Deus Ex: Mankind Divided Developer on Segregation and Prejudice

Kotaku UK talked with Deus Ex: Mankind Divided game director Jean-Francois Dugas about the themes of prejudice against augmented people in the game. To Dugas, this is both a good chance to expand on Human Revolution’s transhumanist themes and a way to present some real world issues via metaphors:

This fear drives some countries to take a hardline stance on the augmented. “All over the world it’s an issue, but some places are faster than others to take action on it,” says Dugas. Prague is one of those places. When you visit it in Mankind Divided, its government has carved the city in two: the ‘normals’ can stay in their homes, the augmented must move into a ghetto called Golem.

“Prague is a place where a lot of the eyes of the world are looking,” Dugas asserts.

“Adam Jensen is in that world,” Dugas goes on to explain. “We like to say he’s a stranger in a strange world, in the sense that because he’s augmented, the naturals look at him one way and on the other side augmented people are like ‘How can you have that snazzy stuff that’s all shiny and good-looking while we’re in pain?’. No matter on what side Adam Jensen is, he’s never home. He has to navigate through that sea of tensions between both parties.”

Interestingly, Dugas and his team are using the transhumanist setting to frame a discussion of contemporary racism. Throughout the game you encounter moments of prejudice and persecution. They’re not “always in your face, beating you over the head”, says Dugas. Instead, “sometimes it’s just a comment from someone looking at you with judgement, small things like that.

“There are still places where you can go in the city and they won’t check your papers to see if you’re augmented,” Dugas continues. “But you will experience the daily-life, everyday racism… like, in [modern] America, everyone has the same rights, but for some reason the police shoot more black people than white. It’s that kind of hypocritical, kind of institutionalised racism, where we don’t necessarily have a reason, but we have already made the judgement.”