'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' is a significant step up from 'Human Revolution' in the ways that will count for most, but this game makes some serious blunders.

First, let's address the elephant in the room, this game is unfinished and has very problematic microtransactions. 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' ends abruptly with a jarring lack of consequence for a lot of the revelations and choices made, it's jarring and weird. Unsurprisingly, lead writer Mary DeMarle has said in regards to the unresolved nature of the many thematic and plot threads in 'Mankind Divided' that "if we had more time then perhaps we would have dealt with some of them differently". The flaws of this game's narrative, however, are so obvious and foundational that I don't feel my commentary on it will be impeded by this, but for sure it is a shame that Eidos Montréal did not get to finish the game they wanted to, it need go without saying but, yeah, fuck Square Enix and their undying priapism for profit margins. Speaking of which, the in app purchases, I have no patience for this stuff in full price games when they fall under the mantra of "it don't affect gameplay"—a total misnomer anyway, but I digress—let alone paying for mechanical upgrades and in game money which this game has. Obviously you can just ignore them but it's pretty insulting, and needless to say do not buy them, you will literally do nothing but destroy the balance of the game and deepen the pockets of some execs at Square. I can't believe I even feel as if I have to remind people of this but apparently, if the current suffocating trend of game business is anything to go off of, some of you aren't very good at this shit.

It might sound like I really don't like this game, but this is not the case at all, in terms of design this is a much smarter game than 'Human Revolution'. For one, levels play themselves quite a bit less, don't expect to be easy vents leading straight to objectives with obviousness so absurd that it defies all architectural reason. While retaining objective markers, automaps, and the streamlined progression system not present in the original 'Deus Ex', 'Mankind Divided' isn't as creepily handhold heavy as most mainstream games of its gravity while still being very accessible. It's not as stimulating as the original, or even contemporary immersive sims like 'Prey', but Eidos Montréal respects the players intelligence far more here, with open levels grown in sophistication; With more routes, more options, more augment opportunities, plenty more to discover and sometimes varying outcomes. This game really is super fun to play. I completed the game as a pacifist—nice to see that being an option again—and had a blast soaking in these detailed, well thought out levels and experimenting with the new, far more exciting augments. On augmentation, the system is far better in 'Mankind Divided', not just owing to the new additions—of which inspire much more potential to some emergent gameplay, Icarus Dash is amazing for finding new vantage and entry points, a real traversing treat—but also to the need to balance them with your energy levels so Adam doesn't overheat and melt his bum off. Sadly, most augments power usage is too low for the system to be nail biting in any capacity, but it's still nice to have the extra layer of things to consider when character building. The game plays just a smoothly as 'Human Revolution' with clean animations and responsive controls, as well as having some new base mechanics to make things feel much more consistent, such as mantling, a less scarce energy metre—no more sitting around like a twat waiting to clap someone across the bonce with your robo-arms while doing stealth!—and being able to run for more than two seconds before needing a take a break for a twix and a bottle of water. Balancing is all around much better, there's not really that many 'use this or you are stupid' augments other than maybe the conversation enhancer and Icarus Dash—I'm serious it rules so much—and the economy isn't as comically dire as 'Human Rev', meaning you'll actually have ammo for your guns most of the time! Without breaking the game! Lol!

So, this sounds like a wicked immersive sim, maybe not as mind blowing and bursting with emergent gameplay as an Arkane title, but still pretty great, right? Yeah! In a vacuum, this game is mechanically and systemically sound, but unfortunately it's the framework for what is a pretty woeful story.

