You can’t have a chat with Warren Spector and not ask him about Deus Ex. Sure, it’s almost a quarter of a century old, but it feels pretty relevant today. And, crucially, it’s still an impressive game—albeit a bit long in the tooth. So of course our itinerant interviewer Jeremy Peel had to raise the subject during a conversation that you’ll see more of next month.
It’s not a great time for Deus Ex at the moment, of course. Earlier this year, Embracer killed off a Deus Ex sequel two years into its development. Embracer might not have thought it had legs, but Spector—whose direct involvement with the series he created ended in 2004—believes it still has relevance today.
“I really have no idea why Embracer would abandon the Deus Ex franchise, at least for now,” he said. “From my perspective, the gameplay approach is still relevant, but the world and situation needs some updating.”
Spector doesn’t “like trying to convince people to be interested in something,” so when Ion Storm was making Deus Ex, the subject matter he determined it should handle was full of things that people already had on their mind.
“Y2K was around the corner, AI was becoming a thing, conspiracies were everywhere, terrorism was on the rise, bioengineering was in its infancy, techno-augmentation was in the works. All that stuff was floating around in the zeitgeist. Making a game about it was an obvious thing to do.”
But now Y2K is a distant memory and the world’s already gone through the Global War on Terror. When Deus Ex came out, 9/11 was still a year out. AI, meanwhile, is being thrust upon us, whether we like it or not. And now we’re living in an era where some of the most prolific conspiracy theorists are the most influential people in the world. Your Elon Musks and Donald Trumps. One could argue that we’re already living in a (slightly less cyberpunk) version of the future Deus Ex predicted.
“Frankly,” said Spector, “if someone made Deus Ex today it might be perceived as a documentary. I wouldn’t make Deus Ex again as it was in 2000 when it could be read as a believable fantasy.”
If Spector revisited Deux Ex, he’d want to dig into “other concerns that would be more relevant, more pressing, more worthy of exploration”. And he does talk about it in a way that suggests he would not be opposed to delving back into the world he and Ion Storm created way back in 2000.
“It’s always nice to visit your kids and see how they’ve grown up.”
