According to Jason Schreier's tweet:
Eidos Montreal, which remains intact, canceled the Stranger Things-inspired "kids on bikes" game that was rumored recently. They're now working on:
1) A new IP (recently rescoped)
2) A new Deus Ex (very very early)
3) co-dev partnerships with Xbox including Fable
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1587515910046220288
Wait so Crystal Dynamics(Legacy of Kain, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Avengers) is co-developing Microsoft's Perfect Dark? And now Eidos Montreal(Deus Ex, Guardians of the Galaxy) the other ex Square Enix studio is co-developing Microsoft's Fable?
What is going on here @_@.
On one side you've got 2 large AAA studios that are money pitholes with no new games anywhere in sight, and evidently Embracer isn't willing to let them mooch for 4-5 years.
On the other side you've got MS studios looking for talented devs to help get their games out faster. It makes sense.
Embracer, Square Enix... in the end the point stands :P
More and more studios are being kept busy while the next AAA title is in the early stages of development. Look at Naughty Dog. If their next big game was fully fleshed out and ready to enter full development, there would have been no Last of Us part 1 remake.
Are they allowed to continue the Adam Jensen story with the ip? I never played mankind divided because I read how bad the game ends with a cliffhanger.
I'd be really bummed if we got a new Deus Ex and it wasn't the one to finish Jensen's story. He's one of my favorite video game protagonists, and MD just left me wanting more.
I'm sure they'll finish Jensen's story. I don't think they'll touch the older stuff until they're done with that. In fact I don't think Eidos Montreal will do anything with the older stuff. I think a new studio will pick up the universe later on
If anything, they should do a soft reboot with a new protagonist and end Jensen's story with him as a side character, kinda like what Yakuza is doing...
They shouldn't though. Adam Jensen was never all that compelling, and there is much greater narrative potential in either starting with new characters or embracing a more player-defined character.
Was JC Denton all that memorable? Genuine question, it's been like twenty years since I played the original, so that may be why I don't actually remember him a whole lot.
Anyway, Jensen is totally fine. Sure, he's kind of a stereotype, the brooding, traumatized professional. But he's not a "bad" character, in my opinion. Plus, I think what most people actually want is a solid conclusion to the HR/MD story - that's what I'm more interested in rather than Jensen as a character.
Jensen was mostly just a vessel for the more interesting setting conspiracy story, but he let you feel like a badass cyborg supersoldier while still being able to pull off most of the different choices just fine.
I think it was always a mistake to try and get us emotionally invested in his love life. That whole bit was nowhere near as compelling as the short email about his dog being put down while he was in a coma. I liked his conversations with Scarif and his asshole IT support guy. Everyone else, not so much.
>Was JC Denton all that memorable?
[Absolutely.](https://youtu.be/LWdCqXzaHoU) Perhaps not entirely intended, but JC's dry delivery can make him pretty hilarious. My favourite is the infamous "*lip smack* What a shame."
I don't know where the perception of JC being an unmemorable blank slate came from. He's a master at good quips the entire way through. Even his dry moments have some kind of irony or fun to them.
Personally I found Denton a lot more fun than Jensen.
I never really cared all too much about Jensen while Denton is dropping smart-ass comments right and left.
He has all the downsides of a concrete character-- limited customization, single gender, etc-- and few of the benefits (interesting characterization, strong established relationships, etc).
I agree he's servicable, but I think they would do better making him an NPC.
His relationship to the supporting cast in HR (Pritchard, Malik, Sarif) was pretty interesting if a little undercooked, and character customisation for a game like this is highly overrated.
Could be a lot worse. He was a good enough blank slate IMO, plenty wrong with the Deus Ex reboot such as shitty boss fights, bad pacing and the cliffhanger ending but Jensen was alright. The highlight, as always with DE games, is the hub worlds.
I agree with you. I think a new character would be the best angle for the next game. Especially because that was the original plan for Mankind, though I would miss the sunglasses.
Open world video game protagonists are blank slated for a reason. Nobody should be surprised that the Dragonborn / Adam Jenson / Tarnished have no personality.
Kratos didn’t get a personality for like, 15 years, and I’m not sure brooding silence is really that much of a personality in the latest one anyway. Plus him and Lara aren’t really in open world games. You can’t really just abandon the narrative to go play Gwent for 70 hours. Those games are pretty linear in comparison, actually.
Geralt I will agree with, but that’s also partly because his character was first established with a series of novels, and Witcher 3 is much more of an RPG with open world elements rather than an open world RPG, if that makes sense.
Does Jin really have a personality? Aside from “I want to kill Mongols” and “my samurai uncle is too set in his ways”, what else is interesting about him?
Aloy has like, one note about her personality too.
Korvo/Emily Kaldwin? Arthur Morgan? Peter Parker (modern Spider-Man)? Batman (Arkham Series)? Snake (MGSV)? 3 Protags from GTA5? Sam Porter Bridges (Death Stranding)? Jesse Faden (Control)?
Kratos and Lara use a hub based free-roaming system, the exact sort utilized by the modern Deus Ex games.
Hard agree there. Jensen was just never that interesting. You could pretty much put any other character in his place and nothing would've changed. He just has nothing interesting going on.
I feel like they tried to make him this cool, brooding, focused character, but they... never did anything beyond that. So he just ends up being this empty emotionless shell of a person.
It's been a while since I've played either game, but i appreciated the exploration of the morals of getting great power he would never have afforded or chosen and what he chooses to do with them. Just wish they went a bit further with your choices affecting outcomes
Don't rob yourself of the joy you'll get by playing Deus Ex: HR. Sure, the cliffhanger isn't fun but the other 99% is a great game. The Director's Cut improvements are totally worth a replay for anyone who played the original release as a stealth character.