I scolded 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' for being shallow in my review, for being nothing more than a pretentious posturing on transhumanism that didn't really create a great ground for debate. It was a game which vaguely criticised the augmented future in ways that were either totally incoherent or just flat out reactionary on what could barely be called philosophical ground while being ignorant of its immediate relation to other potential elements of our current society. To me, it's been a guidebook on how to not write speculative fiction, which is a shame because the characters and dialogue were totally solid. You know what's nuts? In a lot of ways, 'Mankind Divided' is way more thoughtful, has even better characters, dialogue and pacing, and yet has a premise which is such a deep conceptual failure that it overshadows everything. If it wasn't for the embarrassing screed that is David Cage's 'Detroit: Become Human', I'd consider this the worst allusion to the civil rights movement in science fiction. The ludic elements of the idea, with the being repeatedly stopped at train stations for excessive id checks or shot on sight by police if you stand too close to them too often, come across as silly when conscious of how poorly the topic is being handled across the whole experience, there's so little ways I can say it, This is so bad. The augmented oppression becomes an inescapable theme which makes the game impossible to take seriously, it fails as an allegory due to the obvious incongruities between the affording of agency, economic position, and physical capability the augmented poses in the game's narrative and the lack of which black people and immigrants in real life have historically received due to systemic racism, and beyond that, Eidos Montréal doesn't manage to say much about the idea or the events it is smashing together in it's metaphor. I do not believe 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' has anything valuable to say about the South African Apartheid, Civil Rights Movement or Post 9/11 Islamophobia it is so heavy-handedly interpolating and the writers should genuinely not have bothered. Truly embarrassing, utterly crass, from a series which once cut deeper than most were brave enough to on societal issues. Weirdly enough though, in spite of this excessive and misguided theme weighing over everything, 'Mankind Divided' at the very least mentions more societal issues with greater success than it's core thematic ambition, such as when a conversation with Chikane has the potential to have Jensen ask about his "honest" limp, where he speaks of the woes of a new workforce where augmentation becomes a necessity, suggesting a new horrifying, physical implication about worker exploitation in the transhumanist future if it continues to be dominated by those without the interests of the people in mind. That's great dystopian writing! That's an example of the kind of shit that would have made 'Human Revolution' amazing, an actual thoughtful comment about our society's direction! This, alongside another dialogue option with Delara where Adam speaks to the nature of how current governing infrastructure contributes to the synthesis of terrorism, is 'Mankind Divided' making Ion Storm's 2000s classic proud, they are the most politically charged things Adam Jensen says or witnesses in the whole game that actually have something insightful to say. I wish they weren't so few and far between, they make me wish that these writers—conscious of how dumb and disrespectful the whole 'cyber-racism' shit was—could get another shot, get to make another game where they investigated issues as fervently as they're clearly capable of!

But, well, that's just it isn't it? Will they get to? None of us know. As much as this game had massive problems I am truly saddened that it marks the end of 'Deus Ex' as of now. The Adam Jensen saga seems to me like a person standing up real tall but sporting really bad public speaking skills, with their heart being in the right place but ultimately being too incoherent and sentimental to say anything of value. But you can hear where there's something possibly great! You can tell they're getting somewhere, that maybe given another moment they could have said something brilliant, but before they could finish, they stuttered a bit and was suddenly shot by a Square Enix executive using the BestBuy preorder exclusive Silenced Longsword 202 ERASER Sniper Rifle.

That last description of 'stuttered' is entirely intended to be characterising the series as skittish in it's statements, not at all to suggest 'Mankind Divided' runs poorly, on PS4 it was technically flawless and apparently it can run on a Mac so it must be optimised by the god of the machine itself. Presentation wise, much like 'Human Revolution', 'Mankind Divided' is beautiful. It's gorgeous, lacking that charming 7th console generation piss filter, but still brilliantly composed visually. Sonically, too, mind, with Michael McCann, Sascha Dikiciyan and 0edit making a clean, mystifying and melancholy ambient score. The atmosphere is so enamoring that it kinda hurts, looking up at the daunting cyberpunk scapes, the story etched into every inch of crevice upon every surface, finally reminded after so long that 'immersion' isn't a made up thing. so utterly lost in the vibe that you can almost feel the wind, it’ll all keep your gaze helplessly locked as you think to yourself "ah, style over substance again."