Deus Ex: Mankind Divided certainly has this man kinda divided.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a mysterious game that has me both incredibly intrigued, and also bored out of my mind. Gameplay is fun and rewarding as well as tedious and repetitive. What’s going on here? Allow me to explain.
Plot-wise, Mankind Divided picks up after Human Revolution. The world now shuns augmented humans after the Aug Incident, which left 50 million dead. Is the world right in doing so? Well, pick the first shade of gray in a world painted without blacks or whites. After all, terrorist attacks have been happening that are directly linked to augmented human organizations.
That’s where you, playing as Adam Jensen, come in. Jensen is a heavily augmented spy of sorts for a secret Interpol task force called TF29. Despite the augmentations, Jensen isn’t necessarily sympathetic to augmented people getting treated like second-class citizens. In fact, Jensen is pretty much devoid of all emotions.
By far the biggest issue with Deus Ex is the voice acting. Elias Toufexis, the voice behind Jensen, sounds like he’s trying his best to do an impression of “Bored Batman.” There’s little to no emotion in any line, and it really makes paying attention to what’s going on a chore. The other voice actors aren’t as terrible, but few characters really stand out.
Couple this with wooden animations, and you have something that takes effort to keep my eyes on the screen. Mouth animations often do not line up with the lines being said, and body animations can come across overly dramatic, especially when the lines are being read in a dull voice.
What’s going on in the story anyway? A whole hell of a lot. In just the first hour, I had uncovered not one, but two different cults, a handful of corrupt police and hints that those who I had previously trusted may not be who they are. Oh yeah, and none of those plots are the main one.
If you are a fan of games with immersive and deep worlds, Mankind Divided is for you. The number of emails, newspapers, books, optional conversations and news broadcasts is truly staggering. Combined with the previous paragraph, and you can find yourself easily distracted from the main story.
Once Mankind Divided gets into actual gameplay, things take a huge turn for the better. Missions have multiple routes to success, with players having the option of stealth, hacking, gunplay and more.
While Eidos Montreal mentions an effort has been put into making all gameplay options viable, stealth still reigns supreme here. Most encounters are with armored enemies, making bullets not very effective. There also isn’t much ammo to use, making your gun feel like the last resort if you get caught and can’t escape. Tie that to a somewhat confusing inventory system, and you’ll be wondering if using guns is even worth it.
That being said, slinking around in the shadows and snaking through air ducts is still very fun. Mankind Divided has a great cover system, allowing you to easily move from cover to cover while still remaining hidden to the enemies around you.
The biggest problem with going the stealth route is takedowns, and the lame cutscenes they force you to watch. Doing a takedown of an enemy is important, because it allows you to take out baddies without raising too much of a ruckus. Or at least it should be.
The cutscenes often show the action of taking a guy down, but ends with you standing up in the middle of a room, completely oblivious to those still around you. If I wanted to take a guy down from the safety of cover, why would you force me to get out of cover? It doesn’t make much sense.
Technically, Mankind Divided works pretty well. Graphics are sharp, and environments especially are diverse and detailed. We did run into a few issues with the PC version crashing, but console versions ran smooth on both Xbox One and PS4.
There’s also a completely separate game mode called “Breach.” This mode sees you playing as a generic “Ripper” or advanced hacker. Breach mode is filled with a series of challenge rooms, each one playing out slightly different than the one before it. It’s a fine enough mode, if a little repetitive. It doesn’t really add anything to Mankind Divided, but it’s not terrible. Use it as a distraction from the main story line whenever you need a break.
Overall, Mankind Divided is frustrating. There are so many cool game mechanics and interesting story ideas that I wanted to know more and keep exploring every bit of the world. The voice acting and meandering story made me want to shut the game off and do literally anything else. If you are a fan of Deus Ex , you’ll probably have a fun time, if you haven’t played one before, I’d give this a pass.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided releases on PS4, Xbox One and PC on Aug. 23.
So what do you think? Are you interested in trying out Mankind Divided? Did you play Human Revolution? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
