Article by: Justin Amirkhani
A good sci-fi story is never just about aliens or technology or the future, it’s about using those impossible concepts to challenge the ethics and question morality. Having talked to Jean-Francois Dugas about Eidos Montreal’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution, I got the sense that his team really understood this. Hopefully this all translates well into the game when it releases later this month.
Back in 2000, when Deus Ex came out, it struck a chord with players by exploring wired life and how we co-exist with technology. Ten years later with : Human Revolution, how is that being explored with our even more connected lives now?
With Human Revolution what we really want to hit was the trans-humanism and all the possibilities for human beings to improve themselves, so we have a big focus on that. But your question is very interesting because in terms of our world that is all connected and wired; in the game it’s totally part of it.
I guess in the last few years while we’ve been building this game our lives have become so accustomed to [persistent technology] that I think we just expect that it’s there and we don’t think about it anymore. That’s worked its way into the game, but it’s not at the forefront. I think it’s just a natural reflection of our real lives where we no longer think about our iPhones or wireless connections; in the game there’s that same kind of vibe where this connectivity is all over the place but at the same time nobody really pays attention to it.
When creating this sort of work that’s based in a lot of commentary – particularly about modern society – you need to take a step back and evaluate it properly. As creators, how do you do that?
In the beginning when we started the project, the first thing we did was go back to the old games and try and figure out what core values made them special. Then when we were done with it we started to brainstorm about the themes. Where ten years ago communication technologies were so important today it feels like with all these diseases and new medical technologies that can allow blind people to see for example, that’s the next big thing in terms of who we are moving towards a singularity type situation and that’s what we look at for Human Revolution.
So we watched the commentary and read a lot of books that have to deal with the concepts of transhumanism, Joel Garreau for example. We went all over the place to look for inspiration and find out what were the concerns, benefits and what’s going on in the real world right now so we’d be fully aware. We just started by being sponges with our brains and absorbed a lot of stuff to figure out the best way to pull it off.
The game is also a story about a struggle between classes. Why have stories like these always resonated with players and how are you tackling it in Human Revolution?
Once again, transhumanism brings a lot of hope in terms of improving who we are but it also brings a lot of questions because we can look at who we are from a natural position where we are what we are and we should stay like that. So now we’re entering in to ethical problems and moral issues and depending on the background of different people they have different opinions on the subject.
I think with the game we’re trying to reflect those different opinions through the story and through the characters you’re going to meet in some of the missions and let the player explore it in some of the decisions they’re going to have to make. It’s about getting the player into that fantasy and getting them to answer the questions and figure out what they think about it. It’s in the background but it also comes to the forefront during the missions where you’re asked to do things and have to make a decision. I’m trying to stay very vague because I don’t want spoilers; these issues are some of the most impactful in the game.
As a game about transhumanism is the player presented as a subject or an object within the reality?
That’s a good question; I think it’s a bit of both. You’re a subject in the sense that the character is your avatar and you’re supposed to put yourself in his shoes. However, at the same time I feel that your character is a conduit for exploring the ethical aspects about transhumanism and in that way the player is an object.
At the beginning of the game this character is 100% human and through the initial incident where he gets badly injured, he’s forced to the operating table and there’s an underlying theme where the people who save him went a bit beyond the call of duty in fixing him. So there’s a dichotomy where although you ultimately become the hero you’re also a victim at the same time in that you didn’t ask for this. It asks an important question about how far people should be allowed to go with these things and to which extent are you improving who we are or stopping someone from deciding for themselves what’s best for them.
