Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

It's a great game in its own right but riddled with tons of bugs even if you have a high end system.

Just turn off MXAA or any AA, and don't use DX12.

The story compared to the original is a bit lacking but still good. The dialog can be a bit too much as in terms of so much talking, and there are very hard choices you have to make compared to the first one, which will decided how the story plays out. The political treatment of Augs and the world itself feels oddly familiar in today's times.

You also have access to more augmentations/skills than the first game. With more abilities, you have more options to plan your missions.

The setting is also really nice and looks alive, but the way they segmented the 2 hub maps is annoying. The only way is to use the metro/train. This can be especially annoying for quests/side quests that involve going to 1 map to the other.

The stealth system has been revamped and is more intuitive. You can see and plan your stealth run routes and there's multiple ways or paths to take on a quest. The hacking mini-game is still the same but I would say harder until you get the upgrades, compared to the first one.

There's also a micro-transaction system that was implemented but I never used and you should never use either. You can pay for more upgrades and thats it. It's pretty worthless since you can get an immediate 12 upgrade points once you start the game in your apartment storage locker.

Either way, this game was pretty good with some flaws. I hope they make a Deus Ex 3 and see where Jensen goes.

The story was a bit short and felt like more of a build up to a third game that never came unfortunately, but the game is a worthy sequel to the critically acclaimed Human Revolution, it's worth the playthrough as the gameplay is pretty fun especially stealth, and the RPG elements while limited, provide an immersive experience of Aug-Apartheid Prague.

Amazing story line and also the graphics are pretty neat. It feels very immersive and the OST that are developed for the game also sound pretty nice. I'd say that I feel sad that the "Secret Project Deus Ex" was discontinued because the mother company of the developer's studio said so. Deus Ex is an amazing game and the story line feel realistic. It now takes place among my all time favorite games like Half Life.

Really good so far. A little sad it's different from the previous game.

This is a pretty good game. It leans heavily into its stealth mechanics while on missions and while im not used to playing stealth shooters (having played Destiny and Warframe) i learned to adapt. Id reccomend researching your energy consumption and battery life and the Icarus fall stuff, helps a ton.

It's a great action role-playing game with first-person shooter and stealth mechanics with beautiful world design, personally, I don't think it quite reaches the heights of HR but it's still a phenomenal game. I grew up playing HR so I'm incredibly bias.

Gorgeous futuristic game from the environment to the characters. Visually impressive and fun to play.

I didn't ask for this, but I would.

Played all things Deus Ex and it is criminal that we aren't getting anymore anytime soon.

Embracer Group cancelled the in-development deus ex game after they bought the devstudio from Square Enix.
Sadge

The sequel isn't quite as mind-blowing as the first, yet it still stands a worthy successor. There are unfortunately certain sections where it gets repetitive. Don't expect it to make you feel the same way that Human revolution did, but it's almost there. Still a must-play for anyone who played Human Revolution or looking for a good stealth action game. I played this 7 years ago, and sadly it isn't as memorable as Human Revolution but is still a pretty good game.

i cant make it past the loading screen half the time and the other half it crashes every 20 minutes

Great level design, good looking (especially on Dx12), and plays very well. A bit crash-happy (especially on Dx12), though.

Only a few hours in and the game has a good story, and is fun to play. Worth the money for sure when it's on sale!

This game was cancelled halfway in order to work on Guardians of the Galaxy game. If you care about the story just know that the game ends halfway, abruptly. Also those DLC packs you get are SINGLE USE and locks your save. Also has Denuvo eating %10 of your fps. At this point you should understand that this is a business/company type game, which killed the anti-business type franchise. And they don't give up the license either, I'm trying my best to contain my sadness and anger.
Putting those aside, Prague is nice. I like the side quests and jumping around the city. The gameplay has also improved compared to DX:HR and feels much more fluid. I would recommend this if you're just looking for an action game or a fan of the franchise (or it's rotten corpse at this point). If you're looking for a proper stealth or imsim I'll advise you to spend your time better.
Recommended by: Experiences Worth Experiencing

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is an intelligent, immersive, and deeply rewarding cyberpunk RPG that builds on the strengths of Human Revolution, refining its gameplay, world-building, and player choice mechanics to deliver one of the best immersive sim experiences in gaming.

