Not just in terms of narrative consequences like The Witcher, Deus Ex gives the player gameplay choices too. If you haven’t played a Deus Ex game before, they’re first-person cyberpunk RPGs and their main appeal is about choice. I expect people to have a few problems with how the story develops (see ‘Additional Thoughts’ below) but I was definitely satisfied by my time with it. And I mean that: I was expecting twists all over the place and still things rarely went the way I expected. With both games Eidos Montreal have managed it with aplomb, setting things up wonderfully for Deus Ex and yet still having their own wonderful world where you have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s really difficult for any prequel maker, they have to carve their own part of the universe out yet still honour the canon, which is very hard to do, just ask George Lucas. I’m sure everyone has also forgotten that Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are actually prequels to the original Deus Ex. There are themes of segregation, terrorism, fanaticism, religion, haves and have-nots, corruption, crime, rich vs poor, all areas that many games struggle to address and yet Mankind Divided casts them all in shades of gray. You get the big picture and the overall epic tale but you also get to see how pretty much every citizen in the places you go to are effected by the events, which is really cool. The story is actually really effectively told, far better than in Human Revolution where it didn’t really kick off until two-thirds of the way in. And things will get worse before they get better. While doing that job he is still seeking to expose the Illuminati, the secret organization seeking world control. Adam Jensen has joined TF29, a branch of Interpol dedicated to stopping Augmented terrorists. With anti-augment laws coming into effect and Augs seen as less than human, fear and terrorism is on the rise. The Incident at the end of the game, where Augmented people across the world were sent into a murderous rage, has deepened humanity’s mistrust of the mechanical superhumans in their midst. It’s 2029, two years after the cataclysmic events of Human Revolution. After the entertaining but ultimately unsatisfying Thief sequel/reboot I’m relieved that Eidos Montreal have managed to pull off another Looking Glass/Ion Storm feat. There’s potentially a few significant disappointment that I’ll get to but the reasons for them make the game better. To save you skipping to the end: I’ve played the whole thing through to the end credits and can say that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a triumph, a great return to the series, and anyone who enjoyed Human Revolution in particular will love it.