AUGMENTATIONS/SPECIAL ABILITIES
JC Denton won't be born for two years and there are no known cases of human nano-augmentation, only mechs like Gunther Hermann and Anna Navarre. In Deus Ex: HR, you'll get full-blown, heavy-duty body part replacements, rather than clean and invisible sub-dermal nano-tech. These upgradeable implants don't look quite like the clunky 'Roboscopian' attachments that we saw on Gunther and Anna, they've been visually redesigned to be closer to modern-day prosthetics: smooth skintone plastic plates cladding a steel endoskeleton. Since each aug you install can visibly alter your character (but not all of them do), your choices customise your appearance at the same time as your abilities. Some of the mechanical augmentations passively improve your abilities, and can also take the form of special combat moves. As you use some of these special moves, the camera pulls back to show you doing it. It will also switch to third person when you make use of the game's new cover system. This should allow for more tactical combat as you will be using it in combat for the tactical aspect, but also when you're stealthy, because the camera allows you to see more what the enemies are doing.
Augmentations will span several categories and capabilities. Among others, there will be augs for strength, jumping, sight enhancement, and defense.
DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION TAKES PLACE LESS THAN 2O YEARS FROM NOW - SO HOW REALISTIC ARE THE AUGMENTATIONS?
The DX:HR team is working with multiple specialists in the field of neural sciences to ensure augmentations are scientifically feasible. Although this is of course a game so it must be entertaining, all of the augmentations in the game are rooted in scientific fact.
HOW DOES EXPERIENCE & SKILL POINTS FIT IN?
DX:HR will use experience gained through completing objectives, exploration, or other means to "upgrade" or "learn better use of" purchased augmentations. There is some versatility in character build; you aren't forced to use your skill points in the same manner at the beginning of the game, you can use other configurations and clear the levels of the game. You can modify yourself and your weapons to be able to do different things and also in the physical world there are different ways to complete an objective. It's about multi-path and multi-solution - it depends on your own personal style of play. But you won't be able to get every augmentation or weapon in one playthrough - as mentioned already, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is about choice and consequences, so multiple playthroughs will be required to find and use everything.
Experience Points accumulated during the game experience are spent to gain new, or improve upon, already possessed talents conferred by augmentation. As an example: everyone can shoot a gun, simple point and shoot. Only practice and experience will make you a better shot. Same applies to hacking: everyone can use a low level hacking software to help out, but skilled and experienced hackers will be faster, better, and have less risk of getting noticed while on their endeavor. You can spend skill points on augs. Weapons are upgraded by other means, such as with money or if you find an upgrade in the environment (i.e. searching off the beaten path). But your handling of the weapons are "upgraded" via augmentation (recoil and accuracy) which are basically "arm augment" related.
WHAT ABOUT COMBAT/COVER/STEALTH & WEAPONS?
The game's main focus is not on combat - it's on you choosing how you want to play. The dev team wants to make combat and the actual mechanics of firing a gun better than it was in DX. Not more frequent, not more important, just better in the instances in which you will use it.
Deus Ex had boss fights - Walton Simons, Gunther Hermann, etc., but they weren't the Zelda "hit the boss in the eye three times to kill it" kind of boss fight, and neither is Deus Ex: HR's.
The weapons in DX:HR will be similar to those of our own time, based on real life models so that they have credibility. In addition, there will be some prototype weapons that are a bit more futuristic. Weapons will be upgradeable and will face the same difficult choices as your cybernetic innards. There will be unique upgrades and customisation that might change the behaviour of certain weapons. There is going to be a mix.
In DX:HR, stats have been removed from the act of shooting and instead relies on your ability to target with your mouse and keyboard. However stats have not been removed from you building your character or modifying weapons. There may be other examples of stats/simulation like this in the game, but it must be restated: combat is not more frequent than DX1, not more important, just better in the instances in which you will use it.
The design has been updated to utilise a cover system should you choose to engage it. As the game is first person, it is only if you press a key when up against a wall that the view changes to third person perspective. As soon as you move away from the wall, the game returns to first person. You don't have to engage the cover system if you don't want to. You can just easily walk up to that same wall in first person and never see the third person cover. It remains your choice... an option if you wish to see the way Adam looks with augmentations you've chosen throughout the game.
Stealth in DX:HR is based on light and sound; shadows are no longer used as the primary stealth element - it will be line-of-sight and sound propagation. You can hide anywhere you see fit as long as you're hidden by an obstacle and don't produce too much noise.
WHY CHANGES TO HEALTH REGENERATION?
DX:HR takes place about 20 years from now and various militaries are currently experimenting with the beginning of new technology in terms of patching-up wounded soldiers on the battlefield of limiting how much pain they feel when wounded. How far will it advance in 20 years and what will be more realistic at that time? A suit having some kind of repairing ability or morphine injection, or running around looking for a medic or health kit in a bathroom? We already know Adam works for a very advanced firm so who knows what kind of tech they'll have access to.
The dev team wants players to focus on the gameplay challenges and on how they will tackle them. Going with the classic health pack system still forces players to retreat from confrontations and break the flow of the game to look for health packs when they run out of them. Instead of retreating to a previous location to grab/grind/harvest more med packs, the system keeps you in the action. The player is now forced to retreat in a tactical manner if he's in trouble, but he doesn't have to leave the whole area and start over because he was too low on health and stuck somewhere due to that fact. Its purpose is to increase the level of enjoyment of a player and remove all the down-time of back and forth induced by a "get medpack" philosophy. Overall, the team wants the player to stay in the events surrounding him and experience the tension indefinitely.
Additionally, the regen system works hand in hand with the cover system for creating and maintaining tension in the game experience. The cover system allows the player to take a few moments to rest and heal, but also to form a strategy before going back into action. This creates a trial and error system which is beneficiary to the player and doesn't require a frustrating reload (from death). So instead of running out of medpacks from trying different strategies, the player can move back and take cover, regroup, and go at it again until he finds a suitable solution.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution like its predecessors is about choice and consequences, and the health regen situation, of course, only occurs during combat. In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you can have multiple ways to complete an objective, so avoiding combat altogether is often an option to advancing in the game.
What triggers the healing and how quickly health is replenished are still being tweaked, but it’s not like CoD4 where the very second you stop getting shot you start to cure. And as said above, combat is effectively optional; it’s only one of four approaches to the world. Somebody who only sticks to the combative side of DX:HR will enjoy a nice shooter, but will miss out on a huge amount of the game, just like anybody who played DX 1 by sticking exclusively to the main path and never went exploring, missed out on the world around them.