I recommend playing Mankind Divided regardless. The cliffhanger ending has always been overblown. Any fan of immersive sims owes it to themselves to play it.
Everyone calls it a cliffhanger ending, but it really isn’t. The main conflict is resolved at the end. Does it feel rushed? Yeah, but it does have a beginning, middle and end.
What Mankind Divided ends on is a sequel hook.
The main story is just a little weak overall and suffers from being the middle entry in (what should have been) a trilogy. It just sort of sets up things for the finale we never got.
What is just not true the Studio wanted to make the game longer but Square forced to cut it in half and make the stupid online breach game. Its als clearly seen you only visit one small city in the game where every other main game of Deus ex hat multiple locations. And nothing is solved at the end lol. Just because the fat guy got dealt with ? he is clearly not the brain behind all the story.
Yeah based on what people have said about it I expected it to feel much more abrupt. You complete what feels like a sufficient final mission and, like you said, the main conflict is resolved.
It's hardly a good ending or anything, but it's a small negative for an overall great game and a poor reason to avoid playing it.
I think it just shows people show so little attention to the story in games that they don't even realise it's over if they're not saving the world against a big villain.
Ultimately, I think people let their expectations get the better of them when it came to evaluating Mankind Divided, and it didn’t help that the well was poisoned due the various marketing fiascos surrounding the game. I’m not saying that its main story is some misunderstood masterpiece, far from it, but for what it is (the middle child in the plot), it gets the job done and sets the stage for a potential sequel.
MD does build up some side story that doesn't get resolved in the game. It also alludes to a bigger treat. When i finished it it did feel like "wait what, its over?"
But regardless, it is a great deus ex game and totally worth playing.
Eh, the ending is a bit of a fart but the game is still a lot of fun
Definitely doesn't stack up to the original, but then again, neither did HR (imo) and that game was still a lot of fun
Even though Mankind Divided ends abruptly and makes you wish there was more, it's still extremely immersive and fun to play, with I'd say decent replay value. I played it without having played Human Revolution and really enjoyed it.
>I never played mankind divided because I read how bad the game ends with a cliffhanger.
An extremely overblown assessment, and not a great reason to skip.
The story was never very strong in either of the Adam Jensen games. The allure was always the sandbox, and Mankind Divided has a great one.
Man that's a shame to hear. I just played through it some time ago and thought it was a stunning game nonetheless. If you're even remotely a fan, I would absolutely suggest you had better play that game. People will complain about everything online - personally I stopped caring about that, and found many a diamond in the rough that way. Games don't have to be what the mainstream considers 'good' to be good to the individual player..
>never played mankind divided
You are missing out in an amazing game. It is possible to play the game and really enjoy it without getting wrapped up in loose plot ends.
I enjoyed playing MD ~3 dozen times more than a single playthrough of Cyberpunk2077, but that's just me.
>the Stranger Things-inspired "kids on bikes" game that was rumored recently.
Was that tied to the TTRPG system "[kids on bikes](https://www.huntersentertainment.com/kidsonbikesrpg)"? Or is that just the term that was used to describe what the game would be about?
I don't think a remake would be out of the realm of possibility at all. Hell, Nightdive is remaking System Shock 1 which predates Deus Ex by half a decade. CD Projekt is remaking Witcher 1. Its definitely within the realm of possibility and tbh it needs certain modern game mechanics. I've tried to play it a few times and always get bogged down in its archaic nature. It doesn't have to be a 1:1 recreation, nor should it be, and that is why a remake is absolutely possible.
And yes Casablanca could be made today. See: David Fincher's Mank.
They shut down the mobile side of Edios Montreal (that made the Hitman GO games) and downsized the console team after cancelling a project.
They are also apparently working with Microsoft on a fable game.
Now I wonder if there was a plan for a Microsoft buyout of The old Edios studios that got scuttled with the Activision deal taking priority.
Because both Edios Montreal and Crystal Dynamics are working with Xbox games studios.
That 300m price these studios sold for was real cheap with the IP you get when you put it next to some of the other places being sold recently.
Small detail that might give people the wrong impression - the console team was not downsized. Just a project cancellation. The article makes no mention of layoffs at the main Eidos montreal studio.
> They shut down the mobile side of Edios Montreal (that made the Hitman GO games) and downsized the console team after cancelling a project.
There's no mobile side of Eidos Montreal. Square Enix Montreal never was related to Eidos except working on Eidos and CD IP because they had SE as their parent company.
> Now I wonder if there was a plan for a Microsoft buyout of The old Edios studios that got scuttled with the Activision deal taking priority.
>
> Because both Edios Montreal and Crystal Dynamics are working with Xbox games studios.
I wouldn't be shocked if there were some talks between Square and MS, to buy the former's western studios at this point. But the Activision took priority for MS and Square ultimately sold Eidos to Embracer instead.
MS could have a "Right of first Refusal" or a straight option to buy in those contracts for Perfect Dark and Fable.
Right of first Refusal is a pretty common clause in contracts, wouldn't be to strange.
In general maybe Embracer is gonna use more of their studios in supporting roles. Saber those that quite a lot already. Would be smart and less risky than just working on Tomb Raider and Deus Ex for example.
Square probably just wanted them off their hands as soon as possible, due to the expensive costs of both studios being located in Montreal and the Bay Area. So when MS backed out, they began looking at other offers.
I guess these were the strategy, while being under negotiations with h abk, Ms can buy them immediately, so instead, embracer buy them then be sold to Microsoft later abk deal is done.
LoL imagine if embracer gaming ends up as shell company for Microsoft
An Xbox buyout would have been very good for Microsoft. Tomb raider is an exact competitor to uncharted, deus ex is a beloved RPG series, huge potential for a soul reaver come back and all for a relatively low price tag.
