PCG have just put up four screens from the new Deus Ex 3 trailer which will debut on the 4th. As in, Friday. They’re also bragging about 21,500 (Count ’em!) words of preview, which hopefully are all different, and not just Tom Francis cutting and pasting the same paragraph again and again and again. As is his wont. Anyway, go look here or skip below to get my initial impressions.



Picture 1:

Well, we know these are from the trailer, but we don’t know if they’re in-engine or out of engine. Ooh – I dunno. I suspect it’ll be out of engine, but you really don’t know in this day and age.

Anyway – a bloke in shades staring through a hole in the wall. This shows that shades will feature prominently. Also, blokes. The hole in the wall may hint towards some kind of destructible scenery or – more likely – being a metaphorical hole, referencing Neitzches famous maxim about not gazing into the abyss in case the abyss gazes into you. Of course, from the perspective of the shot, WE are the abyss. As such, we can assume that this is a j’accuse aimed directly at the heart of early 21st Century Consumerism.

Picture 2:

We can a couple of other dudes joining our dude in shades. The hole in the wall is nowhere to be scene, its absence being a statement of belief in the future, the idea that the hole isn’t necessarily a part of existence, but something we can move past. One of the dudes is getting shot. The other dude is not getting shot. Since they’re either side of our lead, I can only assume this is a reference to the Calvary scene in the bible, with one of the men (having rejected Jesus) missing eternal life (i.e. “Dying”) and the other (having accepted him) keeping it. JC=Jesus Christ, etc. It’s all so obvious. Also note JC has a sort of robo-arm thing, I think, which is a metaphor for something so clever that if I explained it to you, you’d never understand. I will save it for my second book.

Picture 3:

Ah – here’s a little fan-service. This exploding helicopter is clearly a referencing to the famous helicopter bomb sequence. This sort of thing is what gives everyone complete and absolute confidence the game’s going to be okay. No, really. It’s all going to be fine.

Picture 4:

Deus Ex will be featuring skyboxes.