This game is a failure

[Sizzle]

It has sold less than 350,000 copies. Considering that no one has pirated the game due to denuvo this game's sales are abysmal. I'm sorry for the developers, the game is amazing.

[CTZNZRO]

Klink,

Good points and a few of them -- Otar for instance -- can be chalked up to branching pathways in the game. For me, I never encountered that so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As for Daria, I played through twice (one fighting her, the other talking her down), but my issue here is what seems like a recurring issue in the game: setting up interesting plotlines but then leading them nowhere. In Daria's case, it could have been an interesting way to learn more about the Illuminati's medical experimentation, but what we get instead are dead ends, a trickle of information, and Jensen failing to recognize the obvious connections in front of him.

Reading back over both my massive post and yours, I think I can at least partially diagnose where my frustrations with the story come from. Simply put: there doesn't seem to be a single core narrative holding the thing together, or even a neat sequence of events and logically follow from one another and build towards a satisfying conclusion (or even cliffhanger).

Let me explain: in Human Revolution, the entire story was built around Jensen's search for answers about what happened during the Sarif attack... and what happened to Megan.

In Mankind Divided, the established motivation (via promotional materials and Jensen's growling) is that Jensen is after the Illuminati themselves. But rather than actually do that, he basically runs around like a rat in their cage. On top of that, the actual narrative sequence doesn't follow a clear trajectory towards a specific end goal.

[1] We start in Dubai as a way to introduce TF29 and the Gold Masks, for some reason.

[2] Jensen is at the bombing of Ruzika Station.

[3] Jensen investigates the bombing and sees clear evidence of interference in the investigation.

[4] Goes to ARC, finds out that there's a splinter group in the organization.

[5] Comes back to Prague and tracks down the bomb maker, who is tied to a random third party cult, or goes to the bank and finds out that the Orchid is a protype for the Grey Death (presumably).

[6] Randomly learns that the Gold Masks are at GARM and then randomly convinces Miller to let him go there. Note: this makes sense if you talk to Stanek, but his explanation if you go to the bank is such laughable ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that I'm shocked Chikane didn't flat out slap him for being so stupid.

[7] Go to GARM, say hi to Victor, leave.

[8] Get back to Prague and visit the Dvali to find out about London.

[9] Go to London and game over.

The problem here is that the "find the Illuminati" plot doesn't hold the jumble together. You have an investigation that Jensen only seems kind of half-heartedly interested in, while he's simultaneously investigating TF29 itself. Doesn't really learn anything other than the obvious: its being manipulated by the Illuminati. The most interesting part of the story is investigating TF29 itself and seeing the various figures that pop up connected to it. The bombing plot, at least at first, just seems like justification for Jensen having a job there to begin with.

Next, after 'Jensening' around for a while, he gets a gut feeling about Victor and starts to focus in on that, while the bombing investigation leads him in that direction eventually anyway.

Now all of this would be well and good except that, at the end of the game, Jensen hasn't really accomplished anything: he hasn't found out all that much about the Illuminati or managed to do meaningful damage. He's merely managed to stop their most recent plot. Ironically enough, he's literally done what he disregarded doing during his on-rails conversation with Alex (where she goes off on a little spiel about oppression and he just says "just help me find them"). So, simply put, there is no closure or even closing cohesion. The entire game simply feels like a bunch of interconnected, interwoven threads that were left to dangle.

Now I'm okay with cliffhanger ends and building complex mysteries that have to be solved, but there has to be some kind of resolution. Simply finding the bomber and stopping Marchenko isn't really one, because it does almost nothing to bring Jensen closer to his ultimate goal: finding the Illuminati. In contrast, Human Revolution finished Jensen's arc by finding Megan (what he wanted) and then sending him to stop Darrow (the man responsible for the attack and her kidnapping).

On top of that, like you noted, there are narrative shortcuts. Now I'm okay with shortcuts because, quite frankly, they're necessary a lot of the time. What's happening in Mankind Divided is different: its not shortcuts, but a lack of coherence. You're quite right to note that the Illuminati are somewhat disorganized (Manderly himself comments on this in his chat with Page), but that doesn't explain the fact that the primary conspiracy (stop Brown) is being coordinated by one man, Page, who's plan doesn't seem to hold together all that well.

