These past few months I've been looking into playing older games or games I've overlooked and to try to play some new genres of games. The immersive sim genre, is a genre I really really enjoy, and I never realized it was its own genre. I've played games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Hitman and really enjoyed the freedom they offer you to kinda do what you want as long as you complete the objective. So doing some research, I came across the original Deus Ex which was I guess kind of the "father" of the immersive sim genre so I checked it out.
Holy moly, I did not expect to enjoy the game as much as I did. For a first playthough, I found myself playing the game for hours and hours upon end. Graphically, the game is obviously really dated since it came out 25 years ago, but the visuals never bothered me at all. In fact, I really enjoyed the visuals and art style of the game.
Starting off, in the tutorial level, I'll admit it did not pull me in too much and I had to get used to the idea that since that was a game that came out in 2000, there is no hand-holding to tell you where to go. This ended up actually being a very good thing because it allowed me to just explore levels and just find things. I would find that I'd randomly find side-quests for random characters to get skill points for upgrading skills (I chose to be a stealthy hacker)
After I got past the tutorial level and started back into the NSF HQ, I loved how you get to meet all your coworkers and how everyone is telling you that you did a good job on your first day. The dialog between all of them were all natural and none of it seemed "forced" for lack of a better word. In general, while the voice acting may sound a little funny, the writing is absolutely fantastic.
My favorite level (and I'm sure many others) is probably Hong Kong. The music and seeing how lively the people here was really cool. Everyone had something funny or interesting to say here and there's some decent side-quests to be completed if you find them. The club here (can't remember the name of it) was also cool and even had an upstairs to explore when the club in NY did not.
The combat was not too great but it did not really matter to me, as I tried to be as stealthy as possible. Guns in general seemed like they never work unless they're really close lol.
The augmentation and skill points: I've had experience with this kind of system in Cyberpunk 2077. The only difference is that you'd have to turn on and turn off the augmentations when you'd want to use them because if you keep them on, it just drains your battery and won't be able to use any augmentations until you use a recharge bot or find batteries in levels.
The music: now I've heard the music was REALLY good. It did not disappoint. Almost every level had complete bangers. To Paris having a sad and depressing theme due to the lockdown, to Hong Kong having an upbeat and energetic theme, to the cathedrals in Paris having an eerie theme. Everything just fit perfectly.
I can see why this game is so beloved. I just finished my first playthrough and enjoyed almost every minute of it. Everything just seemed to mesh together seamlessly. I honestly still can't believe something like this came out in 2000, there are games coming out in 2025 that do not have this kind of personality. I will be doing another playthrough soon enough to see everything I didn't do.
Deus Ex is really great, the shooting is a bit off till you get upgrades that make your aim very good, otherwise it's just sitting still and waiting for the reticle to close on the enemy
yeah, I think next playthrough I'll do a guns run through.
Just 3 month before Deus Ex released Thief 2 came out and 3 month before that System Shock 2 released. If you havent already, do yourself a favor and play them too. Some of my favorite Games of all time.
It was realy a special time in the late 90s to early 2000s and i would say it was the golden age.
Dev Teams werent forced to create slop for money back then. And most Teams were just filled with creative people. On top of that, the technical part was changing so damn fast in these years. So Games looked different, had new feature you never saw before and everything in such a short amount of time.
Nowdays i mostly enjoy indy Games, where this creativity and use of different graphics, features is still alive.
should I play the original Thief? I'm looking at it on steam and the reviews for it don't look too good, a lot of them mention that it has performance issues on modern PCs
Play it on GOG, it's fixed out of the box, no mods needed
Thief Gold should run no problem, at least for me and the reviews are 92% positive. Here are some helpful Patches. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=961977782
Personal i think Thief 1-3 are all worth playing.
Thief 1 has a special atmosphere and feel to it, while Thief 2 is more polished. Thief 3 introduced loading screens in missions which was a huge letdown for many, i still think its a good game and with the Gold Mod you can remove the loading screens if you want.
Yes! It's great.
Are you perhaps mixing it up with the 2014 reboot (confusingly named just Thief, in typical annoying reboot fashion)? The original Thief (which you'll find as Thief Gold in most places) is a pretty old game, there may some light compatibility fixing necessary (https://www.moddb.com/mods/tfix) but it should run pretty smooth on even older PCs.
The 2014 reboot, conversely, is kind of mess technically, it shipped in a sorry state and I don't think it received much post-launch support, so it's possible that it indeed doesn't run well.
Review by MandaloreGaming - worth a watch, with a spoiler note too that's given part way through the video so you can watch it relatively safely..
Yes you should. The GOG versions of both Thief Gold and The Metal Age run perfectly on modern machines. (I've even gotten them running on Linux.)
