The story of Deus Ex, as a series, is both surprising and – unfortunately – increasingly typical. One of the greatest PC games of all time, the 2000 original carries enough reputation and credibility, surely, to make it a bankable prospect for even the most miserly of investors. Combine that with Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, the critically acclaimed and commercially performant prequels (Human Revolution sold well, Mankind Divided made less money, but still did fine) and you’d think Deus Ex’s place in the center of Eidos Montreal’s portfolio would be pretty much safe for life. But this is 2024, which in videogame industry terms is beginning to look just as dystopian as Warren Spector and Harvey Smith’s vision of New York City.
Layoffs, canceled games, studio closures – I’m still waiting for the words ‘crash’ and ‘crunch’ to enter our everyday parlance, but I don’t think they’re far off. Indeed, we recently heard that Embracer, the parent company of Eidos Montreal, has laid off 97 employees and canceled an in-production new Deus Ex game. The future of the RPG series looks uncertain. In fact, the future of big-budget gaming generally looks uncertain, as companies cut jobs and pull the plug on new projects seemingly every week. After bidding farewell to one of his most beloved characters, Elias Toufexis, the actor behind Adam Jensen, speaks exclusively to PCGamesN. With Deus Ex on the rocks and the videogame world “ a disaster zone” (Toufexis’ words), the Human Revolution star discusses his dreams for a would-be sequel and his relationship with Eidos in recent years.
“In a world where full movies are being shelved for tax reasons and TV shows are canceled halfway through their stories, what did we expect from the videogame world?” Toufexis says. “It’s like the game studios took a look at the ‘bottom line speaks loudest’ mentality of other forms of entertainment and said to themselves ‘wait, why aren’t we doing that?’”
In a recent Reddit post, Toufexis says “goodbye” to Adam Jensen, saying that the character is “near and dear” to his heart, but that his story “seems done.” As well as Eidos Montreal, several other game studios have been hit by layoffs already this year, including Activision Blizzard, Devolver, Sega, People Can Fly, Riot Games, Behaviour Interactive, and CI Games. The in-development Deus Ex game is sadly just one of many game industry casualties in 2024 so far.
“Studios are getting away with canceling movies and shows and games by the truckload now,” Toufexis continues. “Who’s going to stop them? If they see tax loopholes and money savings by firing people they will never meet, they’re going to do it. I guess Deus Ex isn’t as popular as we think it is? I mean, I get messages every day about it. I get long lines at Comic Cons full of Jensen and Deus Ex merch to sign. But I guess they [the Deus Ex rights holders] have the numbers. Maybe they think no-one cares. I’ve certainly received a whole ton of love and messages from fans since its cancellation.”
Eidos, on the other hand, seems to have an uncertain relationship with Deus Ex and Adam Jensen. Toufexis says he hasn’t heard anything official regarding the future of the character since 2016. In fact, the last time Eidos contacted him about Deus Ex and Jensen, Toufexis claims it was to ask him to limit how much he discussed the famous character in public.
“Everything I heard past 2016 was unofficial, from friends or acquaintances,” Toufexis says.” “Even when they [Eidos Montreal] went off and did Guardians Of The Galaxy and shelved any sequel, I had to hear about it second hand. They didn’t even throw an audition my way. They don’t tell me s***. Everything I’ve heard is from friends off the record, and it ain’t much.
“I remember I heard from Eidos in 2020 when they called me to ask me to stop talking about Adam Jensen in interviews and podcasts because they wanted people to focus on other things from the studio, which really shows how popular Jensen is, or was anyway.”
Nevertheless, Toufexis has ideas about where Jensen’s story could go. In his Reddit post, the actor hopes that maybe one day “someone else will buy the license” for Deus Ex. If that ever happened, the actor would like to see how the story of the prequels eventually ties to the beginning of the first game.
“I would have liked to have seen his [Jensen’s] arc finish from Human Revolution,” Toufexis says. “Some closure with Megan would have been nice. I would probably have wanted him to actually die in the end. He’d have to, right? And I was really looking forward to seeing how they connected the story with the first Deus Ex game and JC Denton.”
PCGamesN has contacted Eidos Montreal for comment but has not received a reply. We will update this story with any further information or statement.
It might be years – or even longer – but perhaps one day Deus Ex could return. Almost a full decade passed between Invisible War and Human Revolution, and while it’s already been eight years since Mankind Divided, combined now with so much uncertainty around the series and mainstream games as a business, that doesn’t mean Denton, Jensen, and the world of soy food is gone forever.