PlayStation News, Articles and Information for the UK and Europe

Deus Ex: Human Revolution has been in development for over three years yet Eidos somehow kept it under wraps for most of that time. Now the cat’s out of the bag however, and the game is now scheduled for release in February 2011.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is technically a ‘prequel’, set in a time period before Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Human Revolution, and will feature similar gameplay mechanics but this time will focus of mechanical augmentations rather than the nano augmentations of the first two games.

We’ve not seen that much of Human Revolution, with only a few technical demos, short videos and screenshots, but so far it’s looking pretty damned good. We were fortunate enough to get a proper look at Human Revolution at Eurogamer Expo 2010 and to be honest, it blew most of the other games clean out of the water. The Human Revolution presentation by Eidos was genuinely exciting. It was all in-game and fully rendered footage, running on a PlayStation 3. 

The presentation was given while one of the guys from Eidos actually played out a couple of sections of the game in front of the audience. The first section is apparently about 6 hours into the full game, and is intended to show off the ‘social’ and exploratory aspects of the game, i.e. talking to NPCs and finding your way around. The setting is a small island off the coast of Shanghai, in a futuristic urban district. The graphics, for a pre-alpha build, are simply breathtaking. Hugely atmospheric, the art design seems to blend a clean-looking version of Blade Runner with the downtown China of the first game. The game also seems to have a very slight gold hue, much like the gold of the game’s logo.

In addition to the graphics, the sound effects used in the demo are also fantastic. The guns give a realistic ‘clinking’ sound when they are cocked, while the murmur of conversation and the hum of technology simply ooze atmosphere. The music, while subtle, is very powerful and exceptionally high quality, really adding to the brooding nature of the game.

Much like in the first two games, the dialogue branches off, giving you various options and ways of conversing with other characters in order to advance the game. You can try to persuade people to do what you want, you can try to force them or you can even kill them. Or you can ignore them and simply find a sneaky way around. The choice is up to you; in fact, should you choose, you can play the entire game through without killing anyone.

The second section of the presentation is more ‘action orientated’, showing how you can eliminate your opponents in a variety of ways, including a special take-down move that you can acquire as you progress through the game. You can also use security terminals like in the first two games, though this time there’s a more realistic twist: if you obtain access to a terminal that someone has just used (let’s say, for example, you just stabbed them in the spine with a metal rod) then their session will still be active. You will only need to log in if you come across an unused terminal. However, this doesn’t mean that hacking terminals is a thing of the past – you will only be granted access to the security level that the previous user had. If you want to start turning turrets on and off but the previous user’s access didn’t allow for this, you’ll have to hack the terminal yourself to get access to this function.

The weapons of Deus Ex: Human Revolution seem to be more advanced than the weapons featured in the first two games. Considering that Human Revolution is a prequel, this may just be a bit of artistic licence like in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. One particularly impressive weapon seen in the presentation appears to be some sort of bullet-time scattered explosives that will take out any opponents in the near vicinity. When confronted with an enormous mech later on, the player is able to use a homing rocket launcher that fires a rocket around corners to hit any previously ‘tagged’ targets.

Although only a very small section of an early version of the game, the demonstration shown at Eurogamer Expo was enough to impress. The graphics, the sound, the music and most importantly the gameplay are all simply astounding. If Human Revolution turns out as good as it promises, then it’ll certainly be a top contender for Game of the Year 2011.

If you weren’t there to see the presentation then don’t worry, you can see the entire video right here: