Invisible War and Human Revolution - these are the sequels every Deus Ex fan knows. But they're only a fraction of the real story. Prior to Human Revolution, Ion Storm Austin, the studio behind the first two Deus Ex titles, worked on a third game in the series. Twice.

Now, exclusive research and interviews offer a look at Ion Storm's creative process and a glimpse at the trilogy that might have been; at the never-announced games known as Deus Ex: Insurrection and Deus Ex 3.

We'll start at the beginning.

Deus Ex: Insurrection - 2003 to 2004 Insurrection's story begins with lead designer, Art Min. Though he first joined Ion Storm as a programmer on Invisible War, Deus Ex 3 was always the real reason behind his recruitment. After Invisible War he was immediately promoted from programmer to project director and given a team of 20 staff with which to create a new Deus Ex game, subtitled Insurrection. "I moved from Valve specifically to lead the Insurrection team," recalls Min, who took the project through early concept work and halfway through pre-production before things started to go awry. "We were still in pre-production using the Invisible War engine when things came to a close," says Min. "We had prototypes, concepts and the entire storyline laid out." The world of secrecy extended to Ion Storm's own offices - many who worked on Human Revolution had never heard of Insurrection. Even getting to pre-production wasn't easy. Warren Spector's design notes reveal at least four different storylines were seriously proposed and taken beyond initial brainstorming. Each had it's own theme and place in the Deus Ex timeline; each would have led the franchise in a new direction. The first, titled 'Save Civilization', cast you as a Black Ops soldier operating on behalf of an incorruptible President. As an eye witness to the destruction of Area 51 in the original game, you'd use cybernetic augmentations to flush out Illuminati agents, restore democracy and set the stage for Invisible War. It was to be a fast-paced globe-trotting adventure, starting with an NSF siege on the White House and touching down in Moscow and London along the way. Others pitched on a more personal scale. One concept, known as 'Foster Family', grounded a years-long story around a core cast of adopted family members that could bear the consequences of your choices and influence your career within the CIA. "The more the player succeeds, the more he earns the trust of US officials, many of whom are close friends of his or her fiancé's," explain the notes. "Missions then become riskier and less conventional...[such as] transferring terrorist funds to a Swiss bank account or laser-sighting an American citizen for aerial assassination." In the Foster Family pitch, family members would constantly offer their thoughts regarding the grand - but oddly undetermined - conspiracy at play. Gallery: Early concept notes for Deus Ex: Insurrection. This content is hosted on an external platform, which will only display it if you accept targeting cookies. Please enable cookies to view. Manage cookie settings "I think we can do this as a series of tightly focused missions," reads a final summation that positions Foster Family as the exact opposite of the series' typically sandbox levels. "Each mission might support 2-3 strikingly different states based on earlier choices." Meanwhile, other proposed plots set Insurrection elsewhere in the timeline. 'Infiltrate The Cult' took place after Invisible War, canonising the JC Denton ending where humanity is linked together by nanite-enabled groupthink. In this story, Paul Denton organises an offline resistance and prolongs his own life using Illuminati cryogenics. A Door Closes Ultimately, Min took the project in a different direction to any of the proposals put forward. Insurrection instead became a prequel to the first game, casting you as JC Denton's father/clone, Blake. Again, you'd have been a spy for the US government. "We wanted to get back to the roots of the original game," says Min. "I wanted real world locations that were relatable, as opposed to a futurist world where things weren't grounded like the original one." According to Min's story documents, the first mission would begin with the discovery that Chinese forces had covertly infiltrated the US and end with a 'Roswell event' that exposed you to mysterious, human-enhancing technology. It would be unclear where the technology came from but as more events occurred you'd research their origin, gain new abilities and ally with America, China or the EU. "Other Deus Ex games explored the science fiction of nanotechnology and its social implications," says one draft of the design document. "Insurrection brings the hard science of nanotechnology into a recognisable near-future setting where the stakes are more intuitive without being any less epic." Project Snowblind was originally a DX game, called Clan Wars. Positioned as the fourth Deus Ex game due to the then-on-going development of Deus Ex: Clan Wars (later released separately as Project Snowblind), Insurrection used the same engine as Invisible War but distanced itself from its mistakes. Internal documents claim a focus on larger levels and less dialogue as testament to this, alongside mentions of StarCraft: Ghost as a key influence. More telling than the wider ambitions however are more concretely designed features, some of which later showed up in games inspired by Deus Ex, such as 2010's Alpha Protocol. "The player... has a home base where he can store gear, re-equip and heal between missions," explains a concept document. "[The home base] is many things: briefing room, rendezvous point, clinic, armoury, moral-compass story space and bridge between missions." Similar to UNATCO's HQ in the original Deus Ex and the safehouse from Alpha Protocol, the home base would provide a place to explore story through recruitable allies. These allies would align themselves to Insurrection's main factions and respond appropriately - making it difficult to recruit certain combinations or make some choices. "[In Insurrection] the player builds an elite team that evolves its own personality over time. Will you hire the ace hacker or weapons specialist? Can you trust the gung-ho marine you recruited in New York now you're taking orders from the EU? No one on your team trusts the Chinese nanotech expert - do you fire him or stay the course?" While the concept document paints an intriguing sketch, it's ultimately unrealised. Drafted in February 2004 and littered with Warren Spector's annotations - one of which tantalisingly just asks 'Online?' - the notes shortly preceded Insurrection's abandonment. "We had about 12-18 months to go [and] a team of 10-12 when we stopped," says Min, now an executive producer at Rumble Studios. "We had prototypes of new AI behaviour and concept art... I don't recall, but I think we had decided to go back to non-universal ammo too." "Insurrection came to an end because Warren Spector left Ion Storm. I left shortly after Warren [and] a year later we founded Junction Point Studios together."