it's entries (the original and Human Revolution) has been shelved despite the obvious potential the franchise has. It's not as though Deus Ex is an unloved franchise by any stretch of the imagination. 'Mankind Divided' may have not had the impact, or the sales, that the team or Square Enix wanted when they set it up as the spring board for their new universe of Deus Ex projects- (That's no exaggeration, by the way. Mankind Divided was literally marketed with a 'Deux Ex Universe' logo, which it retains within the producer credits- they invested hard into making that Square's next big franchise and it absolutely cratered.) But that was only because the game was not quite as spectacular as Human Revolution was. It was not from lack of interest, it was from expectant and unrelenting interest!

Deus Ex was the face of espionage sci-fi storytelling, combining robust roleplaying not just into the story and how you build the character's skills, but also the way in which you choose to move about the tight and multi-pathed levels. It birthed an entire sub-genre of games known as the 'Immersive sim', which I still retain is the worst name for a genre of games ever for how uninformative it is. Without Deus Ex we wouldn't have had the famed Dishonoured series. No Bioshock. No Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. And for the record- no Cyberpunk 2077! That's right- a lot of it's design is built squarely around the core tenets of immersive sim philosophy! We're talking about a grandfather of the medium here, getting shafted for no reason!

And it's not as though you can throw up your hands and declare the industry has simply moved on from games like Deus Ex- as though they no longer matter! This past year just saw the revival of belief in CDPR following the disappointment of Cyberpunk 2077. Years in the trenches, patching together smoking pieces of a solid but haphazard game resulted in the spectacular 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty DLC proving that you can stick lipstick on a pig. You know- providing that pig is one of those starlets in a Rom-Com that is a conventionally attractive model that the studio specifically made up to look 'conventionally ugly' specifically for the stereotypical makeover scene. In that ultra specific instance, that pig can rock the makeup.

It was this legacy that Embracer group snatched out of Square Enix's hands when they purchased practically all of Square's western properties in a firesale of undervaluation- and given the seven hundred other companies under Embracer's wing, one would think this was something of a safe space within which to work. Well, others might think that. Again, I've been suspicious of Embracer ever since I heard their name and went yep- that's the name of the bad guys in a 2010's YA novel. But it's becoming increasingly, and depressingly, clear that Embracer apparently have no clue what they're doing juggling all of these properties under their belt and it's starting to show dividends. Negative dividends, that is.

Eidos Montreal were reported to have been working on this Deus Ex game for two years now, and although it wasn't another Adam Jensen story according to the voice actor for that character- (Which is annoying- the final act of his narrative is begging to be told) it would have been a Cyberpunk sci-fi game riding off the success of Phantom Liberty back into a place of prominence. So long as Eidos maintained it's quality spirit, and given the recent Guardians of the Galaxy game they have, Deus Ex would sooth that ache we've had for a new entry. But for some reason, and it was Embracer's decision we are told, the project has been canned and upwards of 100 employees are on the chopping block for removal.

This is, of course, after Embracer brought Volition, squeezed one mediocre Saints Row game out of them and then shut the developer down. And how am I only just hearing that Free Radical Design was shut down by them in December last year? Those are the Timesplitter people, who had been holding on by the seat of their pants for nigh on a decade at this point- but all it took was a little exposure to chemical 'Embracer' to kill them stone dead. Starting to see what I'm saying about this company and how utterly, unforgivably, toxic they are? At this point they're inheriting the old EA reputation for hovering up companies, squeezing out the IPs and then firing all the employees- but at least EA has stopped that heinous act in recent years. (And at least they used their IPs every now and then!)

So Deus Ex after all time has become a dead franchise once again, and now Eidos Montreal has been severely kneecapped if it ever wants to try and pick the game back up again. Just another genius decision by the 'experts' over at Embracer. Seriously, I can't help but wonder if what they're really doing there is just trying to hog as many IPs as possible in order to licence them out to other studios for a payday without any financial expectation on their end- that's the only thing which aligns with they way Embracer have run their nightmare company up until now. At least Eidos is still alive, for now- we can hope for the future in some abstract fashion. You know, until Embracer rises up and swallows the sun to plunge us into an eternal darkness from within which Embracer can flog us all little remembrances of photons for a vastly exaggerated price. The Embracer demons- everybody! 

Look what they've done to my KOTOR...

 I don't believe it

So... Is Deus Ex happening or what?

 I asked for this!

Portentous news, everyone! Square Enix have lost their damn minds and are going through a midlife meltdown, burning all of their hard won reputation in a bonfire, shaving their head into a Mohican, buying a Harley Davidson and becoming a biker bro for the summer. In their self sabotaging insanity, Square sold off a good chunk of their greatest studios and IPs to a decentralised Swedish holding company that has a name which sounds like the enigmatic faceless corporation funding the tyrannical corporate crony badguys in a futuristic dystopian novel. ('Embracer Group', huh? It's not what I would have called you but if that's your name, that's your name.) What this means is, for perhaps the first time in a dark moon, we might be getting to see a follow up to the long dead Deus Ex franchise now that Eidos aren't required to Weekend-at-Bernie's up the Avengers game alongside Crystal Dynamics anymore!