And you're right that third parties are a good way to distance yourself, especially if your a secretive organization that operates from the shadows. You're also right that the way Marchenko and the Illuminati set things up would, with a bit of easy spin, point the finger at ARC. My problem with it boils down to what seems to me like an incoherent strategy and doesn't match the Illuminati's established M.O.

Consider: in Human Revolution, the Illuminati didn't rely on third parties save those over which they had substantial influence (i.e. Tai Yong, Belltower, the Tyrants, Manderly, etc.). In Mankind Divided, they're suddenly outsourcing all of sorts of important things. And while the explanation you offer for why they might do this is sound, it also overlooks the fact that [1] the tactics are a complete shift for the Illuminati (and even MJ12 in the original Deus Ex, who mostly handled things directly or had on-the-ground assets manipulating other groups) and [2] its simply way too many moving parts for an operation of the size and sensitivity that the *need* to go smoothly. Its kind of a classic "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation. And since its only one of them, Page, that seems to be coordinating it, we can't really blame the disunity of the Illuminati Council on the planning and execution. It just seems like a bunch of unnecessary tangents tied together by loose justifications in order to give Jensen reason to go from one place to another.

And there's also the fact that the Gold Masks themselves might not have actually been necessary for the attack on the Safe Harbour convention. As we saw in the game, Victor had a loyal following... including people like Ivan, who were willing to kill/die for him. So if you're trying to frame ARC, why not actually utilize actual members of ARC and bring them to London to carry out the attack? Even if you fail, it only strengths your anti-aug narrative, while giving you the opportunity to try again and have everyone chalk it up to more augmented rights radicals after the fact.

Again, I think for me personally the frustration and disappointment stem from all of these holes and inconsistencies that are just screaming at me, combined with the fact that Mankind Divided's story simply doesn't live up to Human Revolution or any other game in the series. Its fine to evolve a series, but not when you strip away key elements of it that make it great (multiple locations, for example), while promising those things to your customers (I'm thinking of the trailer where Jensen was narrating, which heavily implied that he would be uncovering another vast international conspiracy... except that we got that was mostly centered in and around one city). If anything, after rereading everything I wrote above, it seems like Mankind Divided simply didn't live up to the hype it set-up for itself. It promised you one thing and gave you another.

[Wilhelm Klink]

That's another thing. I don't usually hate games other people hate because hype because I simply ignore the hype so that I can get into a game freshfaced. Then a game has to actually be bad to me to make me dislike it. Like I had no problem with MGS 5 beyond the first chapter which I previously said it could have ended with. I didn't have a problem with the latest assassin's creed, I got exactly what i expected from it.

But when I was shown The Crew, I just couldn't get past the first few missions. When I bought tropico 5, it was the same story, it sits in my library with only a few hours on it.

But the thing with mankind divided is that it more or less feels like human revolution 2 in the way that borderlands just felt like an updated continuation of the same old. I didn't have any issues with the story in mankind divided despite people calling it weak. In fact, I was more interested in how all the stuff is starting to fall into place to make way for the world of Deus Ex. We have the NSF comming into the periphery, samizdat as the proto sillhouette, as TF29 is the proto unatco. Mandery and Page trying to control stuff from behind the scenes while Daedlus tries to tear them down from the shadows. Fashion changing to represent Deus Ex's stylings. Technology going forwards in some feilds while fading in ubiquity in the hands of the common person as the plutocracy ramps up.

But if there's one thing that bothers me the most, it's the naturals-augs false dichotomy. While it's evident that Deus Ex takes place in an alternate reality on account of background information books in human rev saying that Sarif was selling robot arms as early as 2009, I am convinced it is more than that. I am convinced that the game takes place in an alternate reality where half of the population is utterly intolerant of anything that dares threaten their natural faillicy concerning the human body. This was just reinforced by this conversation I have with a dude in a shop in mankind dividied. The dude talks about how he had to have an inner ear implant removed to avoid being treated like a second class citizen for being an "aug". Despite the fact that this implant allowed him to maintain his equilibrium and sounds like something people would get installed in our world and nobody would give a ♥♥♥♥ about becuase you need it to live your life. After talking with this guy, I wondered if the deaf removed their hearing implants to avoid being treated differently too because how dare they attempt to have all their senses.