The game’s level design is phenomenal, offering multi-layered environments that truly support freedom of choice. Whether you prefer stealth, hacking, social manipulation, or brute force, Mankind Divided gives you complete control over how you approach missions. The open-ended structure makes every playthrough feel unique, rewarding creativity in how you use augmentations and environmental interactions to navigate obstacles.

The augmentation system has been vastly improved, introducing new abilities like Tesla darts, Icarus Dash, and Remote Hacking. These new tools add even more flexibility to Jensen’s already impressive skill set, making stealth, combat, and exploration more fluid and dynamic than ever.

The world of Mankind Divided is gorgeous and deeply immersive. The futuristic Prague setting is rich with detail, filled with hidden pathways, compelling side missions, and environmental storytelling that makes it feel alive. The cyberpunk aesthetic is beautifully realized, with stunning lighting, intricate city design, and a moody, atmospheric soundtrack that pulls you into its world.

The game’s story, while not as expansive as Human Revolution, still delivers an intriguing narrative centered around social tensions, political conspiracies, and the struggle between augmented and non-augmented humans. The plot leaves some unresolved threads due to its planned-but-never-released sequel, but the journey is still gripping, and the side missions are some of the best in the series.

While Mankind Divided suffers from an abrupt ending and a story that feels like it's setting up more than it resolves, the incredible gameplay, deep player choice, and rich world-building more than make up for it. It may not quite surpass Human Revolution, but it’s still an outstanding immersive sim that deserves to be played.

Rating: 9/10 – A refined and rewarding cyberpunk RPG with incredible freedom of choice.

I've put 33 hours into the game and completed the main story on give me chellange difficulty.
I generally enjoyed the story. The travelling cutscenes are great and I greatly appreciate them. The gameplay was a bit flat but I didn't really dwelve deep into the options of weaponry choice. ASAP I bought the sniper rifle and I shot myself out of every situation. As such the gameplay got kinda boring. Ther ewas no real option to be non-lethal unless you really wanted to play like that. You can commit genocide and the quests are still checked. I was really annoyed when some areas became restricted I had to do even more shooting because I was lazy to try to find a peaceful way. I went with revolver, sniper rifle and tactical shotgun weapons. Running out of ammo wasn't really happnning until the last stage, but even there it wasn't hard pressing. The nanoblade aug is crazy OP, I think. Of course I used it a lot :) Hacking starts to feel like a chore after a while. I was very delighted to find out you can carry the hacked turrets for a long time and they'll help a LOT in tight situations. EMP ammo type is useless, I think. Just AP and normal ammo is enough. MY problem is at least that when you EMP something and swap to another weapon the EMP effect kinda wears off, and EMP ammo doesn't do any damage. So I just AP shot every robot and exo-suit enemy.

Is a nice FPS game though, I liked how there is a lot of interactions possible with the world, animations were great, cutscenes were also quite nice. Definetly recommend playing. Didn't do new game +.

love this game, detailed world space, good exploration, story is good hope they come back to this franchise

Ever dreamed of playing a game that doesn’t care how powerful your PC is? Well, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided proudly delivers a performance so bad, it makes you question your life choices. Whether you have a high-end rig, a mid-range PC, or a toaster from 2010, the result is the same—frame drops, infinite loading screens, and the occasional game-breaking bug that lovingly forces you to reload a save from 30 minutes ago.

But hey, if you can look past the technical disaster, there’s actually a decent game hidden under all the suffering. The augmentations are fun, the level design lets you approach missions however you want, and the cyberpunk setting of Prague is genuinely atmospheric. Just be prepared to fight the real final boss—this game’s optimization.

I wanted to like this game, coming off the back of Cyberpunk 2077. But it's just really not very good. It's a buggy mess (crashes, quest breaking bugs, save files corrupting) even years after release. The plot is incomprehensible and most of the "choices" screw you over either way. Oh, and despite playing a stealth build all the way it seems to have dropped me into a bullshit boss fight at the end. Just lazy design, poor story telling and buggy implementation. Shame - the core gameplay is really good and the series is a classic. But this game really isn't good.

I can finally join the dozen other people that beat the game and sigh in exasperation at that ridiculous cliff hanger ending that will never ever be resolved as well as that absurd 20 minute (seriously, not kidding, look it up) end credit scroll.

Solid Shock-like, great sequel to Human Revolution. Is it DX1? No, nothing is or ever will be DX1, even Spector's turd of a sequel was a massive step down from DX1.

