![]() It is entirely possible to finish the game without laying hands on an enemy and talking your way out of it. On the flip side, Ion Storm couldn't have known that when they released 'Deus Ex' in 2000, it would capture the public mood in a very specific way.Ĭrucially, you can spend the entire game hobbling around boss battles and not killing enemies and making for the exits like you just realised you left the stove on. Naughty Dog couldn't have known that 'The Last Of Us Part II' was going to be released at a time of great social upheaval in June 2020 and while the Covid-19 pandemic was still in its early days. It is impossible to know what the cultural mindset will be like when a game finally releases. Game development is often a long and ardorious process, and can be best described as trying to hit a moving target. Suddenly, themes of corporate warfare, cyberpunk, human augmentation and themes of technology run amok were hip. 'Deus Ex' hit PC in the year 2000, mere months after people worked themselves into a panic over Y2K and 'The Matrix' became the hottest film franchise almost overnight. Todd Howard claimed that 'Skyrim' had infinite questlines and that 'Fallout 3' had over 200 endings.Īll these games have something in common: they were all released after 'Deus Ex' in 2000 and none of them could ever possibly hope to match up to the sheer depth and freedom offered by Warren Spector's immortal RPG.Īs with any game in this retrospective series of articles, it is always crucial to remember the cultural mindset and context a game was released in. The games of David Cage make bold promises about being able to fundamentally shift a games narrative to how you see fit, but you're always railroaded down a pre-determined path. ' No Man's Sky' was meant to be the second coming of Christ and was going to offer players unlimited freedom to reshape a universe of infinite planets, but the game was as exciting as an Excel spreadsheet. Total freedom has long been a point of contention within gaming, but is very rarely achieved. Many games promise you the moon only to fall up short because of technical limitations. ![]() ![]() Look, we're discussing 'Deus Ex', philosophy was going to appear somewhere. The English philosopher John Locke is quoted as saying that humanity exists in a state of perfect freedom. ![]()
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