Earlier last week MonsterVine was invited to participate in a Deus Ex event where we were able to see a new area in Mankind Divided and get some hands on time with both that and the previously announced Breach mode. During the time we were also able to interview Olivier Proulx, Fleur Marty who are producers on the game.
MonsterVine: So if you don’t mind, could you introduce yourself real quick?
Olivier: So I’m Olivier Proulx, the producer of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
Fleur: And I’m Fleur Marty and I’m the producer of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Breach.
MonsterVine: So the first thing I wanted to ask you was, so it’s been five-ish years [Olivier: Five years yea, exactly five years.] since Human Revolution so what have you guys done, how have you reacted or maybe adapted the development of Mankind in the years since the RPG genre has evolved, like, the landscape it’s currently in.
Olivier: I think the first thing that we did was to really work on the technology aspects so we have our own game engine to make sure that we have a game that comes out that is on par with what players expect in terms of immersion and graphical fidelity so this was a big aspect of the early part of the production. Then after this we’re really confident in how we handle the recipe of what’s a good Deus Ex game with all main pillars and we had success with Human Revolution so for us it was about what worked well, what didn’t work well. For example the combat was not as good in Human Revolution, we want to bring it up a notch so it’s at the same level of stealth. We had a pretty clear view of what we wanted to improve and now, you know, games are coming out today that have a lot of content and a lot of open world games out there with many hours of gameplay. So for us it was how to incorporate even more content and things to do for the player so we have a very deep storyline that you can play once and that’s great, but we have New Game+ and we have a new game mode called I Never Asked for This so if you finish the game you can play again in hardcore with only one life so that’s another challenge that we give to the player. We have the Breach game mode which is fantastic, there’s a lot depth there and Fleur can talk to you about it a bit more than me. So a lot things are offered to the player to expand on the gaming experience.
MonsterVine: Speaking back on the things about the combat, one of the big complaints with HR was the boss fights. So what are you guys doing to maybe improve on this in this game?
Olivier: First of all, it’s pretty simple. We wanted to make sure that any encounter that you have in the game can be challenged consistently with your playstyle. So if you’re more into stealth, hacker, or something like that then any encounter, including boss fights, can be tackled that way. You’re not forced to kill anyone so the way we level designed it is really consistent with how you play it. We’re really proud of the challenges we’re putting forward in terms of that kind of encounter in the game.
MonsterVine: I don’t know if you can probably talk about these more story element-ish things, but with no import save option are we going to see choices that were made in the original game already decided or is it just sort of ambiguous?
Olivier: We tried to go the ambiguous route. Unfortunately when Human Revolution was built it was the first game in the history of the studio, it was a big challenge thinking that far ahead of how to manage all this. I think the way we introduce the game, it’s ambiguous, we’re counting on the fact that when something as big as the event at the end of Human Revolution happens there’s a lot of misinformation out there right? So only a few select people actually knew what happened so the way we do our world building is on that ambiguous aspect. And even Adam, you spend a lot of time with him to get to know the character better but there’s a bit of murky past which makes Adam a bit, I would say a grayish character. So we tried to build on top of it and use it to our advantage.
MonsterVine: So the original Deus Ex was very conspiracy heavy focused. Human Revolution still had that conspiracy stuff, but it was just that introduction of augmented people into society and I noticed in this one, in the beginning, it started off with that conspiracy element. Is that a heavier focus this time around?
Olivier: We tried to keep it relatively subtle. We’re not going to be too much in your face because it’s conspiracy after all and we want to give the option to the player to explore all the storyline conspiracy through the main storyline but if you are reading ebooks and reading emails then, uh, listening to the radio or the news on TV you’ll get even more aspect to it. So if you want to dive into the conspiracy, for the player that wants to explore there’s more options for you. Definitely we’re very upfront illuminati, we’re really putting them in your face when you start the game so they’re there, they’re like a shadowy organization with actual characters so we’re assuming this a bit more this time around.
MonsterVine: Now with the recent reveal with VR support for the game, is that something that you guys are looking for implementing in a more in-depth way maybe in this game or in the future?
Olivier: Well right now we don’t have any specific things to announce for VR but what we put forward for us was just a great way for the player to be even more immersed in what we built. Our environments are so rich, so detailed, all the aspects of all the objects you find in a room are so strong that, that’s very important concept of the art direction. We felt that if you put the VR goggles on and you just look around it’s just even more immersive. So we want to build on what was actually built in the game and put that forward as a little bonus extra that we’re giving. As for the future, we’ll see later.
MonsterVine: Speaking of immersion, so with the VR immersing yourself in the Deus Ex world and with the partnership with Open Bionics, how does it feel to be part of just blurring the lines between this new future of augmented people? Being in that reality?
Olivier: Yea it’s amazing. Like honestly, to have the chance to work on a franchise like this that looks at transhumanism and all this emerging technology and to be part of it is just something that’s so motivating for everyone that gets to work on the franchise. From everyone in the team to everyone in the marketing team involved in those efforts, we’re just really proud to be part of it and part of the discussion for some really interesting debates that are going on. It’s very motivating for the team for sure.
MonsterVine: So about the Breach mode, with the Deus Ex team bringing live operations through the Breach mode, what do you hope to accomplish with the community at large.
Fleur: Wow that’s a good question, I like it. So I really hope that the community is gonna break the game, that’s my hope for it. What we’ve with done with Breach is really take the systems, the very cool systems of the main game, and put them in a sandbox. We are having fun with them and we are hoping players will have fun with them. And I know they are completely exploitable. I know that there are things that we think that are not physical players will actually do, I know it and I just really expect it. I hope people will have fun speed-running which is something when you really think about Deus Ex, the singleplayer, it’s something very serious and Breach is very not serious and we are embracing that. So speed runs, cool hacks, exploits, break our game please break it.
MonsterVine: With Hitman recently coming out and having those Elusive Targets, are you planning on maybe doing something like that with the Breach mode?
Fleur: Yea, so I can’t really give you all the details about the upcoming releases after launch but we have things in the works like that, like time limited challenges and things like that.
MonsterVine: Well that’s everything I had.
Olivier: Cool, cool.