Is it one of the best examples of the genre currently out there? Yes, absolutely. The Anti-Skyrim, its deep as the ocean but as wide as a puddle, with dense, layered, interconnected maps that give you about a dozen ways to solve any problem and then actually respond to you even superficially if you complete things out of order or in a way that normally would softlock another game.

Anyhow, going to fire up a NG+ just to do that first mission in Dubai with my turbo jacked augmented god Jensen, maybe do a little bit of achievement hunting for laughs and giggles, but won't beat the game twice and will move on once the afterglow wears off.

This is a stealth game properly done. And the story is worth of sci-fi novel. The world is rich and immersive. Some ridiculous boss fights ruin the overall phenomenal experience.

found the story didn't do much and the game play was more focused towards stealth even though you could go guns blazing the game doesn't reward you for it

Deus ex was a mircal for me like dishonored and with mankind nothing was changed.
great game with succsseful parts of last games of series and two high aulity DLC was even more fantastic.
thank you Edios montral team i hope that they recover and made another super Deus ex game.

In 2025, it's still my favourite game of all time. Love the story, love the character - Jensen, the puzzles and the immersive sim nature of the figure it out and do it your own way approach to almost every scenario placed in front of you. Multiple playthroughs recommended, though after some time in this world a lot will become repetitive.

It is extremely unfortunate that the initial poor reception and maybe even sales, ruined any sort of continuation of the Deux Ex Games. Its not as good as Human Revolution, but it is still an alright game.

Game keeps crashing with DX12 (DX11 available).
It seems to crash randomly, if you do not set process affinity to 4 cores.
It crashes in certain area, when you try to customize weapon.
That is only reason I am not recommending.

Game is otherwise quite good. Comparable to Human Revolution. Hacking is a bit annoying clickfest. Collision physics isn't particularly stable.

Mostly better than the first prequel, more agency is given to the player overall. The open world is much more interesting than the last game's split open world approach, and linear levels are more than air duct simulator. The dialogue is consistently good and the imagery used in this game is so striking that I can almost forgive the use of "Apartheid: BUT PROSTHETIC" as a driving force (more to it than that tbh). The story suffers from "Second Game Syndrome" ending right before things get really interesting. Too bad that fifth game is never coming out.

ilk oyundaki biraz küt olan oynanışı düzeltilmiş gayet akıcı bir oynanışı var, rpg elementleri geliştirilmiş, görev dizaynı gayet iyi, yetenek ağacı da geliştirilmiş karakterinizi gizlilik ya da aksiyon odaklı olarak şekillendirebiliyorsunuz, ilk oyuna göre daha kompak ve ufak bir hikayesi var ama deus ex evrenine çok hakim değilseniz takip etmesi zor oluyor, final biraz zayıf bi de yapay zeka çok iyi değil

It makes me sad that we will unlikely ever see a proper sequel to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided as even though it has its flaws, it is a really great game and I would recommend it to fans of immersive sims in particular and it still holds up as of 2022.

Improving on everything that was great about DXHR and more, if you like stealth games with a great narrative and choices with consequences then this one's for you.

So this game has some good and some bad and being honest if the bad out. I had some really stupid things happen but still completed the game non-lethally, which I thought would glitch out like it did on Xbox One.
Good
-The story is great that's the entire reason I re-bought the game on PC. The underlying message along with the consequences of previous entry coming to light
-The side quest are easy and show a little background of what is happening behind the scenes in the in-game world The end of the game your choices will be played out and some of the characters will change things in the world that positively benefit you if you did the quest correctly
-Play your way guns blazing, stealth, non lethal, master hacker, ultimate aug the choice is yours
-Increasing difficulty makes combat and stealth more difficult but you can actually work around the bullet sponginess of enemies and quietly too! Use the stun pistol then use a nonlethal takedown if you are doing a non-lethal play through for juggernaut style enemies/ bosses you'll need to get close though
-I may be the only one that says this but I like the characters in this world even if they appear surface level they all have a background to them and they add to the story of this game

Mid
-This game suffers from a problem that other games have too, consequences. Consequences in this game are pretty surface level "this or that" you do "this" mission then "that" mission is not possible now. You seen something wrong and help someone out on the street they'll tell you to fuck off and stay in the same animation (I know you are not batman but the gameplay trailer is so misleading, even in Watchdogs you could change how the world sees you, a threat or someone there to help)
-A little janky but eh it's 10 years old, Battlefield 3 was plagued with more issues when I played it recently