Thief Gold is a bit unpolished and all-over-the-place with its level design. Apparently the developers weren't sure whether the stealth mechanics would appeal to players, so they tried to switch up the gameplay, and it's evident they were lacking a bit of experience with their own mapping tools. Nevertheless it's a good game that should be played just to see where its entire lineage started. Also, Return to the Cathedral is one of the scariest levels I've seen in any game ever, and not to be missed.
The Metal Age is more refined, more confident in its own mechanics, has some more quality-of-life features, and the levels feel more expertly crafted. It's never quite as spooky as the spookiest parts of Thief Gold. However, it has a great new villain with tons of meme value, and the final level is an impressive showcase of what game developers were able to do with late 1990s technology. Overall it's the better game of the two, but both are worth playing and should be played in order.
I've also played Deadly Shadows (the third one, released in 2004). It's a bit different, doesn't quite have 100% of the classic 'Thief feel', and maybe a bit on the easy side, but it's actually a decent game and brings some interesting innovations. It also has an infamously spooky level, known as the Cradle, although personally I found Return to the Cathedral from Thief Gold to be more difficult and effective.
I looked both games up and they definitely look like they have a similar feel and atmosphere of DX. I started playing Half-Life 2 (another game I’m 20 years late but that’s another post 🙂) and I’ll likely start Thief Gold after I finish.
Thief 2 is a 100% must play. It can look a bit old but the atmosphere and love put into the game is so there. Also please try a game called MDK2 it's spectacular!
That truly was the peak 6ish months for imsim fans.
It realy was, funny enough i hated Deus Ex on release, never made it out of the first tutorial mission and thought it was boring trash. I loved Thief and System Shock 2, because it had less talking and more action and a better atmosphere in my opinion.
Only years later after i played Deus Ex 2 for a bit at a friends house, on console... i thought, hm thats kinda fun maybe i should try Deus Ex 1 again.
And damn had i a blast. Sometimes you realy need to give a Game a second chance or you miss out on something special.
Guns are definitely effective when you level up your skills.
Hell yeah! I also played it for the first time this year. So glad you also enjoyed it! I know this is a cold take, but I consider it a certified masterpiece.
I definitely agree with this. Like this game was way way ahead of its time, talking about the future we are heading towards seemingly.
System Shock 2 is also worth a try. Another immersive sim, though the atmosphere is very different, with you being isolated on a huge spaceship. The remake of the first one is good too, though it plays more like a sci-fi dungeon crawler. There is still some imsim DNA in it of course. Out of the modern games Prey is obviously the greatest one.
yeah I heard about this one. I looked into getting the game but unfortunately the original is delisted on Steam :(
The remastered version is the same game from what I know. Maybe with some slight QoL improvements and hd textures. I stick to the original since the fan patches already do everything the remaster supposedly does.
The remaster actually includes some fairly significant gameplay changes, since it implements the Anomalies, Discrepancies, and Outright Bugs (ADaoB) mod.
For the most part they're pretty agreeable tweaks to buff weak options and nerf overly strong ones, but it's not really documented that the remaster's changes extend to gameplay as well as graphics.
I see, in that case it really sucks that they removed the option to buy the OG on Steam.
It's on sale on GoG for basically nothing.
JC, a bomb!
a bomb :o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfoMss8n7Mk
Holy heck, how have I never seen this before. What a Christmas treat
I SPEEL MY DREENK!
What a shame
Yefgeny, where is yefgeny?
I love Deus Ex. It's a shame when people cant get over the combat. There is so much to enjoy about it. The last time I played it I had the realization that it is almost a perfect blend of Robocop, The X-Files and James Bond, all in one.
definitely saw a lot of the X-Files in it, especially in Area 51.
Ok I’ve heard the same criticism of the combat in the Witcher 2. I love that game and never connected with that critique, although I get it. Might this game be similar? I loved mankind divided and human revolution but have been hesitant to play the original
If you don't mind stealth for the first few missions it's fun
There really two separate issues with the combat. The game tries to take an RPG approach to weapon proficiency. Unless you invest points into a given weapon type, you will be ridiculously inept at using that weapon. This extends even to basic weapons like pistols. Now this never really bothered me because it's simple to understand that you need to invest points in a skill to use it. The very fair point that I've heard against this system is that you are supposed to be a trained operative with enhanced senses. The idea that, unless the player specifically invest points into weapon proficiency, you are completely inept at handling weapons is kind of immersion breaking for some. Personally I am able to suspend disbelief an accept this as the gamey RPG trope that it is. It never affected my enjoyment.
