Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Apartment Concept Art, Analyzed

A new holiday blog entry on the official Deus Ex website treats us to two new pieces of concept art showcasing Adam Jensen’s apartment in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and this has prompted PC Gamer to scrutinize the images in order to speculate on some (ridiculous) implications the apartment’s objects and layout may have in the game.  A bit of what to expect:

It’s hard to tell what the ball on the left is at this distance, but it’s probably a golden globe, as seen on this cover of an issue of the Deus Ex Universe comic in which Jensen squats, Atlas-like, under the pressing palm of the Illuminati symbolism! I bet we’ll see the globe imagery appear a few times in Mankind Divided. The globe-in-a-fist imagery has been part of Deus Ex since the first game.

On the right, a reading light. We see that Jensen is a big reader, even if he can’t put up a bookshelf.

The book titles are illegible in this piece of concept art, but they’ll surely be clear in the final game. Jensen’s Human Revolution apartment was full of books, including encyclopedias, “Cars of Detroit”, “Narcotics” and “CHILD AND VIOLENCE”.

Jensen is man of diverse interests and eclectic taste, but his obsession with watchmaking and tinkering in the last game has given way to a fondness for art. As well as the gold globe in the last picture, the bedroom also features a this piece, and the living room has a nice horse. In Human Revolution Jensen’s obsession with the internal working of gadgets allowed him to work through his cybernetic body issues, that seems to have faded as he’s come to terms with himself, and he’s moved on to different forms of expression. That, or the paintings were there when Jensen bought the apartment, and actually he’s taken them down to replace them with target practice sheets.

Human Revolution’s aesthetic was built around the idea of a cyber-renaissance, and Jensen’s clearly intended to embody the ideal of the Renaissance Man a figure of eclectic tastes, who excels physically and intellectually. You explore Jensen’s physical capabilities through play, so it’s up to environmental details like these to fill in the rest of Adam’s personality.