Deus Ex – Good Time for a Comeback

Seeing how it’s pretty much impossible to satisfy 8 years of hype-fueled anticipation, Cyberpunk 2077’s recent launch left some people underwhelmed. And as a result, we now get this PC Gamer article that floats the idea of bringing back Deus Ex in order to please all those who prefer their cyberpunk RPGs to have a bit more RPG in them.

Here’s a quick excerpt:

Cyberpunk 2077, in comparison, is far more systems driven, so its mechanical shortcomings are much more apparent. The perks look impressive when they’re all laid out in front of you, but nearly all the upgrades are limited to incremental percentage gains on abstracted stats like accuracy and damage. In the stealth tree, the most exciting upgrade is the ability to throw a knife. The cyberware upgrades are similarly underwhelming. Particularly disappointing are the Mantis Blades, which were the first of Cyberpunk’s feature CD Projekt ever revealed. Although they look cool, in practice they hardly alter the base melee combat at all. Adam Jensen’s arm chisels are way more fun to use, and they’re limited to a sequence of canned animations.

Deus Ex’s augmentations, on the other hand, are all about making key choices that drastically alter your character’s capabilities. The original game’s ideas might not seem novel now, but twenty years ago, being able to see enemies through walls, lift three times your own bodyweight, or run completely silently was revolutionary. The Square Enix prequels, meanwhile, let you punch through walls, cloak to hide from enemies, and launch an explosion of ball-bearings from Jensen’s body. Almost every upgrade is either cool, useful, or both, making every new augmentation canister or Praxis point feel like an important discovery.