The release of Cyberpunk 2077 has created implications about how the video game industry going forward. Development struggles and subsequent post-release controversy aside, while Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t the choice-heavy RPG its developer promised, the hype surrounding the game has proven one thing – there is demand for games that take advantage of the cyberpunk genre.
That demand especially extends to a game that understands what made its inspirations great while building upon them, asking questions of its own while still setting itself apart. Furthermore, there is demand for immersive-sim style RPGs that offer the players many different choices of how to approach missions. Basically it’s time for Square Enix to make a new Deus Ex game.
The Deus Ex franchise is one of the highest regarded examples of the cyberpunk genre in video games, taking a head-on approach to the topics of transhumanism while incorporating elements such as hacking and body modification into game design. While Square Enix put the franchise on hold following the underwhelming sales performance of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, allowing Eidos Montreal to develop Shadow of the Tomb Raider and assist development on Marvel’s Avengers, it’s been almost 5 years since players experienced the world of Deus Ex.
The original Deus Ex released in 2000 and was developed by Ion Storm. The team was led by key personnel behind Looking Glass Studios, the developer responsible for titles such as Thief and System Shock, some of the very first titles in the immersive sim genre. The game was praised for its complex level designs and implementation of its cyberpunk themes through its mechanics. Unfortunately, while Human Revolution revitalized the series with its release in 2011, the Deus Ex series has never been a major financial success for Eidos or Square Enix.
Furthermore, while the immersive sim genre that Deus Ex helped pioneer still mostly exists in obscurity, with recent titles in the genre such as Dishonored and Prey garnering cult status but underperforming financially, the genre has helped inform many mainstream franchises, such as major RPGs like The Elder Scrolls and many first-person shooter franchises, namely BioShock. All this is to say that a new Deus Ex game could reignite the franchise, helping it achieve popularity surpassing the likes of Deus Ex: Human Revolution‘s success in 2011.
It’s almost impossible not to compare the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 to Deus Ex, with the game taking major elements from Deus Ex‘s core design and incorporating them into an open-world city setting. Likewise, this type of game design could help inform a future Deus Ex title. While Human Revolution and Mankind Divided took place in multiple small open-worlds, it might be time to take Deus Ex fully open-world, creating a fleshed-out city for the players to interact with.
This could provide excellent opportunities for the series’ world-building to come into play, as Deus Ex: Mankind Divided‘s world would change depending on the player’s actions, with an infamous example being that murdering a merchant in any of the game’s stores would cause the store to close for good, leaving it inaccessible for the rest of the game.
Given the broader memory capabilities of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, this type of approach to consequence could inform how Eidos Montreal approaches an open-world Deus Ex title, such as choices the player makes in the game’s story causing groups of pro or anti-augmentation protestors to rise up and start appearing around the city while also opening a new optional questline. The sky is the limit for potential ways the expansive world of Deus Ex could react to the player’s actions in the context of an open-world, and despite its flaws, Cyberpunk 2077 of all games has proven that.
A major influencing factor into why Square Enix has been hesitant to continue the Deus Ex franchise is that, despite Human Revolution and Mankind Divided performing well, the series has never managed to justify its incredible sense of polish through high sales numbers, and after the catastrophic financial loss that Square Enix saw with Marvel’s Avengers, the company is unlikely to take any ambitious risks with its western-developed titles for the foreseeable future.
While this means fans may not see a major, open-world Deus Ex game any time soon, it could also be the perfect time for Square Enix to fall back on old IP in a way that satisfies fans in order to recoup costs. While the studio’s Japanese output only increases in quality and sales growth, Square Enix has always struggled with its western studios. From the unrealistic sales expectations put on Sleeping Dogs to the split from IO Interactive after the completion of Hitman in 2017, the only western franchises Square Enix has seen any concrete success from are Deus Ex and Tomb Raider.
Furthermore, just last year Square Enix announced the creation of Eidos Sherbrooke, a new studio created to assist research and development of Eidos games going forward. Given that the studio has been supporting the development of Marvel’s Avengers since the release of Shadow of the Tomb Raider, it’s safe to assume that Eidos is beginning work on its next major title, and given that Deus Ex was put on hold until more resources were available, it seems fairly likely that fans will see a new entry in the series in the next few years.
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