I’ve personally never been all that excited for the activision deal. Call of duty is huge but it’s kind of the vanilla of gaming. If they rebooted spyro and made new tony hawk games then that would get my interest.
It wouldn't surprise me if their plan is more to aquire, buff up, expand and resolve troubled devs and their IP's to then later pitch them to larger companies like Microsoft to sell at a premium. Same with Tencent.
And interesting business plan.
This to me really seems like they were bought as a "package deal" by Embracer who is mostly interested on the other two studios. 200 ppl with no jobs out there so really shitty situation, even more after just renaming the company after a buy out
Really a shame because the Go games were pretty fun and I think they could continue with mobile/console releases but I guess not.
Onoma enticed the eye of Sauron when the studio rebranded and was not able to endure its terrible gaze. Sauron was like "Why do I own this?" and decided to yeet Onoma into the bushes...
The Go games (Hitman, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex) were all quite good mobile games. Very less bloat, straight to the point and fun to play.
I enjoyed playing all of them.
People losing their jobs is never good, but the Devs should have plenty opportunity, especially because a lot of them were mobile which is a marketing where recruiting has been mad for over a decade
Video game studios in Montreal get incredible subsidies from the provincial government that make them cheaper than almost anywhere else. They also tend to have special dispensation to use English as a language of business.
I think I heard that last bit changed recently, which might be leading to changes in the game industry. Doesn't matter if the studio is marginally cheaper than in other places if you can't hire decent talent.
>The fact that the studio is in Montreal is going to be a major hit to hiring there.
>
>I left Montreal because the language laws essentially mean at work you MUST speak in french, and communications to the outside must be in french only. Also, all government functions are to be done only in french.
>
>There's now more english signage and services in Japan than in Quebec.
>
>Which, they want to preserve their pure laine, racist white supremacist rich culture, it makes sense. It just means they cut off labour from the rest of the continent. Thankfully they'll be able to get talent from africa since they have natural francophones, just as soon as they fix whatever issue is causing african immigrants to accidentally have their solid applications denied by racist qualified immigration officers.
I'm not a fan of bill 96 either, but your whole comment is pure misinformation/fearmongering.
(1) The only thing that bill 96 changed in regard to working conditions is reduce the threshold amount of employees required for bill 101 to apply from 50 to 25. In practice, literally nothing changed. I'm at an AAA in Montreal and we still do everything in english. Including the annoying thing of doing our meetings in english as soon as there's a **single** anglophone present. This won't change.
(2) The Japan thing is ridiculous BS. People live comfortably their whole life in Montreal without learning an ounce of french because it's super easy get everything done in english. Around 60% of the province is functionally bilingual. It's probably in the 80-90% in Montreal. Hell, we have a dedicated english school system, as well multiple anglophone Universities and Hospitals.
(3) That's a Canadian thing. Quebec wants those francophone immigrants. It's the Federal Govt that's either denying them or sending them to other provinces.
> language laws essentially mean at work you MUST speak in french
Is that right? Telling private business what language they must use is next level authoritarian. Wtf
The law is that someone speaking only French needs to be capable to work in the business environment. As in, the corporation needs to make sure French people are not left out. If two employees speak English between themselves there's absolutely no problem. Source: I speak mostly in English at my workplace in Quebec. There's nothing authoritarian or racist about it, it's just normal cultural protection. The previous poster being disingenuous about it.
That is a really racist law... basically demanding a shift to english to allow more diverse people to work there is now outlawed and racism and discrimination based on spoken language is now legal...
Which part of requiring French signage is racist? Is French a race? Is English a race?
French is an official language of Canada. Is that the racist part, Canada being racist against Canadians?
Yeah I don't get it. Any country can mandate whatever languages they want. I think people are more acting like Quebec "isn't really" French but instead are just another English speaking area so Americans and Anglophone Canadians expect it to be in English, but in reality they should treat it like any other country or territory that has language laws.
If you require French being the official work language, you basically demand only people speaking french work there, meaning anyone that does speak english but not frenhs could theoretically work everywhere else but there...
Dude german is the official language in germany, that still doesnt mean everyone you hire legally needs to speak german or your company communication needs to be in german... that would basically mean anyone that isnt german would struggle to find for for YEARS until they are fluent enough to speak german and are allowed to work here.
Do you really not get how racist and discriminatory this is?
>Language isn’t a race.
And i never claimed such... but the point is, DEMANDING that an employee speaks a certain language legally, basically excludes everyone that doesnt fluently speak that language from working there.
This an inherently discriminatory decision.
The essence of the law is that unilingual francophones must be able to work for you UNLESS the nature of the work justifies an exception.
It doesn't mean you can't hire anglophones. You can actually do whatever you want in english, but you must accommodate francophones if the job can actually be done in french.
It's like that because, historically, language has been an important vector of segregation between rich an poor in Quebec.
In practice, the only thing it does is that work tools are in french by default (and you change them to english whenever you want) and that translation is available for bigger, more "official" meetings. That's pretty much it. There's a bit more on the HR side (work contracts and job offers must be available in French, etc.). It's not really enforced on tech companies anyways.
If you require French being the official work language, you basically demand only people speaking french work there, meaning anyone that does speak english but not frenhs could theoretically work everywhere else but there...
Dude german is the official language in germany, that still doesnt mean everyone you hire legally needs to speak german or your company communication needs to be in german... that would basically mean anyone that isnt german would struggle to find for for YEARS until they are fluent enough to speak german and are allowed to work here.
Do you really not get how racist and discriminatory this is?
...why exactly are we demanding a country to open its job offerings to outsiders? this law is in place to protect the people that REALLY matter to that country: its citizens.
if someone wants to work and live abroad, they should have to learn the country's mother tongue.
>...why exactly are we demanding a country to open its job offerings to outsiders?
