Clad in black with gold masks hiding their faces, these individuals are some of the key antagonists of Mankind Divided, according to Thisdale. Task Force 29 is brought into Dubai to oversee a black-market augmentation deal, and the transaction goes awry when a group of augs uncloak themselves and start shooting. The color gold represents augmented humans in Eidos Montreal's Deus Ex games, and with the sun setting on the crumbling crown jewel of the Middle Eastern desert, Mankind Divided lays out the tough times that transhumans are dealing with. The golden-tinged sunset serves as a visual metaphor, according to Thisdale. Thisdale began with a look at Mankind Divided's tutorial level, which takes place in Dubai. The relationship between augmented individuals and so-called natural humans was a powder keg waiting to explode, and the Aug Incident provided a match, turning the world against "augs." By 2029, people who have augmentations - whether by choice or not - are forced to live on the fringes of society in segregated enclaves. He's working with Task Force 29, a covert ops group put together by Interpol to combat the rise in global terrorism following the Aug Incident.
Mankind Divided turns Jensen loose as a free agent. The clips offered a look at the dreary but colorful world that Eidos Montreal is building, and at the new tricks that Adam Jensen is hiding up the sleeves on his augmented arms. Both were videos of prerecorded playthroughs we didn't see live demos or get to play the game ourselves. Thisdale was speaking in an interview with Polygon following a presentation of two abbreviated gameplay demos from Mankind Divided, one from the start of the game and another from well into it. Thisdale continued with the dark-middle-chapter analogy, saying that Mankind Divided is "not meant to be a pretty, happy game." It's a result of what's come to be known as the "Aug Incident" - an event that occurred two years prior, during 2011's Deus Ex: Human Revolution, in which cybernetically augmented humans around the globe lost control of their minds and went on killing sprees - and regardless of whether you're augmented, things aren't going very well on planet Earth.Ĭomparing developer Eidos Montreal's Deus Ex titles to the first three Star Wars films - and, accordingly, suggesting that the studio will eventually make another one of these games - game designer Antoine Thisdale told Polygon that Mankind Divided is "a bit of The Empire Strikes Back" of the series.