Deus Ex: Mankind Divided producer Olivier Proulx has told PCGamesN that Eidos Montreal’s upcoming game won’t feature a simple ending selection sequence in the final scene as Human Revolution did, and moreover that regardless of your choices throughout the game, the ending is still ultimately decided by your actions in the final level.
All about non-linear narratives? Check out our best PC RPGs.
“We don’t want to have a ‘choose your ending’ at the end of the game,” says Proulx, “but it’s complex to build organically, the choice of the players, and have it reflected towards the end of the game.
“I’m not going to say how many endings we have; there’s a few, and obviously the choices in the last map in the game will have a big impact, but the decisions you make earlier can be used to affect the last parts of the game. So, much earlier decisions impact you right until the end.”
However, this isn’t a case of making a call way back in the opening act that determines the narrative arc entirely – when asked if it’ll still be the final mission that decides the ultimate outcome of the story, Proulx responds: “Yeah.”
Narrative choices are just one aspect of player freedom – as you’d expect from a game bearing the storied Deus Ex heraldry, there’s also the second-to-second ‘stealth vs shooter’ decision-making to consider. For more on this, and the game in general – much, much more, in fact – read Joel’s hands-on impressions of Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.