Deus Ex: Human Revolution cut India, broader Montreal

Deus Ex: Human Revolution art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête talks about the cities and expanded locations that were cut from the game due to time constraints.

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Jensen visits a handful of cities in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, but Eidos Montreal actually planned to show off more locations.

"We had planned for a lot more city hubs," art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête said. "Montreal was supposed to be one. Upper Heng Sha was actually built, but it was never finished."

"At the beginning of the project we even planned to go to India. But as we constructed the city hubs, and understood the amount of work it took, we had to pare it down," the director told Edge

Those who have played the game know that Montreal is a location, but you don't venture outside the mission-specific building. "There were definitely supposed to be some streets to Montreal," he said. "There were outdoor locations set in one of the most famous neighborhoods of Montreal, called Plateau. It's got very specific architecture, called tri-plexes, with twirling exterior staircases made of this old metal." He says they drew concept sketches of the streets decades from now.

The game's scope was scaled down due to development needs as time went on. He says they "could fill an Ikea catalog with all the furniture we designed." Despite the cuts, Jacques-Belletête says he's thankful for the versatility allowed by the project. "[My bosses] allowed me to [dive into this] heavy design research aspect of the game which I think is awesome and, even if the players don't notice, I'm utterly convinced your subconscious registers these things."

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From The Chatty
  • reply
    September 2, 2011 9:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Deus Ex: Human Revolution cut India, broader Montreal.

    Deus Ex: Human Revolution art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête talks about the cities and expanded locations that were cut from the game due to time constraints.

    • reply
      September 2, 2011 9:06 AM

      Prepare for first DLC ...

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      September 2, 2011 9:08 AM

      I would have waited :(

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        September 2, 2011 10:41 AM

        it's less about time and more about how much the game cost to make compared to what it will bring in. I'm sure they could have spent another two years polishing it and adding shit to it but at a certain point, unless you are Valve or Blizzard (and can do whatever you want thanks to infinite money) you have to ship the thing. after a while it just won't be profitable. and based on how much they are increasing staff at Eidos Montreal as a result of this game I am glad they did it. that just means that the game was a success and they will have more people to make an even more awesome game next.

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      September 2, 2011 9:08 AM

      That's pretty common; the first Deus Ex had Dallas and the space station cut during dev.

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      September 2, 2011 9:09 AM

      I think the game could've used another up instead of having you return to the same ones, but it's not like anyone can complain about lack of content.

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        September 2, 2011 9:09 AM

        Exactly how I feel; I'd never complain about getting more Deus Ex, but given Steam has my first playthrough clocked at like 45 hours how can I possible bitch about it?

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          September 2, 2011 10:14 AM

          Agreed. I clocked in about 35 hours. Just started a new one and I've already spent more time in Detroit then in my previous game.

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      September 2, 2011 9:13 AM

      MAN, I knew it.. it felt like instead of putting in more locations, they decided to polish the few they had. I sort of wish we had more environments with less polish..that was sort of the charm of the original deus ex.

    • rms legacy 10 years legacy 20 years mercury super mega
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      September 2, 2011 9:17 AM

      Unreal 1 had huge levels and a large hub area in the beta, that were all cut :(

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      September 2, 2011 10:05 AM

      I'm actually glad, hub levels were wearing thin for me, actual missions were far more interesting.

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      September 2, 2011 10:18 AM

      I live in Montreal and this definitely would have been cool to see in virtual form. The city's got some great architecture.

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      September 2, 2011 10:22 AM

      Based on the original trailers, it's obvious they intended to include them but ran out of time. Example: Fedorova shooting up a city in the trailer to spark the riots - in the game they just occur after a mission. She barely had any dialogue and I imagine they wanted more out of her. Barrett, in the trailer, was also fighting you on some rooftops - I assume Heng Sha. In the game you fight him at the FEMA camp.

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        September 2, 2011 10:56 AM

        Actually, if you notice, that entire magnificent trailer was mostly stitched together from different parts in the game itself. For instance, Barrett amongst the troops at the Hengsha port, those Fedorova segments mostly taken from her animations in the prologue, the more awesome variation on the RPG ambush (I was hoping it'd be a case of a barely-controlled descent with Malik and the Icarus system rather than how it turned out), more prominence given to Sarif's Illuminati comments with them in his office rather than Jensen's apartment...

