Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PS4)

January 19, 2017

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (PS4)

I came by Deus Ex: Human Revolution (PS3), the previous installment, while browsing through cheap games at my local department store a few years back and I was immediately drawn into the world mostly by the excellent soundtrack and the dystopian cyberpunk atmosphere. In the beginning of my playthrough I was bit confused, since I was new to these kinds of stealth RPG games, but by the end of it, I was pretty much hooked. During my second playthrough I was loving every last bit of it, doing all the side quests I missed the first time.

The sequel Deus Ex: Mankind Divided that was released last year is just as impressive even though it doesn't feature quite the same grand finale as Human Revolution. It felt much more like an introduction of things to come but keeps me hopeful for the next game in the series.

For those unfamiliar with cyberpunk I will try to explain. Cyberpunk is a sub-genre of science fiction characterized by a dystopian near future where people live in a society of high tech-low life. Meaning technology is advanced and cheap but society broken or on the brink of breakdown. People are divided into super rich and poor, criminal activity, drugs and terrorism are all prominent. Powerful people or big corporations run the world and use the advanced technology to control, abuse and discriminate. Mix in a little film noir/detective story and a troubled augmented anti-hero and what you have is Deus Ex.

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) is probably the most famous cyberpunk themed movie and it pretty much popularized the genre. I could be wrong, but with the sequel to Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell both coming out this year and with the highly anticipated game Cyberpunk 2077 in production, I foresee a rise in the popularity of the cyberpunk genre.

Back to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Like in the last game you play as Adam Jensen, the hard boiled ex-cop now working for interpol in Prague, trying to stop an augmented terrorist group. After the incident that happened in the last game, where augmented people totally lost it, killing thousands of people, there is a huge tension between humans and augmented everywhere and as an "aug" Jensen is caught up in the middle of it.

Choosing your own play style is something I really like and that means you can go trough the whole game without killing anyone or you can go in guns blazing. I usually start out stealthy and try to stay hidden and take out guards silently as long as possible but I'm not afraid to take up arms if things get out of hand. I prefer this play style because staying hidden in the shadows builds much more suspense.

In terms of gameplay not much has changed from the previous game. Adam has some new augmentations and weapons and is also able to craft tools by collecting pieces of scrap metal which means you spend a good amount of time scavenging as well as hacking. Mankind Divided is visually very appealing but not the best looking game on the PS4. The best thing about it, is it's dark atmosphere, interesting world and a story filled with mysterious and shady characters.