[God, owner of the Universe]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Citizen Zero:

you shipped an incomplete game with an incoherent story that barely meets the basic criteria of a Deus Ex game.
[...]
The fact that this story even passed muster is quick frankly shocking -- considering the millions of dollars you had to make this, you'd think you could have hired a decent narrative editor.

But on top of that failure, which is already bad enough and an insult to your fans, your publisher added a steaming pile of anti-consumer practices and behaviors. Practices that, ironically enough, are not unlike the corporate behavior your game critizes.

You should be punished [...] by simple economic forces. [...] you released a substandard product (in comparsion to other entires in the series). Presonally, I believe that your game SHOULD be pirated. Not just for the customer to reclaim their right to the product they pay for (to hell with your regular online check-in DRM), but more importantly in order to send a message: that incomplete games and anti-consumerist practices are NEVER acceptable! The death of the series, in my eyes, is preferable to another entry of this garbage caliber and obviously money-grabbing character.

I somewhat agree with the majority of what Citizen Zero said. Maybe Eidos is trying to thoroughly establish the larger Deus Ex world with its current efforts, starting with HR, but really pushing for it with MD, and at the same time switches to a kind of episodic format, like a TV show. This could be really great! An attempt to evolve gaming further. But personally, I am not comfortable with it. HR was ok (ignoring some considerable flaws, like the end-o-matic or Eliza's ridiculous voice character which was doubled in MD), it stood alone as a game. MD seems to go for an episodic format, but since each installation costs $60 and also takes 40 life-hours to play (Actually, to properly experience, a DX game actually takes at the very least a hundred hours for several play-throughs. That is how the games are designed. To be seen from many perspectives. To kind of be learned deeply.), this doesn't work for me. It is too extreme! Too much gamer-dedication is required to ultimately enjoy it, because MD is certainly incomplete without the next installation, so you also need to play the next to really value the previous.

I think what Eidos seems to be setting out to do is not the right direction. Some will dwell in this, it will be a revelation for them. But even without the greatest common denominator in mind, I am convinced that it's too big, too demanding. A gigaton of time and money is asked from the players. Too. Much. (One might object that the same applies to a game series where each installation is kind of self-contained, has enough closure; but if a franchise turns bad, I can walk away from it. I can't do that, though, if the experience-value of a game I already played depends on me playing the rest of them.)

I do believe though that Eidos have achieved considerably with MD in terms of world design, map design, and graphics.

Anti-consumer practices: I partially agree.

Pre-order bonuses being renamed to consumables on release-day - that's fraud. The reasonable expectation nurtured by the whole industry and thereby binding in terms of how to advertise is that a single-player pre-order bonus does not self-destruct!

Micro-transactions: Not a problem in this game because the balancing is proper. Haven't played Breach enough yet to know if that game needs them, but ... just don't play it then. And I see that evolution of development tools makes implementation of features (e.g. MTs) easier, so the hurdle to decide to put them in grows smaller, same should apply for how strongly we condemn them. On the other hand, the more normal they become, the more normal it might become that balancing every so slightly but increasingly pushes us to use MTs, even though we already paid full price for a game. And ultimately, this might lead to campaigns like "Cheating is theft!" and to cease-and-desist letters if someone's caught cheating in their full-price purchased single player game. Seems outrageous now, but it's clearly a potential future that this could lead to.

Denuvo: Well ... it effectively prevents piracy in the first weeks, when the most money is made. I'd be entirely ok with Denuvo and such if they were removed for standard Steam protection after a few months. But if not, it's yet another technological necessity that could effectively remove our purchased game from our possession (e.g. servers going down, or some things no longer supported by the DRM company, etc.)