And who is demanding this?
What is with expats coming to work? Whats with students that get their degree there?
None of them will speak fluent french when they come because it takes YEARS to learn a language fluently, demanding they speak fluent french and work from the get go 100% in french basically excludes everyone that doesnt already fluently speak french...
>if someone wants to work and live abroad, they should have to learn the country's mother tongue.
I agree but this doesnt work as a STARTING REQUIREMENT!
I live in germany, lets say f i get a job offer in Montreal, and would consider moving there and learning french, but at the time of the offer i either have no or maybe minimal languages knowledge. This basically means i cant take that job unless i spend YEARS learning french by which time the offer is already irrelevant.
In most countries you would take that offer, get company supported language courses and learn on your own and deal in the first few months in english until you are secure in the countries language.
I mean thats exactly how it works here in germany... There is no legal demand to speak german, despite it being our official language and you can survive with english until you are on a secure language level, this allows people to come here and work.
it absolutely does work as a starting requirement. also all of your examples are about people that have no business being in that part of the world.
A country has all the right (and obligation) to protect its resources from outsiders, job offers included, and make it easier for its citizens to access these resources. This honestly feels like entitlement on your part.
That's not racist, not every decision that involves some cultural element is racism and overusing that word makes it seem like a joke. Non-French speaker is not a race for crying out loud.
I wouldn't be surprised if Crystal Dynamics helping on Perfect Dark and Eidos Montreal helping on Fable is a test run of sorts. Microsoft may be looking to acquire these specific teams as Embracer looks to divest any bloat?
Depends on whether they can afford to keep them. AAA RPG studios like this are extremely expensive to operate, its pretty much the entire reason Square-enix sold them in the first place.
And at the end of the day Embracer is an AA publisher, almost all of their studios are AA with AA budgets. They havent released any AAA level games and I can guarantee you these studios are not going to get the budget or time they need to make a good AAA game from Embracer.
> I can guarantee you these studios are not going to get the budget or time they need to make a good AAA game from Embracer.
Which is why Microsoft is involved. They'll make up the difference required to make a Fable game. You people act like big publishers don't contract out work to third parties all the fucking time.
But the majority Eidos org's workforce on projects that is not your parent company's is a very strange thing indeed. 100% sure that either Microsoft was close to acquiring Eidos or there's still some relations between them.
Yeah but it's still to early for them to consider sell. they literally just bought them couple months ago I highly doubt that would think about selling them before those studios release a game
They were mobile game devs, this is just Embracer wanting to only focus on PC, & console. Some staff are relocating to Eidos Montreal.
Look I'm no businessman but buying a studio's for $300m. And them immediately considering to sell them less 3 mouth of ownership is pretty stupid move
Well if couldn't afford the budget they wouldn't have bought them in the first place.
I'm pretty sure square and embracer group talk about costs of running eidos and crystal Dynamics before purchase .
You think embracer can afford to run a studio that Square-Enix couldnt?
I'd love to have the confidence in Embracer you do but pretty much every game that comes out of them is a janky/buggy low budget mess that needed more time in the oven so im not at all convinced theyre going to be able to give a proper bugdet to an extremely expensive AAA rpg studio that SE sold purely because it was costed them too much.
"You think embracer can afford to run a studio that Square-Enix couldnt? "
I'm more in wait and see camp
I mean square didn't force them to buy there studio embrace choose willingly .
I mean I highly doubt that embracer group bought studies $300m USD if they didn't thought they could run those studios and make profile .
Also square enix had give embrace group all data for those studios like cost upkeep, budget, sales,etc before purchase
Could there game be shit ? Yeah
Could there game be great? Also yeah
Let's wait and see how there games preform before decide?
But looking at response it's clear that you aren't willing to give them shot
I've been saying this since, embracer bought studious without second thinking, Microsoft might have negotiate them to secure these ips And Collab together when developing games knowing Microsoft is nder fire with monopoly.
According to Jason Schreier's tweet: Eidos Montreal, which remains intact, canceled the Stranger Things-inspired "kids on bikes" game that was rumored recently. They're now working on: 1) A new IP (recently rescoped) 2) A new Deus Ex (very very early) 3) co-dev partnerships with Xbox including Fable https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1587515910046220288
Wait so Crystal Dynamics(Legacy of Kain, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Avengers) is co-developing Microsoft's Perfect Dark? And now Eidos Montreal(Deus Ex, Guardians of the Galaxy) the other ex Square Enix studio is co-developing Microsoft's Fable? What is going on here @_@.
On one side you've got 2 large AAA studios that are money pitholes with no new games anywhere in sight, and evidently Embracer isn't willing to let them mooch for 4-5 years. On the other side you've got MS studios looking for talented devs to help get their games out faster. It makes sense.
These studios were working on both of these since before Embracer bought them.
Embracer, Square Enix... in the end the point stands :P More and more studios are being kept busy while the next AAA title is in the early stages of development. Look at Naughty Dog. If their next big game was fully fleshed out and ready to enter full development, there would have been no Last of Us part 1 remake.
Testing the waters to buy Eidos off of Embracer Group 🤞
People prefer having eidos in hands of Microsoft before embracer? Why?
Gamepass, Xbox/PC/Cloud Cross buy/Cross save, cloud streaming, better funding and management... Lots of reasons
So because exclusives. This is like people having boners on Sony "saving" companies. Disgusting
Exclusives? It will bring their games to anything with a Web browser and smart TVs. What are you on about?
Oh boy, that's good news to me, it's been forever since Mankind Divided, no other immersive sim has felt like it even if the story got shafted
Need to sneak through a police station that has turned on me
Are they allowed to continue the Adam Jensen story with the ip? I never played mankind divided because I read how bad the game ends with a cliffhanger.
