Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: A Missed Narrative Opportunity

The persuasion implant returns as an easy way to get through tough conversations, but I found that its use was somewhat limited, with only about three important conversations it could be used in.

 

About a month ago I sat down to play Deus Ex: Mankind Divided after having played Human Revolution Director's Cut a few years prior. I had heard that it was something of a step forward and back, so I was somewhat wary, but aside from that I heard little of it. 

The plot begins a few years after the conclusion of Human Revolution, after the so-called 'Aug Incident' (augs meaning augmented humans), where due to a software update acting as a Trojan horse, mechanically augmented humans were sent into a berserk rage by the inventor of augments as some sort of warning about the dangers regarding their use. Seems a little harsh. Anyway, in the two years following the incident augs have become something of a discriminated group, essentially experiencing segregation/apartheid/ghettos/concentration camps and widespread mistrust, but this doesn't truly add up, even when connected to the first game's plot. 

The key issue is that in the prior entry, due to the need for expensive drug treatments, only the very wealthy or government employees/military were able to afford to be augmented. The discovery by Sarif Industries that there was a way to eliminate this hurdle drove the plot of the first game and lent a hopeful air to the future in spite of its horrors. Now forward two years, suddenly these wealthy and influential people not only have been stripped of their wealth and power (which seems quite unlikely), but also that there is a massive population of otherwise ordinary people who were augmented that are now part of this underclass, which is hard to believe. 

Put into this is Adam Jensen, who returns as the heavily-augmented player character from the previous game, and he seems to have escaped the brunt of this societal change, even as he experiences it. Where other augmented humans are treated with disdain, Adam is treated at times with a cautious reverence, experiencing little of the discrimination other augs face, which felt disjointed

As it's probably clear, the core themes of Mankind Divided is race and racism, and on a level it works, albeit flawed. The new slang surrounding augs is to refer to them as 'clanks', which is quite frankly a very unnatural way to put it, and 'augs', the term I've been using up to this point, feels far better and was the designated term in-game already. No idea why it was changed. Probably the best showcase of this well-intentioned but flawed narrative approach is the fact that the train cars are segregated, not just on a visual, but a mechanical level. The 'natural' train cars are clean, and when Adam takes one of them he is given wary and fearful looks by the occupants. On the other hand, the 'augmented' train is as a rule dirty and poorly maintained. Additionally, taking the 'natural' car or walking into or out of the 'natural'-designated entrance to the subway earns you a lecture and a warning by the police, but otherwise there is no penalty, somewhat undercutting the message. Aside from this, there's not a lot of nuance in the story. The bad guys are once again augmented people, though instead of three there's only one this time, the final boss.

Perhaps a better tack the story could have taken as opposed to covering racism would be the casual disregard to human life that corporations often have. A good number of the pivotal NPCs the player interacts with were not augmented truly out of choice. Most were given the false choice of getting augmented to improve their job performance or get laid off, and after the Aug Incident they were cut loose without consideration for what their augmented abilities could do in the wrong hands. I won't go on, but I found myself asking this several times over the course of the game.

In terms of length, the game is quite short, having only a handful of missions that generally lacked in the signature variety of approaches that I appreciated in the first game. They were generally quite enjoyable, comparable to the first game, but otherwise they left me wanting more. Furthermore, with only one hub compared to Human Revolution's three, Mankind Divided feels smaller, even if Prague is admittedly a very detailed and colorful hub, going through three phases over the course of a day (I think). Completing the game earns you an ending where all your accomplishments and motivations through both main and the side stories are warped and twisted to fit the establishment narrative, which while fitting to the setting and overall themes of the franchise, was somewhat discouraging. As a final nail in the coffin, the game's ending rests significantly on there being a sequel to make it a trilogy. However, approaching five years later, there's no sign of a sequel coming.

Gameplay-wise, this second entry offers a few direct improvements to the formula, and now you can run between cover without leaving it, though I didn't find much of a use for this, even with my stealth and non-lethal approach (there's a lot of people that didn't seem to deserve to be shot or stabbed in all honesty). The new "experimental" augments were an interesting addition, even if I didn't find much of a use for them, and the accompanying overclock mechanic felt superfluous. On the whole, it's an improvement, but power for augments still feels like an artificial bear trap around the ankles, leading to me rarely using them in general. 

Additionally, there's some sort of a mobile game dungeon-esque mode where you undergo progressively harder levels for randomly-generated loot, but after a few levels of this I felt like there was little more it could show. In all honesty the time put toward producing this hollow component (with added in-game purchases, fantastic) would have been better served adding more content to the game, and I wouldn't have so quickly discarded a mode that a team of people likely devoted months to.

On the whole, if you enjoyed the first game and wanted to play more of Human Revolution or otherwise want a cyberpunk adventure, Mankind Divided is a good choice. However, it's on the whole somewhat forgettable and frustrating to play through due to the contradictions and questions raised by my memory of the first game's plot. It's a good game, playing well and with an intriguing plot, but it could have been more. If there is a sequel, I'd probably check that out at some point in hopes it is an improvement, but for now I'd be unlikely to recommend this to a newcomer. Better to play Human Revolution, it still holds up.