I've done a few investigations back then, and still have the following in notes...
The title... the Artists... the people who crafted... are ineffably magnificent...

At Eidos-Montreal, the art team is passionate about architecture and it shows in our
games. Deus: Ex: Mankind Divided features some of the richest environments ever built in a
video game. In this talk, you are invited to take a peek behind the curtain...

There are many processes in parallel here, and many possible points of failures...

There are more environments than Prague in Mankind Divided, but by far the most complicated environment is Prague. The density and the size of our virtual Prague makes it a significant technical challenge to achieve on today’s hardware. So, we’ll keep with that example along the way...

But if we are doing a large enough environment, we cannot simply save every single building as individual, custom meshes that have been generated with offline algorithm.
We need to figure something out...

Then we push this a bit further, like I said, it’s a bit like the references in max. It’s not quite like an instance. In our engine, Dawn, we can output any single parameters of pretty much any kind of resource to be modified at runtime, at any point in the game. We use this to modify each instance. So, we do keep the same set of data, then we simply modify one parameter to change something. Anything. The color of the diffuse, the actual texture diffuses inside a material, the way it reacts to light depending on if it’s wet or dry outside...

In the case of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, we have a significant number of parallel features, a lot of choice offered to the player, which the player can enact when he wants, and a mostly non-linear structure. We are stretched very thin on most resources and need to use some workarounds.

Other games may not have to do as many sacrifices to achieve the same visual quality as what we are achieving...

Source (Behind The Scene – Building The World of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided...)

The technologies and effort are so indescribably marvelous...

Just want to clarify that they're not made on the same engine. Our game is made by the team that previously worked on Deus Ex and uses the Dawn Engine.

Source

Mankind Divided runs on the Dawn Engine, a game engine designed for eighth-generation gaming hardware. It was built on Glacier 2, an in-house engine created by IO Interactive. The team had several choices of engine technology... The team introduced physics-based rendering (a new animation system) as part of the redesign, and the engine was optimized for the game's narrative base... The characters' hair, designed to appear as lifelike as possible, was animated with in-house technology based on TressFX...

Source

...Julien Bouvrais, director of technology...
That graphics engine rewrite introduced the increasingly ubiquitous physically-based rendering, and debuted a fresh animation system that especially considers Deus Ex’s character needs, while more broadly the team were able to cater for more polygons.

But what of that optimisation in the favour of narratives? While engines certainly need to serve as a platform for games that tell stories, the idea of storytelling tools in a game engine brings technology and narrative a little closer to one another than is often seen.

"We put particular emphasis around adding a few tools and pipelines to cope with our demanding narrative needs, such as an improved conversation system, and better fidelity in our cut scenes," Bouvrais offers.

Source

The Dawn Engine, based on a heavily modified version of IO Interactive’s Glacier™ 2 engine, features new technology that allows for improved rendering capabilities, real-time physics, and advanced artificial intelligence programming, among other things.

Source

Character artist Frederic Daoust gave us some details on his work with hard surface augemtations and organic parts and discussed his approach to designing mechanical details...
Most of the augmentations were different from each other with different mechanisms, so it was a new challenge with each model...

Source

Mankind Divided’s gorgeously realized version of Prague...
Source

And I thought: "Ooh, it would be crazy if we could bring the shower scene from Deus Ex: Mankind Divided into this!".
Source

And dear... of course, the soundscape/sound Artist... by Michael McCann...
- https://youtu.be/KbVBDA6TY14 (Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - Prague: Čistá...)

No words...

Related:
- https://artstation.com/fredericdaoust23 (Frederic Daoust... Senior Character Artist at Imagendary...)
- https://quixel.com/megascans/home
- https://80.lv/articles/embracer-group-to-acquire-eidos-crystal-dynamics-square-enix-montreal
- https://youtu.be/1TiG0Adh-fM?t=507 (Embracer Group enters into an agreement to acquire Eidos, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montréal...)

...versus Gen AI: Too much spend, too little benefit?

No... sorry... never...

- Freedom... To those who don't have it... ~ Adam Jensen
- Machines should work; people should think. ~ IBM Pollyanna Principle

Some of personal screenshot backups of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided:
- https://imgur.com/gallery/rIG7W4Z

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided was disappointing though. It just sort of... ended. Like only half the story was there.

I will say the narrative that the industry begins and ends with AAA publishers is a flawed logic being pushed by the those publishers. Let them die support smaller studios that are not putting out bloated garbage. Before the excessive mergers and acquisitions. All those companies started by a few people in a room making small games. If the CEO of the company worked on the game then its a valid choice to look into as an Indie.

That's what happens when you fire everyone after every release.

All games are either spreadsheet or parkour or some combination of.

It seriously needs a sequel that we will probably never get.

Bullshit.