This combined with the Arkham Knight level bugginess of the release, which was originally planned for half a year earlier, warrants harsh critique. Which should come in the form of opinions and also economically. I strongly disagree that the game should be pirated. If something is bad, how does pirating it make sense? "This music is of so low purely factory floor quality, I won't buy it, instead I pirate it which can end up costing me a lot more." How does that make any sense? Same for pirating a substandard game like DX:MD. Not only are the reasons bad, but piracy hurts us all: When anti-piracy measures are decided for and publicly justified, when it is pondered whether or not developing for PC is economically worth it etc., the statistics don't care what the quality of an individual game was or how justified-to-send-a-message piracy might have seemed to some, the statistics will only reflect the global numbers of piracy versus legitimate purchases.

DX:MD - substandard, really? Yes, because a main driving factor of games like DX is the campaign story, and all we get here is something average and cut-off. :( I agree that the death of the series would be preferable to life as a zombie which a strictly episodic format would be in my opinion.

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Citizen Zero:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von BryanExMachina:

These are probably the best and most heartfelt messages. Any type of criticism is important. Personally, it has been an amazing experience to come across a ton of positive feedback. To know that this project has profoundly affected someone’s life, offered inspiration or provided fun interactive entertainment is the greatest reward. However, opinions are like a** holes and everyone's got one of their own! It's impossible to expect that our vision will meet eye to eye with everyone. I did not do any art for Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but I did play the hell out of it! Enjoy DXMD!

Way to completely dodge any substantive response to criticism.

About what BryanExMachina said: If that was not just a general purpose copy-pasta (And I think it wasn't.), it seems weirdly unfocused. First you appreciate the quality of the message, then you switch to talking about your experience (which I can imagine was a profound and intense part of your life), then you switch back to talking about Citizen Zero's opinion, which you now suddenly rather describe as "just one of many". I fully agree with their reaction to your comment: You did not touch on any of their several good points, it even feels a bit like an Eliza misdirection news statement.

Also, I don't quite agree with a statement like "has profoundly affected someone's life". Due to the hundreds of thousands of people who play the game, there will of course be a very very few people who actually experience "a profound impact on their life" (A big statement to make.), but you could say that about any product that reaches many people, and we're really just talking about an immersive game world with a weak/incomplete story.

Really, Mister Eidos, your response feels hollow and mindless, no offense intended. Like you just felt the need to say something without actually throwing your consciousness into it. Maybe you're not doing that because you prefer to shield your inner core from the storm of the people's opinions, which is understandable. But if so, then I think it would be better not to say anything.

BryanExMachina, I have a hypothesis, maybe it is helpful to further DX game development, and maybe you can take it with you:

Regarding stories, mankind has kind of consciously focused on apocalyptic, world-changing, and mind-f_ck in the recent years, the peak maybe starting with The Matrix and Deus Ex. This explicit milking of the concept has the side-effect that we kind of have seen it all by now. It can still be pulled off in a remarkable way, like e.g. in Interstellar, but as a game's background story - where we ourselves decide the pace, and the pace overall is necessarily very low - it might just not work any more, or it might be super incredibly hard to pull off. That's what Deus Ex once was - before it became a modern world Thief game, which isn't bad but is also not quite Deus Ex.

[pieman]

Playing DX:MD really reminded me of the debacle with The Hobbit films.

Peter Jackson wanted to make The Hobbit into two films.
Guillermo del Toro only wanted to make one film, as MGM didn't have rights to Unfinished Tales and Silmarillion, and he didn't want to make up lore. He preferred to make one short, sweet film true to the book.
MGM smelt money and wanted three films.

Apparently, filming had already started before the decision to stretch into three films was made. And so we got the padded out badly paced films. The irony being that Peter Jackson had to fight to convince MGM to allow Lord of the Rings to be three long films in the first place...


I feel that with the Deus Ex prequels that Eidos originally had plans for the prequels to be a trilogy, with Human Revolution strong enough / complete enough to stand on its own two feet if it wasn't successful enough to warrant sequels:

Human Revolution
Mankind Divided
And a part 3

But now Mankind Divded and the part 3 have been stretched into another trilogy (i.e. one more game is getting shoehorned in). Almost certainly at the behest of SE.

