Deus Ex: Human Revolution Fan-powered Q&A, Continued

It’s been a while since we last checked Eidos Montreal’s own Tumblr page and since then they’ve replied to more Deus Ex: Human Revolution-themed questions, offering yet again some insight into the game’s design. Here’s a couple of snips:

Thanks for making Deus Ex, I love the game! Don’t you guys and gals sometimes wish you were maybe 6-8 years earlier, back when everything was simpler and costs in money and hours were a little scaled down? When larger scale games were more feasible, resources were lighter, things needed a bit less polish, stuff could look a little rough… Dialogues didn’t even need to be completely voice acted! I imagine its not so simple to modify a bit of dialogue at the last minute anymore for instance…

Frank says:

)Actually, game-making hasn’t changed much in the last 6-8 years.

Not from what I see anyway. In terms of length, team size and budget, things seem to have stabilized (marketing budgets keep increasing though). But then again, changes in the game industry are most-often driven by new hardware and consumer-adoption.

Games nowadays cost more because computers can render more. All this detail takes exponentially more time to create.

The next generation will probably bring with it an increase in development costs.)

…

What about Adam’s body heat? Now that hes’ just a head n’ a torso would he lose heat faster? How does he compensate for this? If he goes into cold weather, wouldn’t his metal augs just seep out all the heat in his body? Also, what about his metabolism? Now that he’s, y’know, just a head n’ a torso all that Crunchy Pirate must be just shooting right through him.

Frank says:

(Augmentations are insulated to preserve body heat, otherwise patients would die from hypothermia.

As for the Crunchy Pirate, Adam still has all the internal organs you and I have. So his digestive cycle is the same as ours.)

…

This is a great game, and it managed to deliver that “you are in an action movie” feeling that many games try for but few achieve. I found the lack of NPC depth disappointing, but mostly because it was such a contrast to the very well-done conversations with named characters. In that vein, why can’t you use your CASIE (or conversational skills) to talk guards into letting you past? That doctor in the morgue sure thought Jensen was with the shadowy part of the government.

Frank says:

(Conversations turned out to be a lot more time-consuming than we envisioned, which prevented us from adding as many as we planned. That’s why you can’t talk to guards or use CASIE on everyone.)