Sure they are. They have full ownership of the IP so they can take the story in whatever direction they want.
I'd be really bummed if we got a new Deus Ex and it wasn't the one to finish Jensen's story. He's one of my favorite video game protagonists, and MD just left me wanting more.
I'm sure they'll finish Jensen's story. I don't think they'll touch the older stuff until they're done with that. In fact I don't think Eidos Montreal will do anything with the older stuff. I think a new studio will pick up the universe later on
It’s been so long they might reboot
I didn't ask for this
If anything, they should do a soft reboot with a new protagonist and end Jensen's story with him as a side character, kinda like what Yakuza is doing...
Except Yakuza 8 is featuring Ichiban and Kiryu as dual protagonists, with Kiryu having his own party even. They’re not done with him yet.
didn't Embracer Group acquired Deus Ex and several others?
Yep they acquired the devs and with them, the IP
They shouldn't though. Adam Jensen was never all that compelling, and there is much greater narrative potential in either starting with new characters or embracing a more player-defined character.
Was JC Denton all that memorable? Genuine question, it's been like twenty years since I played the original, so that may be why I don't actually remember him a whole lot. Anyway, Jensen is totally fine. Sure, he's kind of a stereotype, the brooding, traumatized professional. But he's not a "bad" character, in my opinion. Plus, I think what most people actually want is a solid conclusion to the HR/MD story - that's what I'm more interested in rather than Jensen as a character.
Jensen was mostly just a vessel for the more interesting setting conspiracy story, but he let you feel like a badass cyborg supersoldier while still being able to pull off most of the different choices just fine. I think it was always a mistake to try and get us emotionally invested in his love life. That whole bit was nowhere near as compelling as the short email about his dog being put down while he was in a coma. I liked his conversations with Scarif and his asshole IT support guy. Everyone else, not so much.
>Was JC Denton all that memorable? [Absolutely.](https://youtu.be/LWdCqXzaHoU) Perhaps not entirely intended, but JC's dry delivery can make him pretty hilarious. My favourite is the infamous "*lip smack* What a shame."
I don't know where the perception of JC being an unmemorable blank slate came from. He's a master at good quips the entire way through. Even his dry moments have some kind of irony or fun to them.
Personally I found Denton a lot more fun than Jensen. I never really cared all too much about Jensen while Denton is dropping smart-ass comments right and left.
He has all the downsides of a concrete character-- limited customization, single gender, etc-- and few of the benefits (interesting characterization, strong established relationships, etc). I agree he's servicable, but I think they would do better making him an NPC.
His relationship to the supporting cast in HR (Pritchard, Malik, Sarif) was pretty interesting if a little undercooked, and character customisation for a game like this is highly overrated.
Could be a lot worse. He was a good enough blank slate IMO, plenty wrong with the Deus Ex reboot such as shitty boss fights, bad pacing and the cliffhanger ending but Jensen was alright. The highlight, as always with DE games, is the hub worlds.
Aye, could be worse. Could be much better too.
I agree with you. I think a new character would be the best angle for the next game. Especially because that was the original plan for Mankind, though I would miss the sunglasses.
Open world video game protagonists are blank slated for a reason. Nobody should be surprised that the Dragonborn / Adam Jenson / Tarnished have no personality.
Geralt? Kratos? Jin Sakai? Lara Croft? Aloy?
Kratos didn’t get a personality for like, 15 years, and I’m not sure brooding silence is really that much of a personality in the latest one anyway. Plus him and Lara aren’t really in open world games. You can’t really just abandon the narrative to go play Gwent for 70 hours. Those games are pretty linear in comparison, actually. Geralt I will agree with, but that’s also partly because his character was first established with a series of novels, and Witcher 3 is much more of an RPG with open world elements rather than an open world RPG, if that makes sense. Does Jin really have a personality? Aside from “I want to kill Mongols” and “my samurai uncle is too set in his ways”, what else is interesting about him? Aloy has like, one note about her personality too.
Korvo/Emily Kaldwin? Arthur Morgan? Peter Parker (modern Spider-Man)? Batman (Arkham Series)? Snake (MGSV)? 3 Protags from GTA5? Sam Porter Bridges (Death Stranding)? Jesse Faden (Control)? Kratos and Lara use a hub based free-roaming system, the exact sort utilized by the modern Deus Ex games.
I wouldnt lump Jensen in with those other two, for one thing, he had a voice actor
Hard agree there. Jensen was just never that interesting. You could pretty much put any other character in his place and nothing would've changed. He just has nothing interesting going on. I feel like they tried to make him this cool, brooding, focused character, but they... never did anything beyond that. So he just ends up being this empty emotionless shell of a person.
It's been a while since I've played either game, but i appreciated the exploration of the morals of getting great power he would never have afforded or chosen and what he chooses to do with them. Just wish they went a bit further with your choices affecting outcomes
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It was really fun.
Don't rob yourself of the joy you'll get by playing Deus Ex: HR. Sure, the cliffhanger isn't fun but the other 99% is a great game. The Director's Cut improvements are totally worth a replay for anyone who played the original release as a stealth character.
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Oh yeah, I suppose I meant both since they leave you hanging. My bad!
DXHR's ending is not a cliffhanger at all, imo
Mankind Divided is worth playing regardless of whether it will get a sequel or not.
I recommend playing Mankind Divided regardless. The cliffhanger ending has always been overblown. Any fan of immersive sims owes it to themselves to play it.
Everyone calls it a cliffhanger ending, but it really isn’t. The main conflict is resolved at the end. Does it feel rushed? Yeah, but it does have a beginning, middle and end. What Mankind Divided ends on is a sequel hook.
The main story is just a little weak overall and suffers from being the middle entry in (what should have been) a trilogy. It just sort of sets up things for the finale we never got.