Bad
-#1 One of the most atrociously optimized games I've played. I had to look up what the sweet spot was even with a 4080
-#2 Fuck Square Enix sucks, I never got my starter packs or other in game perks. The best part? They are 1 time permanent use so I can never get them back even though I never had them to begin with
-The story/ game was never finished the author of the game even admitted that the content was changed to meet demands from higher ups and the game stops dead at the end of the half way point with no resolution or planned sequel
-Getting stuck? I mean physically there are random invisible barriers in the game that require a little maneuvering or angling the camera to get over. Sometimes it's funny other times it's straight up annoying.
-Same thing with the body physics this one is actually funny some of my saves do something to enemy bodies where they will just fling into the sky after spazzing out sometimes from takedowns sometimes they hit the invisible barriers I mentioned before (99% the person will die from the bug)
-The main game runs fine but I had so many crashes randomly during the DLC that annoyed the hell out of me and it's been a known issue since 2016 with a patch never released

Underrated gem, it has some of the best level design I have seen in an immersive sim. It's story is a slow paced mystery that is probably the weakest in the series, but is still entertaining. The gameplay is smooth and the augs are fun, the leveling system in this game is probably one of my favorites.

Brilliant game shame about all the crashes but fantastic title in the series.

Story and graphics are exceptional and very well designed.

8/10 shame about the crashes

in Jan 2025, this game is unplayable with the bugs. It's 9 years old at this point and surely unmaintained so you can likely pick it up cheap and take your chances, but expect to not be able to finish it.

It's the *cutscenes* of all things, the pre-rendered "movie playback" stuff that will get you. They were kinda shaky throughout the game, and I am now unable to proceed further after completing a major mission (Rucker capture). It's a well-documented, well-known issue and there are lots of workarounds/fixes to try but none of them has worked for me and frankly I don't want to waste any more time on it. 3D performance was flawless on my RTX 2060.

Really enjoyed how it looks and plays, but if you're going to get hung up by cutscenes, well, solid thumbs down.

Don't buy this.

You're going to install it. It's going to look beautiful and you're going have a ton of fun running around as a superhuman cyborg guy. You're going to get past the prologue, do a bunch of the missions. By this time you're probably getting really into the story and it's a blast.

Then the guaranteed crash to desktop at a certain mission. Search the web and find an obscure fix. Oh, the game crashes if you're using more than 8 cores. (why only at that mission? never mind it's working now)

Play some more missions. Now we're stuck at the loading screen for another mission. Another obscure fix.

Until finally you'll black screen when entering the NSN. Not a single fix does anything at all. This is were it ends.

Don't buy this. It's going to frustrate the ever-living crap out of you. They are never going to fix it, and in my honest opinion it shouldn't even be for sale in this state.

Great continuation from Human Evolution with some good improvements like bringing back multitools and cooling off on the stupid conversation battles. my main issues with it is i wish it had more locations to explore as your mainly in one city area (having to use the subway to go between the north and south part gets annoying) and going off to a few other linear locations to complete 1 mission. Note there is a store for microtransations like buying praxis kits with real money, thankfully you dont need to use it cause you can play the game without being underhanded or hard to beat. Out of the 3 Jenson stories, Criminal Past was the best and im saying that after beating it while being pacifist and factory zero, I dare everyone to try to do that too plus getting the other achievements on the same playthrough. As for Breach... its boring, it sucks, its ganky, its not worth anyone's time.

All that said it would have been nice to have seen what the next game could have been like if they havent been sold off and had the project scraped. That being said knowing how famous Deus Ex is, theres no way the game isnt gonna get another title bringing it back. Most likely not a continuation of this game, but what we can hope for is it not to end up being a sad revival like other games had, albeit it being better than the recent version of Cyberpunk 77 is very slim.

Game keeps crashing after reaching Prague, with no found solution on the web for how to prevent this. Workaround seems changing from user to user so after almost 10 years i find it hilarious for this issue to still be present. I've played and loved this game back when it first came out and had no issues, with my machine from those times. Now these continuous crashes keep happening and i can't play it anymore.

Fuck this.

