Ignoring the Main Objective in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
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After proposing a question like "How much fun can you have while ignoring your main objective?", GamesRadar sets the stage for our curiosity to run rampant before we dive into their hands-on preview of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. A sampling of what they claim is possible:
I got drunk in a railway station, tried to climb into a sewer, nearly died
The important take-away here is that I learned just how expansive and organically explorable Mankind Divided’s hubworlds are. They seems significantly upraded from Human Revolution, in scale, variety, freedom, and overall sense of being in a real place. Case in point: the city hub is so big that it’s actually split into two parts, with a subway ride connecting them. Additionally, the sewers underneath the city are no longer simply short-cuts and break-in routes. They’re so large and winding that you can pretty much cross from anywhere (within a hub section) to anywhere else without seeing daylight. The concept of a parallel under-city - mentioned at one point by an oppressed, subterranean aug pariah - almost rings true.
Anyway, I’m at the subway station on my way to getting a train across to the other side of the city. I realise that I have a few bottles of booze in my inventory - looted from a garage lock-up that I managed to hack open on my way over, using a very similar minigame to that used in Human Revolution. My health could do with a pick-me-up, so I down a couple of them. My health goes up, while my eyesight drops off a cliff. Adam is shambolically drunk, but I am undeterred. But I decide to get out of public view until it wears off. I’ve seen enough hollering, railway drunks in real-life to not want to be counted among their number. And look! What’s that over there? Why, it’s a ‘Staff only’ door. Bound to be something good behind it. I head through, and I find a manhole cover.
I open it, and climb down. I open up my map, and confirm that yes, these tunnels go on for miles. This is exciting, and I am hyped to explore and see what secrets they hold (when I can actually see again). But disaster! The bottom of the ladder is cloaked with poison gas, as is the rest of the chamber. Unable to focus when I first get down there, I don't notice until things go red and Adam starts coughing up thick chunks of God knows what. I shall return, sober, and augmented with air-purifying lungs, but for now, I rapidly ascend, flopping out onto the subway’s cold floor tiles like a dying seal, gasping, debased, but now at least sober.
I get a train to the other side of the city, deliberately get in the wrong ‘non-augmented’ queue at the other end (the cops are a bit sniffy, but basically let me get away with it, because I’m secretly their boss and I think on some level they’re starting to sense it), and head up to street level.
