Bungie and Deus Ex

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Wednesday, August 07, 2013, 14:06 (3917 days ago)

This may be true of the old Bungie (pre 2000) more so than now, but I always thought Deus Ex was a very Bungie like game, and given their tastes for story and sci-fi, I always wondered why they would choose to tell the story of destiny with an MMO (it is guys) rather than with an RPG. It dawned on me again while playing Human Revolution again (shy of Deus Ex, but still good) that this type of game would be perfect for Bungie.

If you haven't played Deus Ex, then you should. It's easily at the top of the best games ever made. Not perfect, but mind blowingly good.

For those who never played:

Deus Ex is an RPG with strong FPS elements, which takes place in the near future and has a plot revolving around stopping a secret organization from merging with two AIs and controlling the world's flow of information. What makes it extraordinary is the way the story plays out.

First of all, a great deal is hidden away, easily missed unless you take your time to explore and find it. Little details are hidden, but some huge ones are as well. I know Bungie fans are inquisitive, so placing an insane number of tidbits, sidestories, clarification, and backstory seems like a great way to keep everybody engaged. You can discover twists way ahead of time if you are observant (or paranoid) enough. These things can be anything from sidequests, hidden areas, conversations, items, email, you name it. To access these you may need to hack, sneak, persuade, or break into places you shouldn't be. In short, the world feels huge since you touch upon so little of it unless you apply yourself.

The game system is set up so that you can power yourself up in various ways. There's not enough augmentation canisters or exp to level all skills and augs up, so you have to choose. And no matter what you choose, the game has challenges and ways to play tailoring to your choices. Up your lung capacity and swim through sewers and tunnels. Harden your skin against poison and radiation to sneak around normally lethal areas. Become a swift silent machine. Or buff yourself up with iron skin and heavy weapons and become a tank. Up to you. Either way, your choices open up the possibility of finding tons of cool story details.

The second thing that makes it cool is that the story accounts for all your choices and wraps around them. You're told by a superior to execute a hostage right as he starts saying some interesting things. What do you do? The story works if you kill him, or if you don't. Surprisingly though, you can turn your gun on your superior and kill her instead. There's no option telling you to do this. You just aim at her, and fire through the mechanics. She dies. And the story takes this into account! You have an amazing amount of freedom.

As such, shaping the story and diving deep through exploration is incredibly satisfying.

Human Revolution falters because it takes the lessons of Deus Ex, but lets you know it. It screams to you that there things are sidequests, that info is hidden here, etc. It lets you know there's hidden stuff and where it is, possibly so you find it and feel good (and get achievements, which is why they ruin games like this!). But that defeats the point. Deus Ex hid stuff and didn't tell you. I've played it perhaps 10 times through in 10 different ways and find new stuff each time.

So I really wondered why Deus Ex wasn't something Bungie would look up to, since it would seem to so perfectly fit with Bungie's desire to create a cool world that players would want to explore, tell a story, and still have a compelling game. Why is destiny focused on exp, loot, raid bosses, instead of shooting and exploring (with no reward other than information and story progression)? If everybody is supposed to be a hero, wouldn't the dizzying combinations of skills and augs Deus Ex has be a great way to make each character unique and desirable in groups?

In fact I wonder why NOBODY has really tried to make another game like Deus Ex, Bungie especially. It was built on ancient technology. The graphics were lacking. The AI was bad. I'm just surprised since with the talent and resources at Bungie, these issues wouldn't be issues.

I guess I'm most surprised that Bungie hasn't even TRIED when it seems like a perfect fit, and went the complete opposite way with Destiny.