Mankind Divided was hot garbage. The original is a classic, that goes without saying. Invisible War was good, it was just held back by technical limitations (like a forced 30 second load screen every couple minutes). I can explain why people didn't like Invisible War and why it had to be that way. I have before. But if no one cares, then moving on: Human Revolution was nearly as good as the original. It was at least as good as Invisible War if we set aside the technical limitations.

Cyberpunk 2077 honestly beats all of them. It's not just prettier. Deus Ex rode the coattails of The Matrix. Cyberpunk 2077 actually starred Keanu Reeves, with Cherami Leigh (Asuna, from Sword Art Online) as the main character, and then Idris Elba (Luther from Luther) as the main character of the DLC. And that's just the voice talent. The game looked amazing and it still sets the bar for what an action RPG can look like. Whether you call them augmentations, biomods, or whatever Cyberpunk 2077 calls them (I'm a DX purist; they're augmentations; get off my lawn), Cyberpunk 2077 beats any Deus Ex with the Kiroshi eye implants, the Mantis Blades, the boost-jump legs, and more. And of course you have a real open world. And actual music. Sure, Deus Ex walked so Cyberpunk 2077 could run, but it's not that games don't have the same DNA. They've gotten better.

Also, the only Deus Ex developer I really care to hear from is Warren Spector. I don't know who this other person is, but again, Mankind Divided sucked.

Sure, Deus Ex walked so Cyberpunk 2077 could run

No, Cyberpunk 2020 walked so that Cyberpunk 2077 could run. We could have lived in a world where Deus Ex did not exist at all, and Cyperpunk 2077 would still be borrowing from the same source material.

Hell, Deus Ex should be thanking the Cyberpunk universe, not the other way around.

But, yeah, I still really liked Human Revolution. I'm glad I passed on Mankind Divided.

If you want to call "modern publishers" any triple-A studio, then yeah. Fuck them. Fuck the corpos. Tell them to pound sand. You want passion-driven? Go buy indie games.

Why are these dullards keep printing articles over and over again about yet another AAA-studio plant seeing the light and realizing that maybe, just maybe, their billion dollar corporation doesn't understand its own industry?

I get it though. There used to be passion even at pretty high levels in AAA. Not so much anymore

If taking AAA games as a representative part of the gaming market, then D'Astous is some 20 years late. But even in the illusion of representativeness, I guess better being late than far more late?

That's by design. AAA games are called that because they're supposed to have a good ROI, and therefore a AAA investment. Good AAA games and good games are 2 different things (though they could overlap)

Last game I got was gravity circuit. Play stable is not new. Mechanics are not new. Graphics are not new. Costs are not high.

I love it.

Things just need to be good, not expensive.

The indie games scene is bursting with original games full of quirky ideas, mechanics and fun.

The AAA industry for years is focused in investors dictating what should and shouldn't be developed based on monetary profit. Couple that with them trying to replicate mobile predatory practises and movies, we get today's landscape. Games taking a long time to be developed, teams/studios of thousands, falling into the acquisition trap, uncooked games releases with promises of day one patches.

Layoffs were inevitable, and from the ashes the sentiment that Deus ex author miss will return

^i ^hope

I want another Deus ex... everything immersive sim gets cancelled, delayed or cursed

• Daikatana (rushed into oblivion)
• Prey (2017 - failed)
• Deus Ex Reboot Trilogy (Cancelled)
• Prey 2 (Cancelled)
• Dishonored 3 (denied)
• Core Decay (indefinitely delayed due to 3D Realms Folding)
• Fortune's Run (developer arrested)
• Deathloop sequel or successor (denied)
• Redfall (rushed into oblivion for shareholder agenda)
• Judas (development purgatory/ hell)
• BioShock 4 (development hell / purgatory)

Why does this keep happening to my favorite genre..?

If someone knows on steam a game that can scratch the Deus Ex itch, I'd like to hear you out

I suppose Peripeteia is the only one right now and maybe Fallen Aces?

There used to be passion even at pretty high levels in AAA. Not so much anymore

That was back when AAA studios were the only choice. We have options now, and the passion-makers choose to create on their own, or form mid-size teams when they get disillusioned with their former AAA jobs.

Why does this keep happening to my favorite genre…?

Two words: Shareholder Value

If someone knows on steam a game that can scratch the Deus Ex itch, I’d like to hear you out

For me Cyberpunk 2077 as a Netrunner has some nice Deus Ex vibes :)

Especially Cyberpunk 2077 With just a ton of difficulty mods + Night city alive (random gang vs gang fights) and re-inforcements so they can turn into full on gang wars. Makes the game feel way more alive though sadly V still has too much accumulated protagonist privalige by the middle of the game.

I suspect deeply immersive sim game with AAA graphic is dead from an economical perspective. It is more and more costly to have visually impressive games, and immersive sims does not sold that much.

On the other side, I suspect the futur of such games is indie, with retro look, so devs can focus on what makes such game awesome.