I h8 and tired with Breach mode. i tried wanna playing this game 100% achievement but i really h8 breach mode so much. Breach Mode has 17 achievements and the gameplay always drop FPS and design is too bland and boring. Base Game and DLCs are pretty good gameplay. Breach mode need separate into this game because Deus Ex Games has free standalone game Breach mode. i am Finished

alright lets be clear i played this game 8 full times on console before my pc so i know this game has issues but i'll be direct with the pc version

The game is good for the most part despite a lot of bugs and poor design but the reason where i dont recommend this game to others because you can just play the past 2 major games and get a better time than this one. you need some mods to tweak a few things in this game to fix some issues or know how to change them yourself otherwise you'll need to reboot the game here and there because of the issues and the weapon upgrades are just clown nonsense to make some the game just bad and you upgrade them to what they should be from the start and this game has crash a few times for me for really no reason from what it seems or locks in a loading screen forever til i reboot the game and some of the content is lock unless you buy it and like a stand alone awhile not being a stand alone thing.

The games bugs tend to be random and can even make non lethal pointless sometimes due to the body freaking out and hitting random walls causing main npcs to yell at you for killing stuff or even know you were a ghost they will still roast you anyway and there isn't really a story other than just beating up terrorists the whole game and augs getting treated like trash when the last two games had much deeper meaning than mankind divided

Love the game, best implementation of 3D surroundings.
Loots of hidden loot and locations, with some side missions.
Most of aug's are fun, but few are practically useless (Flash Suppressant).
Desperate Measures is nice but short.
System Rift is great.
A Criminal Past is my favorite of the Jensen's Stories. Some achievements make this story even more fun and challenging.

Peak, good story and superb worldbuilding/gameplay.

A Promising Sequel That Falls Short

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided had the potential to build on the strengths of its predecessor, Human Revolution, but it stumbles in key areas, leaving an experience that feels incomplete and underwhelming. While the game introduces some improvements and maintains its signature cyberpunk aesthetic, it fails to deliver a compelling story or meaningful progression for the series.

The presentation is undeniably strong. The visuals are a major step up from Human Revolution, with a beautifully detailed rendition of Prague and stunning lighting effects. The atmosphere is immersive, and the music captures the cyberpunk vibe perfectly. However, good visuals can only carry a game so far, and the cracks in Mankind Divided quickly begin to show.

The biggest issue is the story. Despite tackling important themes like discrimination, societal division, and transhumanism, the narrative feels unfocused and shallow. It raises interesting questions but never explores them in depth, leaving you with a world that feels thematically rich but narratively empty. Adam Jensen returns as the protagonist, but his character development is stagnant, and his interactions with other characters are flat and unmemorable. The game ends abruptly, clearly setting up a sequel that never came, making the entire experience feel incomplete and unsatisfying.

The gameplay is an incremental improvement over Human Revolution, but it’s not without its problems. Stealth is more refined, and the augmentations offer some new and interesting tools, such as the Icarus Dash and the Titan Shield. However, many of these upgrades feel underutilized, and the game rarely gives you opportunities to experiment with them in creative ways. The levels are well-designed, but the reliance on repetitive side missions and generic fetch quests makes exploration feel like busywork rather than an engaging part of the experience.

The combat and stealth systems are still plagued by inconsistency. Enemy AI is erratic, ranging from hyper-aware to completely oblivious, which breaks immersion during tense moments. The hacking mini-game returns and, while slightly improved, becomes tedious due to its overuse throughout the game.

One of the most controversial aspects of Mankind Divided was its reliance on microtransactions. While not mandatory, the inclusion of purchasable in-game currency for upgrades felt out of place in a single-player RPG. Even if you ignore the microtransactions, the game’s economy feels poorly balanced, as if it were designed with monetization in mind.

Finally, the game suffers from a lack of polish. Bugs, performance issues, and clunky animations mar the experience, especially on PC. Despite being marketed as a high-budget AAA game, it feels rushed and unrefined in key areas.

Ultimately, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a disappointing follow-up to Human Revolution. While it retains the franchise’s signature cyberpunk style and delivers solid gameplay mechanics, the shallow story, abrupt ending, and repetitive design make it feel like a missed opportunity. For fans of the series, it’s a frustrating reminder of what could have been.

The poster child for side content that overshadows the main story, WIDE game

I love the semi-open world design, all choices have consequences, I would score this a 97 / 100, Immersive sim games for the win, this is my 3rd play through across different platforms, it’s gameplay is better than most modern games, given it’s 9 years old now. It’s all about choice how you traverse through the environment and complete your objective, to all out violence to stealthy infiltration or talking your way out of problems.

