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Watch Deus Ex's Creators Play Through Their Game 15 Years Later

Warren Spector and company talk about the pistol, lip-syncing, predicting the future, and much more.

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15 years after its release, some of the creators of Deus Ex have gotten together to play through their acclaimed creation.

Project director Warren Spector, writer Sheldon Pacotti, and lead programmer Chris Norden are featured in the new, nearly hour-long video. The three offer various fun tidbits of information while trying to remember how to play--Spector notes it's been 14 years since he last touched it.

In the first few minutes alone, there's some interesting information shared, like the red crowbar being an homage to Half-Life, and the fact that much of the development team wanted to remove the pistol. Spector says this was because it was deemed "so useless," but it remained his favorite weapon. This is because even though "it was kind of weak, it forced you to be clever. You had to use it with explosive barrels and just get really clever with it. It wasn't really high-powered, which I thought was a lot of fun."

There's also talk of how none of the cutscenes are pre-rendered, in part because the game was already filling up its CD, and the fact that it may have been the first game with real-time lip syncing. Later, Norden laments the inclusion of gas clouds in one area, prompting Spector to ask, "Why did we make any of this this hard?"

It's a fun watch if you're a fan of Deus Ex, which remains one of the most influential games ever made. The latest game in the series, Mankind Divided, is coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One; you can read all about Eidos Montreal's approach to crafting a direct sequel to Human Revolution in our new feature.

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