        Speaking of, actually, I do wish the trailer FMV work was used for the game itself. I felt a little disappointed that the gorgeous quality of the Squeenix CGI wasn't evident in the in-game cutscenes. They were functional, but they weren't ridiculously good-looking like the Icarus trailer.

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          September 2, 2011 10:58 AM

          Agreed. Square-Enix trailers are a cut above

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          September 2, 2011 11:47 AM

          I was disappointed that the game didn't look like the CG, after Crysis I just stupidly jumped to the conclusion that it would :(

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          September 3, 2011 1:40 PM

          Yeah, not sure what's up with the low-res FMV. It was way too dark, too.

          It's turning out to be one of those games where I had fun while I was playing it, but as I realize all the mistakes they made and corners they cut, it really diminishes the lasting value of the game.

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        September 2, 2011 11:38 AM

        At the end it looks like Jensen is in some sort of space suit or something too. Actually, I was wondering if that was an alternate solo-transportation system to Panchaea that was supposed to resemble Icarus / Daedalus.

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          September 2, 2011 3:09 PM

          It looked exactly the same except in the trailer he was wearing a helmet

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      September 2, 2011 10:41 AM

      [deleted]

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      September 2, 2011 10:43 AM

      Wait no upper Heng Sha? What the hell they talked about this so much I was sure I'd get to it eventually. Good thing I found out now instead of at the credits. I just arrived in Montreal and was expecting it to be a hub too lol.

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      September 2, 2011 11:13 AM

      When they sent me back to China the alarm bells went off: I knew they were grasping for more play time. The news that they cut a lot from this game is very unsurprising.

      The play time was decent, and I looked forward to jumping back into the game as soon as I left it, but it could have used a couple more locations, and a lot more enemies.

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      September 2, 2011 11:15 AM

      Did anyone else upgrade the crap out of the 10mm pistol and kill everything in the game with it? I stockpiled like 5 weapons and thousands of rounds of ammo, but I never needed them.

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        September 2, 2011 11:20 AM

        Haha, yup. That and the stungun. Really only used one other gun on occasion. Also, I rarely spent creds. I had a fortune at the end of the game. I wish they'd had something to spend them on.

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          September 2, 2011 1:03 PM

          There are plenty of Praxis upgrades to purchase - you need to buy them at that augmentation hospital (I forget the name of it). One of them runs 5000 credits, and I know I bought at least 6 of them, so there's a good 30k credits right there.

          And then there's weapon upgrades and AUD's, which I always buy when I find them for sale.

          There's plenty of stuff to spend your money on, and there will still be some left over when you beat the game.

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        September 2, 2011 1:09 PM

        I upgraded it with the perk that lets you shoot through armor, so I used it against helmeted enemies; other than that I went crazy with my shotty, heavy machine gun, and assault rifle.

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          September 3, 2011 1:36 PM

          I just hid behind something, targeted their heads, then whipped around and blew their brains out with a single bullet. The helmeted guys took two bullets. The only time I used any other gun was because I was cornered by 10 dudes. Even then, as long as they didn't throw grenades I could still pick them off with simple headshots.

          This really made the game waaaay too easy.

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        September 6, 2011 4:37 PM

        I found I really only needed the other weapons for bots if they did see me, and the boss fights.

        Apart from this I stuck with my heavily upgraded pistol.

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      September 2, 2011 11:30 AM

      I always thought it was odd that they set up the idea of Upper Heng Sha and Lower Heng Sha and then they only use one of them. That explains a lot.

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        September 2, 2011 12:21 PM

        yeah i really wanted to explore upper, i would pay for DLC of all these cut ones.

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      September 2, 2011 1:02 PM

      I'm glad they knew their limits and decided on quality over quantity. I'm disappointed we didn't get to see the missing city hubs - the game felt lacking in that aspect - but hopefully we'll see them in a better state in DLC :)

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      September 3, 2011 11:52 PM

      would have been epic if they had put the extra content in there.

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      September 8, 2011 3:47 PM

      pff lagangduplateau :p

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