Becoming Neither
Ed Smith
From its main menu screen, showing two different sides of Adam Jensen's face and, in fact, from it's very title, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided states its intent. Its central premise—in the year 2029, robotically enhanced or “Augmented” humans are facing oppression from the fearful, non-augmented other half of society—suggests a game chiefly occupied by broad, sociopolitical issues. Indeed Deus Ex lifts words and pictures directly from contemporary news. At its most brazen, it presumes to draw a parallel between the lives of existent, poor, Black Americans and fantastical, super-powered cyborgs. You suspect it's in the name of marketing. Rather than ignorance, or perhaps even conviction, the creators of Deus Ex appropriate the language of Black Lives Matter through a desire to stir debate, not about the issues mind you, but about their game. For that reason alone, it's worth looking past Mankind Divided's limp “commentary” and at its smaller stories. Rather than encompassing, analogous social divisions, the title and menu screen can refer to more tangible, individuated personal crises. In Human Revolution, this game's predecessor, corporate spy Adam Jensen is in turmoil over his augmented body—a glance around his apartment reveals both a smashed bathroom mirror and a collection of books about coping with trauma. In Mankind Divided, almost all the characters are struggling with their identities. If the game's central narrative involves a split in human society, propagated by shady, duplicitous conspirators, it is reflected in the fractured, dual personalities of its main players. Jensen's inner conflict continues. As well as the contradictory nature of his own body, half flesh, half machine, he now leads two professional lives, one as an operative for the international security service Interpol, another as a double agent for cyber-terrorism collective Juggernaut. Throughout the game, Jensen must make dozens of decisions, ranging from the grave—end a life or spare a life—to the frivolous—will he carry a tranquiliser rifle or a stun gun? Thanks to the game's many dialogue options, in a single conversation, Jensen can change from accusing to empathetic to disinterested; a judicious intelligence agent in one scene, in the next, Jensen is spit-balling conspiracy theories with internationally wanted criminals. Miller, the head of Interpol's Prague section, is a former SAS trooper whose apartment is filled with climbing magazines, exercise equipment, and guns. Outwardly a no-nonsense man's man, he's secretly gay and wrangling over the custody of his two children. Vincent Black, head of Interpol's organised crime division, is working undercover for a people smuggling ring. Koller, the owner of an upmarket bookshop, moonlights as an augmentations dealer to his local mafia, the same mafia being overthrown from within by its traitorous under-boss. Drahomir, a Prague cop, is in fact an imposter charging extortionate rates for forged identity documents. Dalara, Jensen's psychiatrist, is an Illuminati spy. Daria Myska claims to have witnessed a murder and tells Jensen she is the next target; it later transpires she herself is the killer. These deceptions and clashes of personality, as well as the game's sweeping portrayal of societal discord, are mirrored in Deus Ex's architecture. Jensen and Miller's apartments both contain secret doors and hollows. The Prague Interpol office is disguised as a shipping company, Praha Dovoz. Koller operates his augmentation trade from a secret lab beneath his bookshop. Less overtly, every location in Mankind Divided contains multiple, often hidden routes of ingress. Jensen can walk the prescribed path, down corridors and through doors, but he can also climb through vents, scale balconies and punch through walls. A perfectly pedestrian looking bank, named Palisades, is in fact a maze of elevator shafts and access ducts. As well as information on the people and organisations propagating hostility between the Augmented and non-Augmented, Palisades disguises dozens of architectural complexities. Wherever you go in Deus Ex, either inside or out, there are secret areas to be found. Therein lies the game's final inconsistency: just as its characters are in conflict with their true selves, and its locations are similarly deceptive and dual-purposed, Mankind Divided, itself, is incoherent. The game pulls constantly at its own loose threads, at once commanding an attention to detail whilst also confronting even the most passive player with countless incongruities. A political address overt as Mankind Divided's suggests the game must be taken seriously. On the contrary, a player may walk into any of the buildings in Prague, and, right in front of the owner and onlookers, pick up furniture, toss it around, climb into the ventilation system, root through the bedrooms and closets then walk back out the front door without anybody saying anything, or acting as if they've even noticed. The game's environments, not merely facsimiles, but intended to relay hidden, painful truths about our real world feel, uniformly, artificial. It is impossible to take seriously the literary pretences of Mankind Divided when, after a long conversation about, say, the ethics of information control, Jensen leaves the room by throwing a dumpster out the way of a vent, smashes the vent's covering, climbs inside then a minute later drops out of the ceiling in the room beyond. These slapstick moments, perhaps a decade ago, one could disregard as “gameisms,” a clash of sensibilities inherent to the culture back when script and story were still alien concepts. Nowadays, and especially when Deus Ex makes such a boast of its literary ambitions, referencing wherever it can Greek mythology and the Bible (the man-machine character Talos Rucker; the progenitor of new breed of human Adam Jensen) it would be outright lax to let it off the hook. The game makes noise about its political expertise. By hiding its story in emails, found artifacts and set dressing, it encourages an attention to detail. If Deus Ex lives on both the veracity of its parable and the preciseness of its writing and production, it must die on them, also. And die it does. As determined as the game seems to humanise its characters, by showing to us their inner lives, by allowing them each to speak at length, it uses them, also, as mouthpieces for its didactic. The aforementioned criminal, Drahomir, supposedly one of Prague's lowlifes, nevertheless holds a prolonged discussion with Jensen about the efficacy of bureaucracy. Very quickly, his tough exterior and street-wise idioms give way to high-minded posturing—one can almost see the writers copying and pasting paragraphs from their philosophy textbooks. Likewise, Mankind Divided's precious, pored over architecture—its revered production design—is often a repository for videogame clichés. Resources, collectable exposition, and contrived, optional paths abound. The world of Mankind Divided, an ostensible home for resonant, dramatic tragedy, is experienced as a typical, videogame playground. Directly outside Koller's workshop lies the corpse of Kamil Horak—Jensen has never met Horak, but when the reticule hovers over his body, his name appears on-screen anyway. By the side of him is a diary, explaining that he had been kicked out of his house and Koller had offered him a place to stay. In his hand is a pistol, in his head, a gunshot wound. To expect games to be omnipotent, to mould around every one of the player's actions, is unreasonable. But when Mankind Divided so thoroughly insists on the properties of its writing, its world construction and the malleability of its characters and plot, it is ridiculous that Jensen, having found Horak, makes no remark about the dead man to Koller. Demonstrably, the world of this game, though supposedly reflective of our own cultural crises, is an utter façade. The people within, even in death, mean nothing. One is tempted to compare Mankind Divided, favourably, to Uncharted 3. Uncharted 3 sees Nathan Drake confused and uncertain about his own legend; the game, in kind, is messy, difficult and anti-climactic. It's doubtful Uncharted 3's creators meant to make a game that was actively unenjoyable, but, unintentionally, their text aligns with players' experiences. Perhaps Mankind Divided can make a similarly dubious claim: if its story focuses on discordance, be it on a governmental, social, or personal level, then that story is reflected in the uneven, incoherent moment-to-moment play. But if that is the case, what exactly is Mankind Divided? Under the white hot light of player interaction, its narrative evaporates. In its swamp of essays, messages, and endless talking, its action drowns. Consistently inconsistent Mankind Divided may be. But one is reminded of Dalara Auzanne, the duplicitous Interpol psychiatrist who—when he finds the body of undercover agent Vince Black—reminds Jensen of the following: “Sometimes a person tries to become two things and becomes neither. He becomes lost."

***

Ed Smith contributes to Vice, The Observer, Edge, Play Magazine, and Kill Screen. Find him on Twitter @mostsincerelyed.