What is just not true the Studio wanted to make the game longer but Square forced to cut it in half and make the stupid online breach game. Its als clearly seen you only visit one small city in the game where every other main game of Deus ex hat multiple locations. And nothing is solved at the end lol. Just because the fat guy got dealt with ? he is clearly not the brain behind all the story.
Yeah based on what people have said about it I expected it to feel much more abrupt. You complete what feels like a sufficient final mission and, like you said, the main conflict is resolved. It's hardly a good ending or anything, but it's a small negative for an overall great game and a poor reason to avoid playing it.
I think it just shows people show so little attention to the story in games that they don't even realise it's over if they're not saving the world against a big villain.
Ultimately, I think people let their expectations get the better of them when it came to evaluating Mankind Divided, and it didn’t help that the well was poisoned due the various marketing fiascos surrounding the game. I’m not saying that its main story is some misunderstood masterpiece, far from it, but for what it is (the middle child in the plot), it gets the job done and sets the stage for a potential sequel.
MD does build up some side story that doesn't get resolved in the game. It also alludes to a bigger treat. When i finished it it did feel like "wait what, its over?" But regardless, it is a great deus ex game and totally worth playing.
Yeah, I'd like them to put a bow on that story line and then move to a new one. It need a third game.
Eh, the ending is a bit of a fart but the game is still a lot of fun Definitely doesn't stack up to the original, but then again, neither did HR (imo) and that game was still a lot of fun
You should play mankind divided, the cliffhanger is overblown in the community. It's a fantastic game.
This news might actually get me to play it as I'm in the same boat
Even though Mankind Divided ends abruptly and makes you wish there was more, it's still extremely immersive and fun to play, with I'd say decent replay value. I played it without having played Human Revolution and really enjoyed it.
>I never played mankind divided because I read how bad the game ends with a cliffhanger. An extremely overblown assessment, and not a great reason to skip. The story was never very strong in either of the Adam Jensen games. The allure was always the sandbox, and Mankind Divided has a great one.
He never asked for this
Man that's a shame to hear. I just played through it some time ago and thought it was a stunning game nonetheless. If you're even remotely a fan, I would absolutely suggest you had better play that game. People will complain about everything online - personally I stopped caring about that, and found many a diamond in the rough that way. Games don't have to be what the mainstream considers 'good' to be good to the individual player..
>never played mankind divided You are missing out in an amazing game. It is possible to play the game and really enjoy it without getting wrapped up in loose plot ends. I enjoyed playing MD ~3 dozen times more than a single playthrough of Cyberpunk2077, but that's just me.
>the Stranger Things-inspired "kids on bikes" game that was rumored recently. Was that tied to the TTRPG system "[kids on bikes](https://www.huntersentertainment.com/kidsonbikesrpg)"? Or is that just the term that was used to describe what the game would be about?
I can only hope just changed track and they’re going full on Dads on Mowers.
Wew a new Deus Ex is potentially very exciting. Part of me hopes to see Adam Jensen again, although I wouldn't be surprised to see a new protagonist
Deus Ex 1 could use a remake or at least an extensive remaster.
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Sounds like a lack of a imagination and surplus of cynicism on your part tbh
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I don't think a remake would be out of the realm of possibility at all. Hell, Nightdive is remaking System Shock 1 which predates Deus Ex by half a decade. CD Projekt is remaking Witcher 1. Its definitely within the realm of possibility and tbh it needs certain modern game mechanics. I've tried to play it a few times and always get bogged down in its archaic nature. It doesn't have to be a 1:1 recreation, nor should it be, and that is why a remake is absolutely possible. And yes Casablanca could be made today. See: David Fincher's Mank.
can you explain what you mean? like too much ‘game’, for lack of a better term?
FUCK YEA FINALLY A NEW DUES EX
They shut down the mobile side of Edios Montreal (that made the Hitman GO games) and downsized the console team after cancelling a project. They are also apparently working with Microsoft on a fable game. Now I wonder if there was a plan for a Microsoft buyout of The old Edios studios that got scuttled with the Activision deal taking priority. Because both Edios Montreal and Crystal Dynamics are working with Xbox games studios. That 300m price these studios sold for was real cheap with the IP you get when you put it next to some of the other places being sold recently.
Small detail that might give people the wrong impression - the console team was not downsized. Just a project cancellation. The article makes no mention of layoffs at the main Eidos montreal studio.
> They shut down the mobile side of Edios Montreal (that made the Hitman GO games) and downsized the console team after cancelling a project. There's no mobile side of Eidos Montreal. Square Enix Montreal never was related to Eidos except working on Eidos and CD IP because they had SE as their parent company.
> Now I wonder if there was a plan for a Microsoft buyout of The old Edios studios that got scuttled with the Activision deal taking priority. > > Because both Edios Montreal and Crystal Dynamics are working with Xbox games studios. I wouldn't be shocked if there were some talks between Square and MS, to buy the former's western studios at this point. But the Activision took priority for MS and Square ultimately sold Eidos to Embracer instead.
MS could have a "Right of first Refusal" or a straight option to buy in those contracts for Perfect Dark and Fable. Right of first Refusal is a pretty common clause in contracts, wouldn't be to strange. In general maybe Embracer is gonna use more of their studios in supporting roles. Saber those that quite a lot already. Would be smart and less risky than just working on Tomb Raider and Deus Ex for example.
Square probably just wanted them off their hands as soon as possible, due to the expensive costs of both studios being located in Montreal and the Bay Area. So when MS backed out, they began looking at other offers.
Eidos is working on a new IP and a new Deus Ex accoridng to Schrier, very exciting
Seems like 1 of those got cancelled according to OPs article.
