Deus Ex: Human Revolution Interview

Gamasutra has conjured up another Deus Ex: Human Revolution interview, this time grilling Eidos Montreal general manager Stéphane D’Astous about the challenges of doing another Deus Ex installment justice, the work they did during the pre-production phase, their relationship with Square Enix on the project, and more.

It’s interesting to hear that you recognize a distinction between a creative vision and a big ego. Certainly with this game, it has a unique look and a unique take on the aesthetic; it’s a strong aesthetic vision.

SD: This is a very interesting question because I spoke to my art director. We went for lunch, and he said, “Stéphane, I hope that you realize Deus Ex has a soul.” He says, “I hope that consumers will see that it’s a labor of love of a whole team, and it’s not necessarily a vision that I had two years ago with the art direction”, let’s say for example.

He really hit an interesting point because it’s true that I hope people will sense that it’s a labor of love of the whole team, and it’s not a one-man show. Somebody can have great ideas, great direction, and a great vision, but to make this reality, it’s a team push, a team effort, and that makes the difference between an excellent game and an average game.

To what extent are you able to push the idea? It has to go on the screen. You need to have your consumers be able to play with it. So, the ideas are very often good at the start. It’s how it ends.

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The newest trailer is very visually arresting, which is what we expect from Square Enix. Is the aesthetic all derived from Montreal? Or is it a collaborative approach?

SD: Good question again. When I mentioned that the concept pitch was accepted, this came, and they’re on the credits of the trailer. It’s a small — not small anymore — but a small Vancouver-based group called Goldtooth. And they pitched us.

The concept pitch that we retained was from them, and we kept them after their pitch to be the intermediate between Montreal and Tokyo because our dev team didn’t have sufficient staff to fully support the trailer.

So, they understood our vision, our values of the game, and they were able to transmit this. And they were working very closely with Square Enix. But when major decisions were to be taken, all three of us needed to be around a table or around a conference call to make the call. So, yes, they had a very good pitch that we followed through.