Those
ceilings. I don’t think I’ve seen any work of visual fiction – game, movie, or otherwise – in the past decade whose art direction felt as genuinely futuristic as Human Revolution did. From amplifying current trends (extrapolating Zaha Hadid into wild, web-covered high-rises) to speculating the black-swans of fashion (a sudden rise of neo-Italian Renaissance couture), mixing in streaks of classic cyberpunk (Hengsha’s city-over-a-city), the game’s aesthetic is immersive in a way not even matched by even its (in some ways superior) predecessor.
The internet joke about the original Deus Ex is that every time it’s mentioned, someone reinstalls it, but I think this just convinced me it’s time to replay Human Revolution.