Deus Ex: Human Revolution - Director's Cut is the definitive version of Eidos Montreal's 2011 cyberpunk prequel. You are Adam Jensen, ex-SWAT and newly appointed head of security at Sarif Industries, a Detroit biotech firm at the center of the augmentation trade. When a black ops team storms the lab and kills the scientists you were hired to protect, you are rebuilt with mechanical augmentations you never asked for and sent to find out who ordered the attack. What follows is a globe-spanning conspiracy that rewards patience, curiosity and whichever approach you prefer.
A World Divided by Augmentation
The year is 2027, and human augmentation has split society down the middle. Those who can afford mechanical limbs, neural implants and retinal upgrades live in a different world from those who cannot, and the drug Neuropozyne that keeps augmented bodies from rejecting their implants has become a lever of control. Detroit's rain-soaked streets and the stacked, two-tiered megacity of Hengsha are the main hubs, each packed with apartments to explore, emails to read and side stories that flesh out the corporate and political forces at play. The signature black-and-gold Renaissance aesthetic and Michael McCann's brooding score give the whole thing a mood few games have matched.
Play It Your Way
Human Revolution is built around the idea that there is never only one way through. Praxis points earned from experience or found as kits unlock augmentations across four broad pillars, and the level design backs every one of them with a route of its own.
- Stealth
- Cloaking, silent movement and a cover system designed for slipping past patrols let you clear entire missions without firing a shot. Ventilation shafts, ledges and blind spots are everywhere once you learn to look for them, and non-lethal takedowns keep your options open.
- Combat
- When you would rather fight, the Typhoon explosive system, dermal armor and recoil-dampening augmentations turn Jensen into a serious threat. Weapons take upgrades of their own, from silencers and laser sights to expanded magazines, so the arsenal grows alongside your character.
- Hacking
- Almost every terminal, door and security camera can be hacked through a tense node-capture minigame. Invest in the Capture, Fortify and Stealth hacking upgrades and you can turn enemy turrets and robots against their owners or quietly rewrite a building's defenses.
- Social
- Key conversations play out as verbal duels where reading a person's personality matters. The CASIE social enhancer reveals what makes someone tick, and a well-chosen argument can open a door, secure a passcode or resolve a standoff that would otherwise end in gunfire.
What the Director's Cut Adds
- The Missing Link is woven directly into the main campaign, so Jensen's harrowing stretch aboard Belltower's Rifleman Bank Station plays as a chapter of the story rather than a separate side release, with its own stripped-back start and slow rebuilding of your augmentations.
- The Tong mission joins the storyline as well, adding another sequence in Hengsha's underworld that deepens Tracer Tong's role and gives the middle act more room to breathe before the plot turns toward its final destinations.
- Boss fights have been redesigned so that stealth, hacking and social builds are no longer forced into a straight shootout. Each arena now offers alternative tools, environmental options and routes that let you defeat the Tyrants in a way that suits your playstyle.
- New Game+ lets you replay the story with all of your previously acquired augmentations already unlocked, opening up the early missions in ways that were impossible the first time and encouraging a second run built around a different approach.
- Developer commentary, available in English only, runs alongside the game and explains the thinking behind key scenes and systems, and the original Making of video is included for a look behind the scenes at how Eidos Montreal revived the series.
A Conspiracy Worth Unraveling
The plot ties Jensen's personal search for the truth about the Sarif attack, and about researcher Megan Reed, to a much larger struggle over who gets to control the future of humanity. Corporate rivals like Tai Yong Medical, the private military of Belltower and shadowy figures pulling strings from far above all have a stake in the outcome, and the choices you make about who to spare, who to trust and what to reveal ripple through the ending. As a prequel to the original Deus Ex, it also lays the groundwork for that game's world with a care that longtime fans will appreciate.
Whether you crawl through every vent, talk your way past every guard or leave a trail of spent shells, Jensen's story bends to fit the player behind him. Pick your first augmentation, step out into Detroit and decide for yourself what kind of man he becomes.
