Fool that I am, I actually got my hopes up when Embracer Group acquired the rights to Deus Ex. Not because I'm a massive mark for the consolidation of capital, but because it talked a big game about wanting to make a whole bunch of Deus Ex stuff, in contrast to previous owner Square Enix. Perhaps we'd finally get a conclusion to the Adam Jensen trilogy? Maybe a Deus Ex 1 remaster? Dare I say it, could we even see something done with my beloved Invisible War?
No. As we're all well-aware, Embracer promptly shot its kneecaps off with a dead-in-the-water $2 billion deal that saw it laying off staff, shuttering projects, and flogging intellectual property left and right. The future of Deus Ex winked out, leaving us here, alone, bereft.
Still, chin up—there's a consolation prize. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided co-composer Sascha Dikiciyan (whose nom de synth is Sonic Mayhem) has put out a whole bunch of music he made for the game that ended up not getting used (via VGC).
"Between 2015–2016, I composed a large body of music for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and its DLCs," writes Dikiciyan. "The official soundtrack featured a curated selection, but much of what I wrote for the game—including cues for cinematics, trailers, in-game clubs, as well as drafts, ideas, and even demos—never made it beyond the official release. Until now."
Dikiciyan calls the collection Fragments of the Machine [Data Archive Vol 1], and it contains 10 unused tracks for Mankind Divided that I'm probably going to end up adding to a writing playlist.
"These audio files come directly off my original drive, complete with the authentic arrangement names I gave them at the time. Some are unmixed, unmastered, and even unfinished… After seeing how much people still connect with that universe, I wanted to share them as a gift to the community before the release of Metal Eden."
Metal Eden, by the by, is a new sci-fi FPS from Ruiner dev Reikon. Dikiciyan composed music for the game and—wouldn't you know it?—it's out today.
Anyway, my favourite track on Fragments of the Machine is "DeusEx_MD_DespMeasures_Ambient#2_beta4", both because of the catchy title and, more importantly, because its warbly boops and bips put me in mind of Deus Ex 1's UNATCO theme, which is my personal national anthem.
It's hard not to be a tad morose listening to these tracks, though. On a long-enough timeline, anything can happen, but I feel like Deus Ex is dead for the foreseeable future*. Heck, Adam Jensen voice actor Elias Toufexis was out and about telling people that Eidos had explicitly asked him to stop talking about Adam Jensen early last year. At least we'll always have the synths.
*Cue someone announcing a big Deus Ex project just to make me look dumb. I'd be fine with that, honestly.
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