Pros
Fantastic story (intriguing it can go multiple ways.)
Great world building, extremely dense.
Likeable characters.
Multiple ways to play, makes the game very re-playable.
Challenging story themes

Cons
Poor optimisation
The game can be quite long for new gamers or the younger generation who don’t have the patients to do this stealthfully as it is meant to be.
Shit DLC content
I hate the whole breach mode, nonsense.
No Sequel

The game is very good and an improvement on Human Revolution. My only real technical complaint is that there are places where it tends to crash (loading screens between areas early on in Prague, and a well known bug that crashes the game in the TF29 shooting range). For the actual game, I wasn't as big of a fan of the way the story ending was handled by leaving off on a cliffhanger, but since it's been said the IP got sold (I think?) then maybe we'll get a 3rd game to what's obviously written to be a trilogy.

Outside of that, MD maintains the great aesthetic that HR sets up (albeit with some color palette differences) and the music/ambient sounds are really well designed. Lots of nooks and crannies to explore. I played on the hardest difficulty without trying to try alarms/kill anyone for the extra challenge, so far it's been tough but engaging. The controls feel pretty responsive and I enjoy the number of augmentations and how they can really help you tailor to different playstyles.

another great instalment to this franchise. i hope we one day get a deus ex 3, even if it isnt a continuation of Jensens story.

The graphics are quite good for a pre-2020 game... I also like the game mechanics, they are in-depth.

This game reminds me of cyberpunk-(even tough this game was made first lol)

I started playing this game in 2023 on ps5. However, for some odd reason the game stopped working on my ps5 and I could no longer open the game, even though I own it... Sooo, I built a pc and re- bought this game on steam.
This is one of the first games I'm playing on my new PC (2024) using a 4080super. I get about 110/115 fps =]

It's amazing how well this game still holds up, I can forget it was made years ago now. Not sure what that says about AAA quality games these days though. They could take notes from some of these titles that really made something awesome with only 1920x1080 that feels like 4k. It's also a story with a message as true today as when I played the first Deus Ex back at turn of century.

really good game, but still uses denuvo even when it is a decade old game, i dont like denuvo or support it, even if the performance loss is minimun, the game needing to do a drm check every while and then it means its not good for playing while traveling.
Features that doesn't add anything to improve the game or the player experience, should not exist in the first place and should be removed, even worst when those features make things worst.

"From the moment I understood the weakness of my breath, it disgusted me. I craved the certainty of steel, the blessing of the machine" - George Droyd

If there is one thing that has become abundantly clear to me as I’ve grown older, the more games I’ve played, and as my tastes has changed then it’s that the so-called “Immersive Sim” genre might just be the ultimate perfect genre of video game. To me, it is the genre where video games excels the most at being games, and the strongest advocate for the strength of the medium. All these hopes & dreams the world had for VR and it’s potential to make the player feel like they were transported into a space was already fullfilled by games like Ultima, Deus Ex, & Thief.

In the Immersive Sim genre, more often than not, the promise of choice is more than just picking dialogue options that sets to affect how the characters around you will react to you. One of the most powerful things a video game can do, is to present a space where the choice to think outside of the box and beyond what the guidelines and heavily scripted text boxes of the game tells you is open to you. I stack several boxes on top of each other to build a ladder to bypass guards, or I use my EMP gun to disable heavily armed mechs so I can then do a melee takedown. That is immersive sim, the definition of the (Yes, and..) approach to game design, and on that front I am happy to say that Mankind Divided does not let me down on its sprawly systems. I just wish there was more of it.

Mankind Divided is officially the 4th mainline Deus Ex game, and the second game in the prequel series starring Adam Jensen, a character who easily represents the vast portfolio of gravely voiced white man protagonists who dominated video games in the early to late aughts. It’s a game that unfortunately came out in a year where the general gaming audience has grown cold on the genre, and a new industry defining game like Overwatch had overshadowed any other brilliant first person game that came out in the year of 2016 and Deus Ex wasn’t even the only imsim of that year.
It would be fair to say that the unfortunate commercial failure of Mankind Divided paved the way to the decline of the genre itself. It’s a genre of game that is hard to make and even harder to market and boy did the marketing do this game do it no favors.