Of course this is a might, wrapped in a maybe, and garnished with a possibly. Unlike with the upcoming Next gen Tomb Raider game which is confirmed to not have been confirmed yet, no one seems to have word on any clandestine Dues Ex work in the background. (People are pretty certain a new Tomb Raider in the works. I thought 'Rise' was supposed to be the tying off for this new story thread but I guess maybe we are going to go the distance and just remake the original games. Atlantis here we come!) Thanks to the the Harlequins over in the joke-of-an-initiative know as the 'Deus Ex Universe' leaving us on part one of a supposed trilogy; 'Mankind Divided' has been the unexpected final note of the franchise since 2016, and I, for one, have been begging for some content.

In the place of Deus Ex, we got ourselves a pretender to the throne claiming to offer all the narrative complexity and campaign choice of that storied franchise but with open world exploration and hookers. (Actually, Human Revolution did have hookers in it if I remember right...) But Cyberpunk 2077 ended up having many more problems on it's plate than just trying to be a solid Deus Ex successor, and in hindsight the two series didn't really share much of a similarity to one another aside from the genre they operated in and the appropriate thematic visuals therein. I didn't get my 'Mankind Transcended'. And so the candle in the window has burnt ever onwards, hopeful that this would be the E3 where- oh, it didn't show up. Maybe this Game Awards woul- nope, not a whisper. How about this E3- nope the show was cancelled. Perhaps the Game Awards this year migh- Nope, no such luck. How much longer is a Deus Ex fan supposed to endure?

So yes; I glad that the augmented Jesus franchise has been emancipated from the mistreating swine over at Square Enix. I'd even call a toast were I the type to drink. Instead I'm one to dream, and today I'm dreaming that the Deus Ex franchise has just been offered an olive branch to come back at it once more, right back onto the saddle! Maybe the series may be a little long-toothed, and the sci-fi futuristic body-modding novelty might be slightly worn and patchy, but give her a chance and the world'll see that she still got some good miles on her; yes she does! Whatsmore, I consider it an actual crime for a franchise as narratively driven as Deus Ex to leave us hanging after part 1 of a major narrative thread! (I mean maybe they technically did it before with 'The Fall', but no one really played that apart from me anyway so it's not really a big loss.)

For those who don't remember, or who's memory has mercifully expunged all refence to the cliffhanger that lingers. 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' worked a significant distance to bridging together the Adam Jensen character who we fell in love with in 2011's 'Deus Ex: Human Revolutions' with the conspiracy ridden Nanobot hellscape that Deus Ex 1 portrays. You know, a world where there's a decent chance you actually team up with the illuminati in order to fell an even more secretive clandestine organisation called Majestic 12. (God, I miss how Deus Ex was just a smorgasbord of disparate conspiracy theories chucked into a narrative so haphazardly that you can literally run into a little grey alien and it won't even rank on the top 5 most crazy things you've bumped into that level. Also they aren't real aliens, but that's besides the point.)

Whereas 'Human Revolution' neatly breezed us through a globetrotting conspiracy through its runtime which concluded in a climatic showdown to shape the fabric of society. Mankind Divided took nearly the same amount of time (minus 8-10 hours) in order to tell a tiny story about an, admittedly important, legislative measure that could possibly have had an effect, but we wouldn't get to experience it until the next game. Oh, and we actually ended up becoming unwittingly close with a member of the Illuminati who's daughter JC Denton works with in Deus Ex 1; the very same Illuminati who Adam Jensen is supposed to be hunting down. (Wow, he's really bad at his job.) So the main plot was kind of lacklustre, sure, but what a juicy little cliff to perch us on. A great vista, plenty of scope, just make sure you come back around to pick us up in a timely fashion guys. Guys?

But this goes for more than just finishing the story which Eidos started. (Not to belittle how important finishing that story is. Because it is important) This is about bringing back one of the leaders in clever roleplay game design, intelligent script writing which is always at least a sliver more nuanced then you are lead to believe, and immersive sim mastery. In an age where genre niches are being granted more room than ever to find their audience and sometimes even crossover to the mainstream, it almost seems unfair that a leader in cyberpunk video games should be so utterly overshadowed by a replacement who made such a pig's ear of the core tenants of RPGs that people have forgotten how broad, branching and balanced Deus Ex really was at it's peak. (Human Revolution and Deus 1 are timeless masterpieces.)

Embracer Group could very well be collecting these studies and IPs to be trophies on their shelves, to dangle on a mantlepiece so that they look nice, and then never think about them again. I'm choosing to believe that's not the case, and some of the early snippets of excitement that Embracer have put out seems to imply there's room for franchise exploration. Heck, they celebrate being decentralised so much, which I think means they prefer to go hands off and just let these studios create, rather than try and twist them into supporting dead-end live services for the rest of their lives. So I'm hopeful, for the first time in a long time, that the story of Adam Jensen isn't quite over just yet. And god it feels great to say that!