That's why the story and pacing of DX:MD are all over the place. Citizen Zero is pretty bang-on with summarizing the problems.

Go back and watch the DX:MD trailer again. Is that Marchenko in the Divali theatre? Is that Marchenko initiating Ivan Berk into ARC?

I know that the trailer would have probably been made by an independent team, but they would have been given plot and location synopses.

It seems from the trailer that Marchenko is either fighting against Illumanati interests (messages between Page and Manderley), or they help him into position and just let him go psycho - as Citizen Zero says, no need for the Gold Masks if you have ARC members that follow a psycho like Marchenko loyally. And that Jensen goes to stop him because taking innocent lives isn't the way to do it.

That would have been a way more coherent plot, IMO.

[martin.duchoslav]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Citizen Zero:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von LT Gen Klink:

That's because your opinion is garbage. You know it's garbage when you say the story was 'Incoherant" and that the game was "unfinished".

Please, by all means, explain to me how the story was coherent -- and by coherent I mean logically fitting together in a way that actually makes some semblance of sense.

And please, by all means, explain to me how the game is 'finished' -- especially when the Jensen's Stories content is obviously cut from the game, and several plot threads lead nowhere but more questions.

I can agree with you on the ending being a let-down but the rest of the game, which is its major part, was at least for me as enjoyable a gaming experience as DE:HR. DE:MD has better sidequests, better level design, better gunplay, visuals and improved/fine-tuned game systems overall, if only slightly better.
The truth is that the narrative aspect could have used more logic and coherence – I will give you that – and that it suffers from some annoying technical issues. Apart from that (and the controversial business practices on Square Enix's part in which the devs have little say) though, I have not had this much fun with a game since Dishonored, having spent almost 90 hrs (incl. the two "cut-out" DLCs) with it. Going to do a new game+ playthrough soon to exploit the game to the fullest.
You know, I do not really think that it is fair of you to bash the game only over its story, even if its narrative part is the most important one to you. The game has a lot to offer gameplay-wise, and it rewards you for exploration and using your brain adequately. A game should be judged as a sum of all of its parts, not just one, however important.

[frostie]

I think the game is total rubbish, the graphics are a joke, it looks like a xbox 360 game

[Artoriaz]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von j4960s:

I think the game is total rubbish, the graphics are a joke, it looks like a xbox 360 game

The graphics are good.

[frostie]

yer on a 360 years ago

[frostie]

you must have a rubbish PC

[martin.duchoslav]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von j4960s:

I think the game is total rubbish, the graphics are a joke, it looks like a xbox 360 game

Maybe it is time you cleaned up your glasses and that mess on your brain man.

[frostie]

i have over 400 games on steam, then i use uplay - origin - gog- ps4, if you think this game looks good then your a stupid person, you only seem to have a few gamesHAHAHA

[God, owner of the Universe]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von j4960s:

i have over 400 games on steam, then i use uplay - origin - gog- ps4, if you think this game looks good then your a stupid person, you only seem to have a few gamesHAHAHA

Hello. I believe this game looks good. I don't like the temporal anti-aliasing or the movie noise, but the textures, lighting, shaders are great. Maybe my vision has gone bad from having over 1800 games on Steam.

[martin.duchoslav]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von j4960s:

i have over 400 games on steam, then i use uplay - origin - gog- ps4, if you think this game looks good then your a stupid person, you only seem to have a few gamesHAHAHA

Yes, and dozens other games on DVD's because my HDD isn't inflatable, you know. The game certainly isn't top-notch visually but looks decent enough so as not to insult anybody with cleaned up eyes or glasses:-). Especially the overall lighting and shadows look great. Graphics do not equal "technologically most advanced to date", got it?

[frostie]

you have 22 games, i give away more & beter every month

Ursprünglich geschrieben von martin.duchoslav:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von j4960s:

I think the game is total rubbish, the graphics are a joke, it looks like a xbox 360 game

Maybe it is time you cleaned up your glasses and that mess on your brain man.

[frostie]

the game looks good enough but nothing special it did take them years to make thats why it looks rubbish, i have played better looking games on PS4, that are years old