The other issue is that the characters are animated very stiffly and run around awkwardly in combat. It can look a bit silly. Combine this with low weapon skills and having to stand still and wait for your aiming reticule to shrink before taking a shot, and then the ridiculous recoil that totally messes up your aim. Let's just say that if you come into the game expecting it to play anything like a shooter you will be in for a shock. If you get your weapon skill to advanced or master level it helps a LOT but some people don't like that you have to actually level your weapon skills and their first whiff of combat is enough to turn them off from the game.
Love the game so much. It still has one of the better stories out there. Also, to make guns good you have to max out the talents. The sniper maxed out trivialises most of the game except the big robots. The other games are fun but each one sort of feels like it has gotten farther from the spirit of that first one, which was magical.
the next deus ex I'm planning to play is Human Revolution - I actually bought it before I bought DX1 but I just never got around to playing it. Funny enough, I bought HR because I had just finished a second playthrough of Cyberpunk 2077 but my first playthrough of Phantom Liberty and I could not get enough of the game at that time so I looked up games that were similar and HR popped up. Crazy how DX actually inspired games like CP2077 lol
When you play Manlind Divided you might be shocked at how many mechanics CP2077 borrowed 😅
Human Revolution is very good, but doesn't have the same dark humour and the atmosphere is different. Oh, the shooting is also pretty bad, and the rest is quite in line with the original, in my opinion.
If you don't already have Mankind Divided it's like $4 on steam this week. I really enjoyed both of those games.
My vision is augmented
What a shame
But did you save Paul ?
If not, there's something for your next playthrough.
ah man, i tried to but i thought it was scripted not to so i didn't lol.
You can! A lot of players never realized, but it's a cool easter egg.
If I remember correctly, the "flag" for his survival is simply triggered by exiting through the front door of the hotel, instead of the window. So you can technically just run past the enemies and leave, without beating them.
That’s pretty cool I often wondered if there was anything I can do to help him out. Definitely have to see that in a new playthrough
You can also plant mines and laser tripwires so when they all run in they die! Was such a crazy cool moment when I discovered you could save him, had no idea it was possible and was just planting them to be obstinate.
I’m so jealous you got to experience this I wish I could Men In Black flashy-thingie myself to play DX again.
What a shame
If you kill a bunch of dudes at the statue of liberty your coworkers will not tell you you did a good job. Just FYI.
I played it last year. Immersive Sims like Bioshock and Prey are my favorite kind of games, so I absolutely loved Deus Ex. It's rough around the edges sure, but there's so much freedom in how you can progress through levels like a true Immersive sim. Game was way ahead of It's time and still holds up today.
I have heard this term a lot in recent years referring to a lot of games that I played when they came out like Bioshock, Deus Ex, Strife sometimes. Whenever I read definitions of Immerse Sim, talking about how you just exist in the world and can interact how you want with it, it sounds like BOTW or open world games in general, but then people say those aren’t immersive sims and instead it’s like Bioshock? I don’t get it
BOTW and other open world sandbox games are definitely similar to immersive sims. Immersive Sims are basically less scripted, less hand holdy. Your tools, sandbox elements, and the rules of the world are explained to you, and very little else. You get a goal and it's up to you how you get there. There's no wrong way to do anything. If there's a locked door, you could find a lock pick, hack a terminal, bribe someone for the key, or just blow it up. And that's just one door in an hour long level. Immersive Sims are different from most open world games because they have the depth of RPG's like Baldur's Gate without locking anything behind skills like speech or intelligence. Instead your own creativity determines how you can solve problems. Open world games give you a goal to complete with some different tools available, and Immersive Sims put problems in front of you with no correct solution. But, some games definitely blur the lines like BOTW or Skyrim.
There's a contingent of immersive sim puritans, who believe that the only games worthy of being included in the genre are games developed by Looking Glass Studios, or by devs with direct ties to the studio.
I would say BOTW and immersive sims definitely have some overlap. To me, what sets an immersive sim apart is that you have that kind of freedom in a much more traditional level design rather than a massive open world. The levels are usually smaller and with many different interlocking paths through them. Open world games like BOTW often put a lot of the freedom into what you choose to do, whereas in an immersive sim you usually have a pretty clear objective but how you do it is wide open.
What I find wild about Deus ex is how appropriate the in game conspiracy theories are to today. They really are timeless.
This is something I'd disagree with you on.
Pre-9/11 conspiracy theories were fun and whacky, they'd either be right-wingers with crazy ideas about how the government was conspiring to take our liberty or left wingers with vague notions of "systems" oppressing us, and they'd all believe that aliens were somehow involved.
Post 9/11 conspiracy theorists just became weird and intense. Maybe because the whacky passions don't seem as flippant and whimsical when they're tied to real life atrocities.
The Deus Ex conspiracies are the fun, grey alien, X-files type of conspiracies and I think they differ heavily from the grubby modern day conspiracies.
I do agree with you that conspiracy theories have become mainstream and... more believed? Accepted? but I feel like the original ones in the game are still talked about like when the game came out.
