 Deus
Ex
Developed
by: ION Storm
Published by: Eidos Interactive
Genre: Role-playing
Expected Release: Third Quarter 1999
2052, Pollution, drugs and disease are more rapidly
spreading then anyone could ever have conceived. Terrorist
organizations are openly killing off people by the
thousands, and conventional medicine can't cope with
the overwhelming viral and bacterial outbreaks that
run riot through the impoverished cities' populations.
The gap between the filthy rich and seriously poor
is greater than anyone projected, and the world's
economy is on the verge of collapse. Just when you
thought it couldn't get any worse, there is a worldwide
conspiracy that is hell bent on total world domination.
In
Deus Ex, you will assume the role of a powerful, nano-technologically-augmented,
anti-terrorist agent. Your mission: uncover/expose
these conspirators and prevent them from reaching
their goal of world domination. In a world full of
lies and betrayal, you must pick you allies wisely
and trust no one. Your adventure will take you to
all corners of the world as you learn the facts and
build your strength.
Interview
with Warren Spector
You can see from the screenshots that this one is
looking fabulous, even by Unreal's graphical standards.
The diversity of environments looks to be a welcome
change from dungeon crawling. The Electric Playground
had the opportunity to fire off a couple of questions
to the producer of Deus Ex, Warren Spector. He is
a very well known and respected for his work on games
such as Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and System
Shock. Here is what he had to say about the game,
Deus Ex, and the Unreal Engine.
EP: With all of the other engines on the market,
why did you choose the Unreal Engine?
A:
The reasons behind engine choice are many and varied.
In our case, we knew what game we wanted to make before
we started thinking about engines. That allowed us
to evaluate the available technologies on the basis
of which would best suit the needs of our project.
Certainly that was the most important factor. In addition,
we looked at how easy the engine would be to extend.
We weren't just planning to do a TC. To make the kind
of role playing game we envisioned we were going to
have to introduce all sorts of new game systems --
conversation, inventory, lots of UI elements, NPC
AI far deeper than required for a shooter and so on.
If we got a bunch of undocumented spaghetti code we
knew we would be in trouble. The programmers had to
be able to understand the engine quickly and easily
and then merge their new stuff in with it seamlessly.
Other factors in the decision included the level of
support we could expect from the engine team and the
quality of the editing tools available… Unreal was,
needless to say, the engine that best suited our needs.
The engine offered terrific versatility (good for
building more than just wacky tunnels); the code is
clear and parsable by normal human beings (okay, normal
PROGRAMMERS, anyway); Tim Sweeney promised (and has
delivered) full support-more than we could have hoped
for. And there's no underestimating the power of the
Unreal community of developers. The Unreal mailing
lists are a source of unbelievable cooperation and
provide a constant flow of terrific information. Finally,
UnrealEd is about the best editor around. Tim really
put in the time on it! Designer workflow is critical
in game development and a good editor goes a long
way to ensuring good work flow. UnrealEd isn't perfect
but it's as close as you're going to find in gaming
today. Just awesome.
EP: Was price a factor in your decision to use
this engine?
A:
Nah. We like spending more money than necessary! Sorry,
couldn't resist... Of COURSE price was a factor. Without
getting into details, the financial arrangement we
were able to work out for Unreal was really good,
for all parties concerned. Given the level of support
and the quality of the tools, I actually feel a little
guilty. But just a little...
EP: What things can we expect to see in Deus Ex
that we have not seen before from any other game using
the Unreal engine?
A:
We're doing all sorts of things Unreal was never meant
to do. We're building believable cityscapes rather
than medieval dungeons or alien canyons. In some cases,
we're actually building specific, real world locations.
I don't know that anyone's ever done that in a game.
One of our programmers is doing things with AI that
amaze me (hope they amaze the rest of the world!).
I don't know anyone else who's doing conversations
of the sort or at the level we are. We've introduced
a cool skill system that's just one small part of
a whole suite of character differentiation tools.
There's all sorts of new stuff in Deus Ex. Just because
you buy an engine, doesn't mean your coding work is
done! Not by a long shot. Assuming the engine is everything
is probably the surest recipe for disaster in game
development.
EP: Is there anything else that you would like
to tell us, about the use of the Unreal engine, or
the progress of the game's development?
A:
When I first started thinking about licensing technology,
I made the rather naive assumption that buying an
engine would save all sorts of time. Not so. What
it has done is allow us to focus on content creation.
Instead of six programmers, I have only three (which
means I can have more designers and writers and artists
to generate data). Instead of designers twiddling
their thumbs or designing things in some abstract
head-space while programmers create tools, they can
be using the actual game tools to create content earlier
on. That means more time for tweaking gameplay, increasing
the odds of creating a great game (I hope!). We didn't
save time by licensing Unreal but we did focus on
the game earlier. That should pay off in the end.
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