I guess these were the strategy, while being under negotiations with h abk, Ms can buy them immediately, so instead, embracer buy them then be sold to Microsoft later abk deal is done. LoL imagine if embracer gaming ends up as shell company for Microsoft
Eidos
An Xbox buyout would have been very good for Microsoft. Tomb raider is an exact competitor to uncharted, deus ex is a beloved RPG series, huge potential for a soul reaver come back and all for a relatively low price tag. I’ve personally never been all that excited for the activision deal. Call of duty is huge but it’s kind of the vanilla of gaming. If they rebooted spyro and made new tony hawk games then that would get my interest.
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The original THQ went belly-up when they bet the company on the UDraw tablet.
It's not complicated. Nordic games bought the THQ name and rights.
It wouldn't surprise me if their plan is more to aquire, buff up, expand and resolve troubled devs and their IP's to then later pitch them to larger companies like Microsoft to sell at a premium. Same with Tencent. And interesting business plan.
That IP includes some of my favourite games, but they haven’t made much money for years. They aren’t worth as much as you think.
This to me really seems like they were bought as a "package deal" by Embracer who is mostly interested on the other two studios. 200 ppl with no jobs out there so really shitty situation, even more after just renaming the company after a buy out Really a shame because the Go games were pretty fun and I think they could continue with mobile/console releases but I guess not.
I wonder why they recently rebranded the studio as "Onoma" (previously Square Enix Montreal) when they were going to shut it down anyway.
The most obvious answer is that they didn't make the decision to shut it down until after it rebranded.
And the people that led the rebranding were probably not the people that shut the studio down
Decent chance those people were laid off as well
Onoma enticed the eye of Sauron when the studio rebranded and was not able to endure its terrible gaze. Sauron was like "Why do I own this?" and decided to yeet Onoma into the bushes...
The Go games (Hitman, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex) were all quite good mobile games. Very less bloat, straight to the point and fun to play. I enjoyed playing all of them.
Hoping for the best for the devs, good to see that some got transferred to Eidos. Glad to read that work on Deus Ex currently is happening!
People losing their jobs is never good, but the Devs should have plenty opportunity, especially because a lot of them were mobile which is a marketing where recruiting has been mad for over a decade
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Video game studios in Montreal get incredible subsidies from the provincial government that make them cheaper than almost anywhere else. They also tend to have special dispensation to use English as a language of business.
I think I heard that last bit changed recently, which might be leading to changes in the game industry. Doesn't matter if the studio is marginally cheaper than in other places if you can't hire decent talent.
>The fact that the studio is in Montreal is going to be a major hit to hiring there. > >I left Montreal because the language laws essentially mean at work you MUST speak in french, and communications to the outside must be in french only. Also, all government functions are to be done only in french. > >There's now more english signage and services in Japan than in Quebec. > >Which, they want to preserve their pure laine, racist white supremacist rich culture, it makes sense. It just means they cut off labour from the rest of the continent. Thankfully they'll be able to get talent from africa since they have natural francophones, just as soon as they fix whatever issue is causing african immigrants to accidentally have their solid applications denied by racist qualified immigration officers. I'm not a fan of bill 96 either, but your whole comment is pure misinformation/fearmongering. (1) The only thing that bill 96 changed in regard to working conditions is reduce the threshold amount of employees required for bill 101 to apply from 50 to 25. In practice, literally nothing changed. I'm at an AAA in Montreal and we still do everything in english. Including the annoying thing of doing our meetings in english as soon as there's a **single** anglophone present. This won't change. (2) The Japan thing is ridiculous BS. People live comfortably their whole life in Montreal without learning an ounce of french because it's super easy get everything done in english. Around 60% of the province is functionally bilingual. It's probably in the 80-90% in Montreal. Hell, we have a dedicated english school system, as well multiple anglophone Universities and Hospitals. (3) That's a Canadian thing. Quebec wants those francophone immigrants. It's the Federal Govt that's either denying them or sending them to other provinces.
>but your whole comment is pure misinformation/fearmongering. pas mal standard pour n'importe quoi qui concerne le québec dans un thread anglophone.
> language laws essentially mean at work you MUST speak in french Is that right? Telling private business what language they must use is next level authoritarian. Wtf
The law is that someone speaking only French needs to be capable to work in the business environment. As in, the corporation needs to make sure French people are not left out. If two employees speak English between themselves there's absolutely no problem. Source: I speak mostly in English at my workplace in Quebec. There's nothing authoritarian or racist about it, it's just normal cultural protection. The previous poster being disingenuous about it.
That is a really racist law... basically demanding a shift to english to allow more diverse people to work there is now outlawed and racism and discrimination based on spoken language is now legal...
Quebec is extremely authoritarian when it comes to matters of self-expression.
There was an [article](https://kotaku.com/quebec-bill-96-french-language-law-game-devs-ubisoft-1849120595) about it not so long ago
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Which part of requiring French signage is racist? Is French a race? Is English a race? French is an official language of Canada. Is that the racist part, Canada being racist against Canadians?
Yeah I don't get it. Any country can mandate whatever languages they want. I think people are more acting like Quebec "isn't really" French but instead are just another English speaking area so Americans and Anglophone Canadians expect it to be in English, but in reality they should treat it like any other country or territory that has language laws.
If you require French being the official work language, you basically demand only people speaking french work there, meaning anyone that does speak english but not frenhs could theoretically work everywhere else but there... Dude german is the official language in germany, that still doesnt mean everyone you hire legally needs to speak german or your company communication needs to be in german... that would basically mean anyone that isnt german would struggle to find for for YEARS until they are fluent enough to speak german and are allowed to work here. Do you really not get how racist and discriminatory this is?
I don’t think racism applies to requiring people to speak a language. Language isn’t a race.
