PCG: When Adam paid to get into the club in the demonstration, you said that you could have shot the guard outside to get in. If he'd done that would the police have followed him inside?
Dugas: I mean, if he would have done it, it would have been a huge priority just to survive, because there are bouncers inside, outside, there are the Bell Tower Security lurking in the streets. You could survive, but it's going to be tough. It's an option, but you must be ready to have one hell of a time. The key with social environments, we balance it in a way that we don't encourage it. It's still possible, but we balance it in a way that if you want to do it it's because you really feel like doing it.
PCG: Can you just punch through any wall?
Dugas: No, if you observe carefully, all those big strong walls, some of them have weaknesses. It's not like Red Faction or something like that. They have weaknesses and if you observe carefully, you might detect them. But you're going to have an augmentation that is going to give you more information, what we call the Environmental Sensor. It's going to bring up your awareness of your surroundings and the possibilities, so you're going to see where there are weaknesses and you can take advantage of it.
Basically today, it was like, there was an enemy on the other side, so the demo combines it with Smart Vision that allows you to see through walls. But if an enemy was not there, you could still destroy the wall. It's not related to the enemy. If there's an enemy there, he's going to take advantage of the situation, but those two things are not necessarily related.
PCG: What do you think Invisible War did wrong?
Dugas: That's a good question, because when we started the project we went back to the first games to look at what was good and what was not good, and in terms of like, multi-path, multi-solution, things like that, Invisible War was quite consistent, probably more than the first game. Because the latter quarter of the first game, and maybe before that, started to become a very straightforward shooter with not as many possibilities as in the first few maps.
So in that respect, I think [Invisible War] was a good game and actually was fun to play. But I think one of the things that didn't help was that in the beginning of the game, you're this Alex Denton, you don't know who you are, what is your background, what are you doing in this world. And all those characters talking at you all the time, they all want something, and it takes hours before it starts to kick in. I think maybe it was too hard to absorb and immerse in that world because it took so many hours.
Also I think that the setting was very far in the future, was more futuristic and less grounded a reality that we can relate to, and those are all aspects of it that made it harder to get into. I'm not talking about, like, universal ammo and those things, I think that's another debate, but more on the broader appeal, I think it's the setting and how you perceive it. In the first Deus Ex you're just the super soldier out of this first nanotechnology project that is successful, and you work for UNATCO, a branch of the UN, and you're this super agent and you have this identity already clear in your head wherever you go. It's near future and you see, like, the statue of liberty, like the head is on the ground - “Oh my God, something happened!” There's something strong that you can relate to that I think Invisible War lacked in the first place.
PCG: Does Deus Ex 3 have an equivalent?
Dugas: Uh, you mean in terms of...?
PCG: In terms of giving the player a compelling fantasy from the first moment, making sure he knows what he's doing?
Dugas: I think we're really closer to Deus Ex 1 in the sense that you know who you are. You don't necessarily know everything about your past, but you know who you are, who you work for, what are the factions that employ you, what is the debate. We wanted to create a stronger character, someone you can relate to. I think a choice that is removed from you, and which you need to cope with, is something that we all have at some point experienced. For us, it was really important to put the players in a world where what's happening, and the dangers, have some sort of analogy to the real world so it's easier to get into.
