2000's Deus Ex is a truly iconic action-adventure, fusing first-person exploration with engaging combat, RPG mechanics, open-ended puzzles and a gripping sci-fi narrative.
A critical and commercial smash hit, it was always bound to get a sequel – but even the most hardcore fans will admit that 2003's Deus Ex: Invisible War didn't quite live up to the original's standards.
Project director Harvey Smith and designer Ricardo Bare have been speaking to EDGE magazine about the making of the game, and they touch upon the struggles of producing a sequel to such an acclaimed PC game with console hardware as the main focus.
Smith and Bare remain close even today, and reveal the one aspect of Invisible War they continue to disagree on: its unique ammo system.
Unlike pretty much every other game with guns you could mention, Invisible War doesn't have ammo types for each firearm, but a 'universal' ammo type that can be used across all weapons.
"I wanted to solve an immersive-sim problem, where players would have their two favourite guns," Smith tells EDGE. "But they'd never even fire these other three guns. At the time, I was like, 'Let's lean into nanotechnology: what if all the ammunition is based on the same matter?'"
On paper, it sounds like an elegant solution – but Bare reveals that he didn't like it then, and still doesn't like it now, for one pretty obvious reason.
"You're out of ammo for one weapon and you can't switch to any of the other weapons?" he says. "We give Harvey shit about it all the time."