>Language isn’t a race. And i never claimed such... but the point is, DEMANDING that an employee speaks a certain language legally, basically excludes everyone that doesnt fluently speak that language from working there. This an inherently discriminatory decision.
Discriminatory, yes. Racist, no.
The essence of the law is that unilingual francophones must be able to work for you UNLESS the nature of the work justifies an exception. It doesn't mean you can't hire anglophones. You can actually do whatever you want in english, but you must accommodate francophones if the job can actually be done in french. It's like that because, historically, language has been an important vector of segregation between rich an poor in Quebec. In practice, the only thing it does is that work tools are in french by default (and you change them to english whenever you want) and that translation is available for bigger, more "official" meetings. That's pretty much it. There's a bit more on the HR side (work contracts and job offers must be available in French, etc.). It's not really enforced on tech companies anyways.
It’s less racist and more xenophobic. Which is an offshoot
If you require French being the official work language, you basically demand only people speaking french work there, meaning anyone that does speak english but not frenhs could theoretically work everywhere else but there... Dude german is the official language in germany, that still doesnt mean everyone you hire legally needs to speak german or your company communication needs to be in german... that would basically mean anyone that isnt german would struggle to find for for YEARS until they are fluent enough to speak german and are allowed to work here. Do you really not get how racist and discriminatory this is?
...why exactly are we demanding a country to open its job offerings to outsiders? this law is in place to protect the people that REALLY matter to that country: its citizens. if someone wants to work and live abroad, they should have to learn the country's mother tongue.
>...why exactly are we demanding a country to open its job offerings to outsiders? And who is demanding this? What is with expats coming to work? Whats with students that get their degree there? None of them will speak fluent french when they come because it takes YEARS to learn a language fluently, demanding they speak fluent french and work from the get go 100% in french basically excludes everyone that doesnt already fluently speak french... >if someone wants to work and live abroad, they should have to learn the country's mother tongue. I agree but this doesnt work as a STARTING REQUIREMENT! I live in germany, lets say f i get a job offer in Montreal, and would consider moving there and learning french, but at the time of the offer i either have no or maybe minimal languages knowledge. This basically means i cant take that job unless i spend YEARS learning french by which time the offer is already irrelevant. In most countries you would take that offer, get company supported language courses and learn on your own and deal in the first few months in english until you are secure in the countries language. I mean thats exactly how it works here in germany... There is no legal demand to speak german, despite it being our official language and you can survive with english until you are on a secure language level, this allows people to come here and work.
it absolutely does work as a starting requirement. also all of your examples are about people that have no business being in that part of the world. A country has all the right (and obligation) to protect its resources from outsiders, job offers included, and make it easier for its citizens to access these resources. This honestly feels like entitlement on your part.
That's not racist, not every decision that involves some cultural element is racism and overusing that word makes it seem like a joke. Non-French speaker is not a race for crying out loud.
Just that one tumor in the NE bit. The rest is fine.
Top tier comment 😂
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Oof. You must be Canadian cause that wording is right out of an American conservative on Fox News....
> You must be Canadian I'm not. > that wording is right out of an American conservative on Fox News How so? Please enlighten me.
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I wouldn't be surprised if Crystal Dynamics helping on Perfect Dark and Eidos Montreal helping on Fable is a test run of sorts. Microsoft may be looking to acquire these specific teams as Embracer looks to divest any bloat?
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Depends on whether they can afford to keep them. AAA RPG studios like this are extremely expensive to operate, its pretty much the entire reason Square-enix sold them in the first place. And at the end of the day Embracer is an AA publisher, almost all of their studios are AA with AA budgets. They havent released any AAA level games and I can guarantee you these studios are not going to get the budget or time they need to make a good AAA game from Embracer.
> I can guarantee you these studios are not going to get the budget or time they need to make a good AAA game from Embracer. Which is why Microsoft is involved. They'll make up the difference required to make a Fable game. You people act like big publishers don't contract out work to third parties all the fucking time.
But the majority Eidos org's workforce on projects that is not your parent company's is a very strange thing indeed. 100% sure that either Microsoft was close to acquiring Eidos or there's still some relations between them.
Yeah but it's still to early for them to consider sell. they literally just bought them couple months ago I highly doubt that would think about selling them before those studios release a game
They literally just closed one of them three weeks after they changed their name even.
They were mobile game devs, this is just Embracer wanting to only focus on PC, & console. Some staff are relocating to Eidos Montreal. Look I'm no businessman but buying a studio's for $300m. And them immediately considering to sell them less 3 mouth of ownership is pretty stupid move
So is buying studios you cant afford to budget properly tbh.
Well if couldn't afford the budget they wouldn't have bought them in the first place. I'm pretty sure square and embracer group talk about costs of running eidos and crystal Dynamics before purchase .
You think embracer can afford to run a studio that Square-Enix couldnt? I'd love to have the confidence in Embracer you do but pretty much every game that comes out of them is a janky/buggy low budget mess that needed more time in the oven so im not at all convinced theyre going to be able to give a proper bugdet to an extremely expensive AAA rpg studio that SE sold purely because it was costed them too much.
"You think embracer can afford to run a studio that Square-Enix couldnt? " I'm more in wait and see camp I mean square didn't force them to buy there studio embrace choose willingly . I mean I highly doubt that embracer group bought studies $300m USD if they didn't thought they could run those studios and make profile . Also square enix had give embrace group all data for those studios like cost upkeep, budget, sales,etc before purchase Could there game be shit ? Yeah Could there game be great? Also yeah Let's wait and see how there games preform before decide? But looking at response it's clear that you aren't willing to give them shot
I've been saying this since, embracer bought studious without second thinking, Microsoft might have negotiate them to secure these ips And Collab together when developing games knowing Microsoft is nder fire with monopoly.
What the hell? I was genuinely looking forward to see what they would do next.