The events of Mankind Divided follows up on the ending of Human Revolution where a mad man activates a “kill switch” that makes every mechanically augmented person go berserk and attack any and all people around them with no rationale. This would set the stage for Mankind Divided where augmented people like Jensen would be seen, and treated as second class citizens by the wider world, and while the game itself generally handles this with care and grace the same could not be said for the external marketing campaign. EIDOS/Square Enix saw fit to draw parallels between the real life Black Lives Matter movement and the fictional Augment Rights Coalition of their game world, which rightfully lead to the larger media circle dunking on the publisher, but unfortunately and under stands ly the game would also suffer from it as it would inevitably reflect poorly on the game.
It goes without saying that it’s always a good thing when video games tries to tackle heavy subject matter by communicating its message in a way that makes sense for the game world, but also in how it mirrors our own perception of how we see society around us and also our wishes for how it could be better. So the issue isn’t really grounded in the creators choosing to write a story about sensitive subject matter but rather how it is handled, and if you’re going to talk about opression and racism please don’t use clumsy slogans like “Augmented Lives Matter” to market the kind of story you’re telling.

The slogan itself is never present in the actual game, but it draws unwarranted parallels to a real serious thing and by making superficial comparisons to this real thing you’re undermining the actual weight of it and also the message you are trying to send

If you take Mankind Divided on its merits, however, without the bad external forces that might have affected the perception of the game. It’s actually a really good game that does well by its premise of playing a character who operates in the martial law city State of Prague, where if Adam has to board a train he has to enter the correctly assigned train cart for “Augs” rather than naturals. So of course me being a gamer, and a rascal, I decided to see if I could enter the “naturals” train cart without a hitch and the game obliged and I was treated with a cutscene where Adam stands by himself, minding his own business, as the surrounding “non augmented” people in the same cart stares accusingly at him. It was surprisingly eerie and even more so when zi exited the train to be harassed by the checkpoint guards who berates me for going into the wrong car and warned me not to do it again so of course I would do it again because screw em.

But I really appreciated the attention to detail and how effectful it served to sell me on the idea of living in an oppressed city and as a character who has to live and constantly be met with this level of disdain. It is by no means perfect but it is certainly also not in any way as bad as it was made out to be,

Gameplay wise Mankind Divided plays a lot like the first game, generally from a first person perspectives thay occasionally will switch into third person whenever you cling to chest high walls or enter into dialogue conversations with prominent NPCs. Tools like the stealth camo, which is extremely handy to a stealth player like me, returns as well as the Icarus Wings that allows Jensen to nimbly land on his feet from an extreme height and it’s always really cool when that cutscene triggers.
There are also a lot of new tools, like the Icarus Dash, which I honestly never used because unfortunately the game is extremely short, so I never felt like I needed to employ it. I’d hazard a guess that the game was shorter than what it was meant to be.

Despite being a sequel to Human Revolution there are remarkably few characters from the last game that appears where they are at best mentioned a few times here and there, and those that do show up are either background characters like Eliza Cassan, or minor side characters like David Sarif whom in the brief sessions you have with him hints at a larger mystery centered around Adam himself thay feels like it was cut for time, or saved for a hypothetical third game that sadly might not happen at this point.

Too many of the new characters all felt underdeveloped or barely present. Chicane is no Malek, and the hilarious point he was making about how Jensen might as well forget about the notion of them ever becoming friends, as I beat one major story sections and suddenly it’s like we are the best of buds. There is something missing here, characters like Chang is kinda forgotten, the lady at the shooting range where there seems to be some intimate romantic tension between her and Jensen never goes anywhere. Even your closest confidant Alex feels like she could have done with a bit more development or screen time, there is a big gap in Mankind Divided, where it feels like there used to be a bunch of content that is now missing.

The promise of characters like Manderley or Bob Page from the original Deus Ex becoming bigger factors, and the Illuminati entering the fray as the main antagonists was exciting but ultimately short lived as the game rushes to the finish line leaving only a game with a lot of great potential, mysteries that der serves answers. I can’t help but think about MGS5 The Phantom Pain, which is ironically also a game that serves as a prequel to the first game in its series and much like Mankind Divided is also the byproduct of rushed development and missed potential. And I guess much like Snake, Eidos Montreal and their new corpo overlords at Embracer are going to “Keep me waiting” in perpetuity for a conclusion I might not ever get.