In this sequel to Square Enix’s Deus Ex : Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a stealth-based game that immerses us into an imaginary cybernetic divided dystopia of 2029 through the eyes of the protagonist Adam Jensen, an Interpol cyborg trying to crack down on a conspiracy at large globally while society struggles between cybernetic humans (dubbed augs) and unmodified humans. After playing through the game is like a fruit that looks ripe but gradually tastes bitter as you bite into it.
We are immediately given what’s at stake in the prologue of the game which explains the terror at hand and does a good job of displaying what the game is centered around from the start. The game also provides players the option to see a well detailed 12-minute recap of the previous game, so that the newcomers to the franchise can get caught up. Throughout the course of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, it introduces a variety of interesting characters and does a great job of keeping the suspense. Certain plot points of the game contribute greatly to the game’s mystery and suspense experience.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided stealth base and mystery-solving gameplay with a choice based system is a diverse conversational mechanism in the game that allows you the option of discussion with characters in the game.
This system is vital to how your gameplay is effected such as utilizing persuasion to bend a situation to your advantage or obtain more knowledge of a circumstance which Eidos put well together of immersing the player in the game by actually making conversation matter in the outcome of the game.
This is a well-detailed graphical game from the texture of the skill models to Adam Jensens highly detailed augmentation, which can be individually viewed from the in-game augmentations menu. However, the game often experiences sudden framerate drops through the crowds of Prague. These frame drops have crashed my game on some occasions (this has now been patch I believe in a recent update).
Speaking of how the upgrades to Adam Jensens vault of augmentations effects gameplay, it is sometimes substantial however can come in handy for getting you out of hefty situations if you don’t resort to stealth. You are not able to “Rambo” off your upgrades as they are powered by a battery meter. This can somewhat be irritating when as it can be heavily drained over small and simple melee movements.
Although Mankind Divided has a suspenseful story that gradually makes you play the game some times its constant suspense and lack of proper build up especially upon the antagonist is what makes the conclusion feel empty. Also, the lack of bosses in this game is just as bad as how easy it is to defeat them. Making the bosses hardly different to smaller minions of the game other than having more armor and story attention. The game also has a short playthrough of the main story in which to make matters worse are accompanied by a very short amount of side missions.
As far as the game’s gameplay it was at first fun but sometimes can become repetitive in the stealth field. One of the problems is that going through air vents is nearly the solution to every encounter in the game including hacking cameras to hacking doors. which takes away from being a more challenging stealth game however I do admire the games design of giving you the option of choosing how you what to assess a situation by your play style whether it is through brute force or a more subtle way so you can have the drop on your enemy’s in the shadows.