Deux Ex Human Revolution Preview

Deux Ex Human Revolution Credit: Eidos Montreal

When we last spoke with Warren Spector, director on the original Deus Ex, about what he hoped to see from Deus Ex: Human Revolution (the prequel he has nothing to do with), he said he wanted Eidos Montreal to retain the element of gameplay choice that fans loved so much about the original. After having seen a demo of Human Revolution at Gamescom today, we're eager to inform Warren that his hope has been met -- Human Revolution looks as if it may even surpass the original in terms of its depth and gameplay choices.

The demo we saw was actually shown to us three different times -- it's the same exact scenario, just played through with entirely different approaches. Here's the setup: about 90 minutes into the game, you're given the task of infiltrating the morgue at a police headquarters to retrieve a chip embedded in a dead terrorist's head. This terrorist is part of a group against transhumanism (people augmented with cybernetics, which is the product Sarif Industries, your in-game employer). But here's the catch: the terrorist himself has cybernetic implants. So he must be some sort of plant within the terrorist organization -- but a plant by who? The government? You're on a mission to find out, which is why it's imperative you get access to the morgue and get that chip.

Click the image above to check out all Deus Ex: Human Revolution screens.

You have a few different ways to reacquire the chip. The first we see is probably what many gamers will instinctively do -- blast their way inside. That's exactly what our demoer does; he basically runs in, guns blazing, and shows off some of the cool tactics at your disposal. As he makes his way through one of the police offices, he picks up a copy machine and throws it forward to use as cover. Once behind it, he's able to position himself to blindfire at cops (who are using their own desks as cover). We also see how you can use your X-ray vision augmentation, which highlights exactly where enemies are within the environment (we could see several waiting behind some cube walls).

After that, we get a demo of some weapon choices, like enhancing the pistol with explosive bullets (each weapon has multiple possible upgrades). Another cool example of this is the mine template -- a schematic that lets you combine a mine with any sort of grenade you have in your inventory. And if you were wondering, yes, there are also weapons that just stun your opponents instead of killing them. Anyway, our demoer makes his way through the station, unfortunately taking out plenty of cops along the way. He uses mines to disable sensors and eventually makes it to the morgue, gets the chip, and escapes out a lower exit into the sewers.