Deus Ex (2000)
Deus Ex is a 2000 shooter video game made by Ion Storm and Eidos Interactive.
Deus Ex takes the conspiracy thriller seriously as philosophy. Set in a 2052 where plague, terrorism, and corporate power have corroded democratic institutions to shells, it casts you as JC Denton, a nano-augmented operative for an anti-terrorism agency called UNATCO, assigned to retake Liberty Island from a separatist group. Every conversation, every environment, and every system the game builds is in service of the same question: who actually holds power, and what do they want from you? It remains one of the most rigorously constructed arguments for player agency in a political context that the medium has produced.
Quick answers
What is Deus Ex about?
Deus Ex takes the conspiracy thriller seriously as philosophy. Set in a 2052 where plague, terrorism, and corporate power have corroded democratic institutions to shells, it casts you as JC Denton, a nano-augmented operative for an anti-terrorism agency called UNATCO, assigned to retake Liberty Island from a separatist group. Every conversation, every environment, and every system the game builds is in service of the same question: who actually holds power, and what do they want from you? It remains one of the most rigorously constructed arguments for player agency in a political context that the medium has produced.
When was Deus Ex released?
Deus Ex was released on 26 June 2000.
Who made Deus Ex?
Deus Ex was made by Ion Storm, Eidos Interactive and Square Enix.
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Explore Deus Ex guides
Deus Ex in our writing
- Companion guide: Conspiracy Thrillers
- Companion guide: Cyberpunk: The Complete Guide to the Wired World
- Companion guide: Cyberpunk & Dystopia
- Companion guide: Cyborgs & Augmentation
A few thoughts on Deus Ex
BioShock inherits Deus Ex's tradition of the shooter that makes you interrogate your own obedience, transposing the argument from near-future conspiracy to Ayn Rand's drowned utopia. For the same corporate-dystopia paranoia in television, Incorporated places two characters on opposite sides of the same class divide.
Conspiracy That Goes All the Way Down
Pull one thread and the entire structure of authority unravels. These works share Deus Ex's commitment to the idea that no institution is what it claims to be.
Multiple Solutions, No Right Answer
Games that give you a goal and step back. Combat, stealth, hacking, social engineering: the path you pick says something about you.