SCREENSHOTS – Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27).

The Deus Ex games are important to me. The original was released 16 years ago and was my first exposure to government conspiracies, human augmentation, and the choice to act with stealth and cunning, or by force and violence. I was hooked. Years later the franchise was rebooted with prequels: Human Revolution, and Mankind Divided. I could not wait to play them. 

The first prequel, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was released 11 years after the original. It was a story about origins and the choice to augment, whether by election or necessity. But the only people able to make that choice are the wealthy, influential, or lucky; leaving the world divided between humans and the advanced augmented cyborgs.

Then catastrophe cripples the world. Everyone augmented is hacked and goes violently insane killing tens of millions. In the next game, Mankind Divided, the choice is now to shun and fear augmentations or to accept what happened and continue to embrace augmentation potential. But now the world is inverted and divided between the now lesser cyborgs and the pure humans oppressing them. 

In both prequel games, you play as Adam Jensen (note the biblical first name). He's augmented out of necessity. In the opening of the prequels, he's nearly killed while working as head of security for a booming augmentation company. That same company then generously gives him a full body makeover to save his life. Now augmented, Adam seeks answers, revenge, and justice as you uncover layers of conspiracy. You evade going insane at the end of the first game and return in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to help Interpol's counterterrorism unit protect humanity in all of its variety both machine and flesh.

The art direction of the game is killer, thanks to consistent geometric themes from the art direction or Jonathan Jacques-Belletête, and the futurist clothing designs of ACRONYM (cf., screenshots from my playthrough below). I live in Phoenix where you hardly need a windbreaker, and yet I still want Adam's sweet trench coat.