Original Deus Ex Design Document Surfaces

Remember when we told you about Eurogamer’s “The Deleted Scenes of Deus Ex” article way back in 2013, which featured excerpts from a design document for Ion Storm’s original FPS/RPG? Well, it appears that the design document itself – along with other historical treasures, including documents on a cancelled Thief 4 and a third, ill-fated Deus Ex title – have made their way to Reddit, courtesy of original writer Joe Martin. From Gamasutra’s write-up on the matter:

…it appears a Reddit user convinced the writer of that article and convinced him to share his full copy of the document, along with copies of Ion Storm design documents (circa 2004) for a Thief 4 game that never happened and a packet that includes design documents for a third Ion Storm Deus Ex game (along with a seemingly random assortment of other documents, including what appears to be notes given by film producer Laura Ziskin to Warren Spector on the draft of a script for a Deus Ex movie.)

All of these documents make for fascinating reading, and the Deus Ex design doc is especially notable for game devs because it reveals how significantly the game evolved over the course of its development.

For example, a cursory skim of the document (republished below) reveals that the Deus Ex team originally hoped to ship the game (then referred to as Shooter: Majestic Revelations) by 1998 (it shipped in 2000) with a third act that took place on a space station (cut from the final game) and, if they could swing it, maybe some kind of cooperative multiplayer mode (they couldn’t.)