Deus Ex: Invisible War Preview

As most of you probably recall, the first Deus Ex game had various features that have boosted its popularity among gamers worldwide. One of the main attractions was it non-linearity and a clear-cut approach towards gameplay. The player could do almost anything he wanted - nearly every object could be touched, activated, or moved. The main character could socialize with NPC's; he could sneak around, or simply shoot his way through a certain section. Plus, the game's story was interesting enough to keep you going trough the entire game.

Now Eidos and ION Storm have issued the creation of a sequel to one of the most popular FPS games. First of all, the story continues fifteen years after the first game. Naturally, a great number of old characters and organizations will be returning in Deus Ex: Invisible War.

As promised by the developers (explicitly, by the lead designer Harvey Smith) the game will be using a highly modified version of the original Deus Ex engine. More specifically, the game will be powered by the next-generation Unreal Engine technology. Harvey Smith also uncovered that the development team is hard at work on correcting some issues, which were clogging the original game. Consequently, they decided to improve the AI, stealth gameplay, and the in-game physics. All of the surroundings throughout the game are going to be based on real-world locations, and apart from most of them being urban, you can also expect some neat-looking underwater areas.

Many things in the game have been optimized for next-generation systems; meaning the lighting (volumetric shadows), texturing (materials), and sound propagation. The models are going to have an excellent skeletal IK animation system, which will incorporate even more natural movements of the characters. Other details concerning graphics, sadly, were not unwrapped - suffice it to say, the development team assured they will start the sequel completely fresh, which basically means that not a single texture is going to be taken from the original game, everything is done from scratch. In addition to that, it was specified that all in-game characters will have lifelike facial expressions, making the conversations seem more true-to-life, and that the NPC's will have more natural reactions to your actions. Dialogs with other characters were once again created by Sheldon Pacotti, who was also involved in the creation of the previous game.

The gameplay has gone through some changes as well. Primarily, the character development system now allows a wider variety of gripping options. Most importantly, the player now has the opportunity of trying out the game with a female character. Another cool innovation was revealed, which may come as a disappointment to some hardcore action gamers. It's like this; the developers are trying to make it possible for players to complete the game without drawing a single drop of blood from their foes. Which is good, if you're not into that hack&slash and shoot-at-everything-til-you-drop kind of gaming. Fundamentally though, the game will not be altered that much - it's still all about skill advancement, and the sense of being in a non-linear virtual world.

Lately, we've been attempting to get any kind of info about the game from Eidos and ION Storm. Recently, we were contacted by one of their Public Relation managers at Eidos and he revealed that the game is on schedule to hit the market in Spring 2003! This info came as a slight disappointment, since the game was announced quite some time ago. Because the game will be optimized for next-generation technologies, it was additionally announced that it will be developed for one of the latest game systems (Xbox, Game Cube, or PS2).

Sadly, we have no info regarding the multiplayer option yet, although that doesn't mean the developers won't have multiplay in place by 2003. In all honesty, you shouldn't expect too much from the multiplayer feature, since the emphasis of gameplay remains fixed on the single-player experience. Other than that, there's a good chance this game will be as good as, if not better, than it's predecessor.

Oh, and just so you know, the Havoc physics engine, which is going to power Deus Ex: Invisible War, will also be used in ION's forthcoming game Thief III; which is currently in development both for the PC and Xbox. So, that's one more promising title to look forward to.