Deus Ex Design Journal

Entry One

By Witchboy You might have heard that ION Storm recently opened up another office in Austin, Texas. You might have wondered what the Austin team is up to. If so, I'm here to give you some details. Welcome to the first design journal entry for Deus Ex, the role-playing game that we are working on here at ION Storm Austin. (Note: Deus Ex is pronounced "day-oos ex." It's an abbreviated form of the expression Deus Ex Machina, or "God from the Machine.") The team is led by Warren Spector (Underworld, System Shock, Ultima VII: Serpent Isle). Many of us on the team have worked with him previously. But this time things are a little different. This time, Warren's guiding vision for the game involves real-world settings and a conspiracy-based plot that will leave the player hyper-paranoid and wondering if their friends are really all they seem to be. The game starts off in the United States, in the near future rather than the far-flung future of so many SF games. This distinction is an important one; as an explorer moving through the game you will see familiar sights. Rather than taking place on wacko, anything-goes alien planets, Deus Ex takes place on Earth. The player is part of an elite anti-terrorism unit. He will be required to move through train stations, corporate strongholds, scientific labs, key districts of major cities, top-secret (but real) governmental locations and other such recognizable settings. It will be really powerful if we manage to pull this off, but it also represents an additional level of design challenge. Recognizable locations can be more compelling and immersive to players (remember the first time you saw Duke Nukem's bathrooms?), but they also must be executed with greater precision and must feature greater interactivity. Fail to be as precise as you should be and the player will spot the unfaithfully reproduced aspects of the setting. Fail to provide sufficient interactivity and the player will constantly be reminded of how much more interesting and detailed the real world is in comparison. However, if you succeed, you will allow the player to experience the wild, heroic or illegal things that he has always wanted to do. Have you ever wanted to prowl your way into the White House, shoot it out on a 747 jet or explore Area 51 in search of whatever the government is hiding there? In this game, you will be able to do these things and more. For us, it's all about exploring and interacting. We want each player to have a different play-experience. One player might arrange to meet a contact in the London underground tube station. Another might find this same character waiting for him at his home with the lights out, dead-set on killing the player. Deus Ex will feature game-play that is not exclusively about killing all the monsters, picking up the health and moving on to the next room. The player's actions will dramatically affect the game. You can befriend or alienate the characters in the game. You can solve all the problems in a variety of ways, based on your character's skill-set, your network of allies and your decisions as the player. Though we're using the Unreal engine (and the amazing associated editor/tool set), our team's programmers are making extensive changes. The programmers, led by Chris Norden (Longbow), are adding all kinds of systems related to the RPG nature of the game. They're adding things like in-game branching conversations, saved map states, custom AI, skills that advance as your character progresses, a travel map, a powerful inventory system and tons of world interaction features to name a few. Again, most of our changes to Unreal are being made to give the game its required staple RPG elements and to fundamentally change the nature of the game from a fast-paced shooter to an exploration-and-interaction-based role-playing game. Unreal is a great technology with which to start, allowing for amazing graphics, complex architecture, high-quality sound effects and mood setting lighting. (Obviously the latter is a real plus when you want to create a compelling atmosphere.) The rest is up to us, but having such an amazing set of tools is awesome, freeing us to focus on the type of game we are trying to make. In addition to the programming staff, the game-team is made up of Warren (our uber-RPG wiz), an art team lead by Jay Lee and two separate design squads. One of the design groups is led by Bob White (Ultima Online and Ultima: Ascension) and includes ex-Ultima designers Dan Rubenfield and Marshall Andrews. I am leading the other team--my history includes FireTeam, System Shock and some Origin titles. My team consists of Steve Powers (Ultima VII: Serpent Isle, Ultima VIII: Pagan, Wing Commander IV, http://www.io.com/~naga) and Monte "Grayson" Martinez (infamous Internet level designer). Each of our design teams is taking responsibility for a number of characters, plot events and world locations, while working together with the rest of the team on interface, skill advancement and other game systems. Anyway, that's the introduction. Next time I will delve into some of our game design philosophies and some of the wacky things that always happen while creating computer games. Our primary goal at ION Storm Austin right now is a lofty one: we want to make the most fun, interactive, immersive RPG ever made. We want to make a game that is somewhat different for every person who plays it, allowing players to make decisions that influence the direction of the game. (We have four different endgames and each one is the distinct outcome of the player's course through the game.) Warren Spector has put together a really great team and a novel design is emerging from the combined creative and technical efforts of that team. You'll be hearing more about Deus Ex as the project moves along. I hope to write about the details of our development process, shedding light on how the game is shaping up and what fans of role-playing games can expect. See you next time.