Deus Ex: Mankind Divided writer didn't like the ending either: 'Nothing is resolved'

7 hours ago 2

(Image credit: Eidos Montreal)

The finale of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided wasn't much-loved by fans, which was surprising because you'd think Deus Ex: Human Revolution would have lowered expectations. But it's like the classic bad restaurant joke, where the food's terrible and what's worse, the portions are small. Mankind Divided's climax wasn't just an underwhelming battle against a guy who seemed more like a miniboss—when the credits suddenly roll afterward you realize you're not going to get a second hub city and another dozen hours of hacking people's emails to find out if they're in the Illuminati or not. It's just over.

Mark Cecere, a writer on both Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, was recently interviewed by From Script to Life (via Kotaku), and agreed with much of the criticism of the ending. "It's definitely not finished," he said, explaining that final villain Marchenko was originally intended to be "the halfway boss" and after defeating him you'd get to travel to the augmented city of Rabi'ah. "He was never the brains behind the thing, right? He's the muscle. To me that's why it feels unsatisfying."

DEUS EX WRITER. Part 2. About Mankind Divided, Human Revolution, and the game industry. - YouTube

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Mankind Divided had a rough time in development, with Eidos-Montréal splitting resources between the singleplayer campaign and a tacked-on multiplayer mode. "We had to chop the game up a lot because of studio problems and funding and all that stuff," Cecere says. "I don't disagree with most of the criticism, especially when it comes to the ending."

While the questions left hanging by Mankind Divided might have been answered by a sequel, the odds of actually getting one seem low. Eidos-Montréal instead went on to develop Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (speaking of games I'd love to see get a sequel) before being acquired by Embracer Group. While development of a new Deus Ex game apparently picked up at Embracer, a couple of years later it vanished in a sea of layoffs.

"I was not involved," Cecere says of the Deus Ex game in development under Embracer, "though I was in contact with people to try and get back in and be on the team. And then it went away. I would have loved to be there to finish it off, but so far no news since then."

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Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.