Endings are hard. Few people likely know that better than Mary DeMarle, the executive narrative director of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and lead writer of Human Revolution. The latter game gave you one choice between four different endings, each of which had to be a believable course for Adam Jensen to take. Each one had to deliver what players were hoping for while also surprising them.
Those four endings differed slightly based on how Jensen behaved throughout the game - plainly, each had a good, evil, and neutral variant. But it wasn't enough for many players who felt the choices they made throughout Human Revolution's story should have figured more prominently into its conclusion. Mankind Divided should be more satisfying for those players, DeMarle explained in a video interview with GR+'s Anthony John Agnello.
"Because on Human Revolution, we were having it all come down to that moment where there's a button press at the end of the game, and it triggers one of the different endings," DeMarle said. "But on this one, we actually are looking at, 'ok, we're going to give you different actions and different choices, and you go different paths, and how does that go?'
"So when you're embracing all those multifaceted, branching choices, et cetera, it gets hard enough. And then to pull in that fulfillment of what the character wants, it does get very challenging. And I can't really give you a formula for doing it, it all comes down to constant iteration, constant play, and constant feel for the character and the player experience."
You can see how your own story plays out when Deus Ex: Mankind Divided hits stores on February 23, 2016. And if you want an entirely different sort of first-person narrative (that still stars Elias Toufexis), you can pick up Far Cry Primal that same day.
Seen something newsworthy? Tell us!
