Forget the remaster — 2000’s Deus Ex is still a masterpiece that you should play in its original form | Daily Reports Online
Towards the end of last year, Deus Ex Remastered got delayed, with no new release date offered and refunds for preorders issued. Developer and remaster specialist Aspyr noted that it had taken on board negative feedback about the remastered graphics, and noted that the game would not be released on February 5, 2026.
Now, given I still consider the original Deus Ex a masterpiece and one of my favourite games of all time, this was a bit of disappointment. I’d rather like to play the game again, but with a coating of modern graphical paint and some quality-of-life updates.
But screenshots and video from Aspyr’s remaster didn’t showcase a slick rework of developer Ion Storm’s 2000 original game, but rather something that looked like it was from the mid-2000s, with visuals that would look at home on an original Xbox or the early days of the Xbox 360, rather than for modern hardware in the year 2026.
I’m sure that taking a 26-year-old game and remastering it is no easy feat. But reworking textures that look out of place and in keeping with the dark and stark look of Deus Ex’s original graphics isn’t the way to do it. I’d rather see the game remade in the Unreal 5 engine or the Dawn Engine Deus Ex: Mankind Divided used; getting access to the latter might be a bit of a pipedream given its under the ownership of Square Enix.
But the negative reaction to Deus Ex Remastered, and Aspy’s arguably wobbly record when it comes to remastering games, got me thinking: Do we actually need a remaster of Deus Ex?
Art and ambition over graphics
Even when it launched, Deus Ex was hardly a good-looking game; textures were blocky, and the game was rather dark in a lot of places. But this was part of the art style of the game that was capturing the conspiracy theories vibe of the late 90s and early 2000s, with a sprinkle of Matrix-esque and cyberpunk feel.
Moreover, a lack of cutting-edge fidelity for the time meant that Deus Ex didn’t demand very powerful hardware and could have large, expansive maps and hub areas to explore. Even playing it years later, I’d uncovered a secret place, with some solid story implications, that I’d missed the first time around.
And by not prioritising graphical flair, Deus Ex had the mass of immersive sim elements and systems that could be manipulated and exploited to get around all manner of obstacles. The amount of variation and immersion here outpaces many more modern immersive sims.
So part of me thinks that to experience Deus Ex properly, one should play it in as much of its original guise as possible. The Game of the Year Edition makes the most sense, as that has support for modern controllers – though I advocate for playing Deus Ex on mouse and keyboard – and should run on a lot of hardware.
Heck, I managed to get it running reasonably well on my Steam Deck, though there’s a need to use the trackpads to handle some of the mouse cursor bits.
For people who might want early Xbox-era graphics, there’s Deus Ex: Invisible War; it’s a lot more streamlined than its predecessor, but I still think it has plenty of systems to exploit and is perhaps more underappreciated than it deserves.
More fidelity, and a simply amazing art style in my opinion, can be had with Deus Ex: Human Revolution. It’s a prequel to Deus Ex but captures a lot of the game’s essence, with some neat systems.
Then Mankind Divided builds upon that, especially with a great hub area in the form of near-future Prague. Mankind Divided ended somewhat abruptly, which didn’t win it masses of fans. But its areas felt more like playgrounds of opportunity with a myriad of routes to take and systems to explore, whereas Human Revolution felt occasionally like you could only take a couple of different routes through a mission.
So with that all in mind, I don’t really think we need Deus Ex Remastered, but rather a brand-new Deus Ex game, one that builds on the story of the prequel or explores an alternate sequel to the direction Invisible War took.
Those are my musings; were you looking forward to Deus Ex Remastered, or would you rather have a different Deus Ex game? Let me know in the comments below.
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