Deux Ex: Mankind Divided - A cyberpunk FPS with a nice story

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an action role-playing stealth video game for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and even Linux. It's the 6th game in the Deus Ex series and the sequel to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It is set in a cyberpunk themed dystopian world in 2029 and the events take place two years after Deus Ex: Human Revolution, with new technology and body augmentations.

As soon as you start the game, you have the opportunity to watch a video portraying the events of the past game that led to this one, so you are kept up to date with the story. Right after, you are sent in a mission and are immediately faced with a choice: the type of weapon you want to use, according to the type of game-play you prefer. You can be non-lethal, lethal, go full stealth, semi-stealth and guns blazing! As for me, I chose the guns blazing option for when stealth goes wrong. And you can choose any way you want to progress into the game without getting the feeling that you were not supposed to do that choice. The Deus Ex series is known for giving you choices, that is, several ways to solve any situation like an armed conflict, a social interaction or a story line moment. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is no different. There's no wrong way to play it and the game will reward you either way, so you can actually play it however you want.

Every situation in this cyberpunk world game has multiple solutions, according to certain abilities you might have or not. For confrontations with enemies, there are always several tools at your disposal to deal with the situation, including several lethal or non-lethal weapons, grenades and ammo, with wonderful animation if I might add, and spectacular cybernetic augmentations that can give you temporary buffs like a heavy armor or slow down time, making you feel in control of the situation and real powerful. Shooting controls work well and you can easily transition from first person aiming to third person cover, changing ammo is quick and head-shots are precise using iron and/or laser sights. Imagine yourself entering a room full of bad guys, firing a shotgun and then finishing them off with some lethal take-downs with your cybernetics implants. This feels great and you can't get much more cyberpunk then this.

Or, you can use the game's reliable stealth mechanics to move quickly and accurately from cover to cover, analyze to where your enemies are looking to and turn yourself temporarily invisible and walk right past by them. But be careful! If they hear or see you, they'll turn suspicious and attempt to confirm your presence before they become hostile. This can be used to your advantage by throwing something or making noise intentionally, to catch their attention and lure them to a certain area so you can take them down or slip right past through them unnoticed. You can also use and evolve your hacking skills to your advantage, having access to previously non accessible areas, turning sentry robots, automated turrets and the environment against your opponents without drawing attention to yourself. During investigation scenarios, it might be required that you hack into a computer to get information or craft tools to do the hacking for you. Or if you have the patience, you can get that same knowledge out of a citizen or spend time snooping around for clues. It's very satisfying to play a game where you can take different routes but in the end be equally successful.

Deux Ex: Mankind Divided provides new augmentation abilities for you, on top of the ones that existed already in the previous game. Some of them might be more interesting than others though... But what's interesting about these is that to equip them, you have to disable other augmentations you already have, to avoid overloading the protagonist cybernetic systems. Initially, you have to make some difficult choices on which abilities to disable, although some like the HUD, for example, cannot be disabled. However, later as you earn more skill points, you can try to activate multiple abilities at once without disabling others and effectively overload your cybernetic systems, and then you realize that despite you are being told that you are at a critical status and need to disable more abilities, you will experience no serious ill effect and completing your missions will not be more difficult because of it. In any case, later in the plot, all the previously disabled abilities will be re-enabled again. Sadly, right then you realize that what you thought was a consequential tough choice you were making, was in fact inconsequential.

**Deux Ex: Mankind Divided ** is faithful to the series and continues to portray a cyberpunk dystopian futuristic world with a focus on the politics around people with cybernetic implants and the resulting implications of what it means to be human or not. The plot includes several government bodies, corporations, military and security forces, underground resistances and even the all elusive Illuminati. The events cast suspicion on literally every organization and individual and you realize you cannot trust anyone other than yourself, as you investigate and look for evidence to reveal who's behind several terrorist attacks. Deciding on which organization to help becomes a very difficult choice because everything is so greyed out, but this is also what makes this game interesting. The world and characters' attitude may actually change due to these choices and actions, and even the game's side missions press you to do more difficult choices. What's really scary is that these choices involve moral and ethical questions that our real society has a very serious probability of facing in the future, and there's no right answers.

It's really easy to become entangled in this morally ambiguous matters, with so many unknown factors, but the lack of a clear antagonist might also make you feel a little disappointed. Deux Ex: Mankind Divided doesn't feature the badly received boss battles from the previous game. It's purely a game of increasingly challenging infiltration levels and investigation scenarios that you can solve with several options you have at your disposal. The game provides a constant tension and requires a constant search for knowledge, hub exploration and great optional side missions, that all together provide a nice immersive experience in this fictional but possible futuristic society.

The world of Deus Ex will easily absorb you in, with it's city hubs (all based in Prague) are stunning, the streets are full of life and full of neon lights and neon advertising and the futuristic buildings are built among "old world" European style architecture, making them truly believable. But you also have the typical claustrophobic and oppressive multi-level slum, making you feel in a really dystopian city, just like the cyberpunk theme demands. Exploring for information and items is very rewarding. You might find a stashed gun behind someones couch, or look into a shelf and find some hidden money. Some of the side missions might not be explicitly marked and can be found only if you talk to some specific people. The game rewards exploration and its locations are amazing and very satisfying to explore.

Deux Ex: Mankind Divided also includes a multiplayer mode called Breach. You use first-person combat, stealth and remote hacking to beat other players and get scores. Augmentation abilities are also present but the skill tree was slightly modified and has more limitations (you can unlock every upgrade but only use a certain limited number at a time). In Breach you feel that you have more room to experiment a little, go running like a maniac and shoot everything in your path, just for fun. Breach mode also includes a career leveling system where you can earn Booster Packs that contain several random item like weapons, special ammo, buffs and skill points. Although a multiplayer mode, Breach attempts to tie itself to the main story. As you progress, new conspiracy stories arise and certain details require you to collect a number of gems in certain missions to be unlocked. As interesting as this might look, I would prefer that these mysteries would be uncovered in the main game.

**Deux Ex: Mankind Divided ** continues on the foundations of the previous games from the series and does it well. It's full of challenging moments and provides the player with a variety of tools and flexibility in order to solve them, while in an immersive cyberpunk world. Although not being hugely different from Human Revolution, Mankind Divided still is a unique and fulfilling experience. In general, it's a great game, but for those like me that really enjoy cyberpunk themes, the game is even more enjoyable. Don't miss out on this one!

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