You’ll be able to talk your way out of boss fights in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Games that manage to properly revive dormant franchises are pretty much rarer than a hipster sighting in the fresh bread aisle at a supermarket. Deus Ex: Human Revolution however, was the exception to the rule thanks to some gorgeous visuals, gripping story beats and cerebral gameplay. Where it did drop the ball however, was on the outsourced boss fights, that had many a fan grumbling at the inability to use their newly-acquired skills to work their way past such encounters. Don’t expect a repeat of that in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, as that game has learnt from past mistakes.

Speaking to Edge via GamesRadar, Director Jean-François Dugas explained openly about just where Human Revolution went wrong:

We weren’t consistent on Human Revolution and we knew it. Production issues prevented us from doing [the boss fights] the way we wanted, so my take was, ‘You know what? We know we’re not consistent, we’re not going to pull it off how we’d like, but at least let’s make them entertaining and not frustrating.’ It’s just that we failed at the frustrating part of the equation [laughs]. Those who were more into combat thought the bosses were really interesting, and it was easy. But a lot of players were playing stealth… Oh my God, that was a slap in the face. We fixed it on the Director’s Cut to a certain degree, but because the cutscenes were already made, the bosses had to die, so we were still forcing you to do that.

As previously confirmed, players will be able to sneak their way out of boss fights, which will be welcome in case you’ve sunk a ton of experience into upping your hacking game instead of combat, based on your preferences. But you’ll be able to do more than just sneak or fight your way past bosses. You’ll be able to talk your way out of a fight as well, with Edge describing conversation options such as “Justify, Patronise and Turn Tables”, which helped them win the character of Augmented Rights Coalition leader Dr Talos Rucker over to their side. According to Dugas, that means that players will now be able to get the Deus Ex experience that they expected to have in Human Revolution:

[This time,] we’re a game that you can play stealthily, or for combat; you can kill, or you can decide not to kill. You can sometimes avoid obstacles altogether, because there might be other opportunities to overcome these things. And we want to make sure our boss fights fully respect those rules from day one.

Or, you can be like me: Invest XP in that cluster-bomb upgrade, sweet talk the boss in question and the second that he drops that guard, give him a face full of explosive iron ball bearings. SUCKAH!

Last Updated: June 3, 2015