Guns get better the more skill points you put into arms or whatever it was called, plus there's weapon mods you can get - they become absurdly lethal once you max them out.
A rather creepy fact about the game too that you might have missed - in NY the twin towers are missing from the skybox. It was explained in game as the result of a terrorist attack, but they were actually omitted as they were limited by how detailed they could make the textures
Try dishonored and prey (2017) next!
Yeah Prey is definitely on the list. I finished D1 and D2 - both were fantastic games. D2 had some really cool level designs.
I'm still mad at how dirty 2017 was done by both Bethesda and the gaming community.
Prey is incredible, it’s the closest I’ve gotten to the high of Deus Ex ever since. Even more so than Mankind Divided I think (sadly Human Revolution isn’t playable on PS5 so I haven’t been able to play it).
What a shame...
*** smacks lips ***
What a rotten way to die.
Still the greatest game ever made.
Just a rare type of lighting in a bottle that is kind of miraculous that it exists at all, especially given the age. Absolutely incredible.
Haven't played for over 20 years. Was one of my goats, I played it to death.
One of my all time faves.
I've read good things about the Revision mod that helps make it feel less dated, but haven't tried it yet myself.
i played revision, but the only thing i did was make the textures HD. everything else was kept vanilla
I adored DE back in the day. In the UK we had to wait a few months for it to release after the US got it, so I played the demo repeatedly. I was amazed each time I played it, finding new stuff and different ways to approach objectives. Such a special game.
Sadly I didn't find the same magic in the sequels, the level design was so obviously telegraphed here is the noisy path, here is the stealth path.
You’ll love Prey. Its a masterpiece of the genre. It’ll feel really hard until you free your mind from shoot bad guy kill to what if we weigh it down with a foam gun so it takes fall damage or other creative uses
yeah, looking forward to it :)
Me and my best gamer friend had radically different experiences here. He played it as shooter mcshooter face and was always complaining about ammo, I abused the recycler in hardware labs and then the recycler charges everywhere else and became so op it became hunt the Nightmare.
It was so mind blowing after I stopped trying to just kill things with a gun. I loved the insane creativity in the game.
I finally played this for the first time about 2 years ago myself. I like to try and knock off an older game that was well received or that I think I'd be interested in to start off every year. This year for me I finally got around to the first Alan Wake.
My favorite game of all time. Incredibly well written, and amazing music as you say - one of the GOATs for sure.
I played this game for the first time last year and honestly reading this has me feeling like doing a replaythrough.
Deus Ex is one of my favorite games ever. I played it so many times back in the 2000s. It'll be interesting to see how the remaster does.
ong the maintenance guy is messing with me and putting lemon lime in place of orange in the vending machine
The Revision mod is free on Steam if you originally got Deus Ex there. Its an overhaul of the game, updated graphics and some bug fixes. https://www.moddb.com/mods/deus-ex-revision
Yeah I used it on my first playthrough but I only changed the textures to be HD. Everything else kept vanilla
I mistakenly started a new game on Revision mode but luckily I was only 2 levels in so to go back to vanilla I had to restart from scratch that meant it was going to delete my save file 😓
So basically just DL Deus Ex on Steam, then install this mod and we're good to go? No other fiddling around? Then I might finally try it again, last played it back in the day but only got a few hours in, not sure why. Maybe I was preoccupied with other games back then since so many absolute masterpieces came out during that time.
Loved Human Revolution btw, you will have a great time. But maybe play something else inbetween, let a few weeks or months pass between the two titles since they are quite different and made decades apart.
/edit: omg fml HR is from 2011?? I am old. I thought 2018 or sth.
yes, but you need to specifically turn features on or off if you want to use the revision depending on what kind of playthrough you wanna do. once you have the base game and you install revision, you're only going to launch revision, as it's its own separate game.
If you enjoyed Deus Ex, you should definitely try The Nameless Mod. It has the length of a full game, with its own storyline and characters. It's my second favourite "Deus Ex" game and I have played the entire series.
I love the Deus Ex franchise...
Invisible War💪💪💪
ahead of it's time
I remember that scream that all enemies made once you killed them. It was kind of comical
Still one of my favourite in the genre, gave you all sorts of ways to tackle levels.
One tip I have for gunplay is to slap a scope mod onto the unsilenced pistol. It is a one tap to the head for most enemies and only takes up 1 inventory slot. It is perfectly accurate but you have to combat the swaying.
Not sure if the second one is fun to play, but the story and the mood make for a good YouTube playthrough
Still blows damn near every fps rpg out of the water. I'd honestly say that if Deus Ex was given a proper remake/remaster before Cyberpunk came out, Cyberpunk wouldn't have broken even, let alone generate massive profit.