Deus Ex FAILED For This Reason

The Paradox of Mankind Divided's Design

This issues are incredibly frustrating, because, from a gameplay standpoint, MK makes many much-needed improvements to the foundation established five years prior. It's a repeat of what Invisible War did thirteen years; stepping forward in some areas and moving backwards in others. Combat is far more responsive and takes the right lessons to form a more satisfying variety of gunplay.

Stealth is equally well improved, allowing Jenson to quickly transfer between cover points an perform takedowns while keeping himself out of sight. Both styles of gameplay are integrated into an excellently crafted collection of levels that fully leverage every tool and augmentation in the player's arsenal. One commentator noted that rather than going for a bigger size and scale-like many open worlds, Mankind Divided instead went for tightly knit environments filled with nooks and crannies waiting to be uncovered.

These elements all ranked as some of the best in the franchise, but the overall package was hampered by unethical business and additional modes that didn't make much of an impression. Mankind Divided marked Square Enix's first attempt at turning one of their franchises into a more wide-reaching media conglomerate. Known as "Deus Ex Universe", its goal was to get the game into the hands of more players.

This was not successful. Breach mode; an oddball augmented reality game involving traversing virtual environments, was mostly ignored by the player-base. In addition, rip-off microtransactions included the ability to purchase single-use praxis kits that could only be used in one save file. Thanks to these corporate shenanigans, some were reluctant to buy the title, which caused it to sell below the publisher's expectations. It's now been over four years since Deus Ex slipped underground and currently there's no indication that the series will be continued.