The rise, the epic fall, and the brief survival of Ion Storm has given us Deus Ex, a game that has set the standard for narration, plot, and atmosphere among others in gaming. It was followed by an ambitious sequel that was destined to learn from the earlier mistakes and advance the lore of the franchise even further. It was named Deus Ex Invisible War.
Very often this game is described as the “weakest entry in the Deus Ex franchise”, a verdict that has been echoed a lot over the years almost as a quote whenever the game is brought up and that is almost all that is said about this game since 2010 and onwards. It’s hard to disagree, but it hardly tells the full story for such a controversial game. Below the bad design choices lies the bad technical performance. But below that lies an interesting, though brief, story that is at times deeper and more atmospheric than in the prequel.
By far the biggest issue of the game is the level design, which divided the maps into many cramped sections. This, as well as many other detrimental design choices, were apparently done to accommodate console ports natively, which had very low memory at the time, though some other contemporary console games don’t seem to have this problem. This really hurt the atmosphere as the game becomes almost linear with such tight map geometry that is also reused. This also naturally meant that the depth of the game environment was damaged, as there were not even that many NPCs or things to do. The addition of universal ammo may seem interesting, but in reality this game shows why it is a bad idea. There is very little of it towards the end of the game and heavier weapons are practically a non-starter after a point. Simply put, having a lot of universal ammo is not the same as having a lot of various types of ammo, funnily enough. The setting was also kinda squandered, as you never see that much of what makes this world post-apocalyptic really, other than the VersaLife facility and Liberty Island, not to mention the relative absence and fleshing out of any lore post the original game. Plot-wise, the endings were very vague as well, except for the Omar one; they don’t tell you what happens to your character and they skimp out on the actual effects of your choice. While this adds to the uncertainty of whether your choice was correct, it also means that there is practically no epilogue or idea of what happens next to the world, which is unsatisfying. Some of the characters were misused; Billie Adams, Dr. Nassif, or the other characters that you meet later could have made such charismatic allies or opponents, but that never came to be. Also, practically no boss fights. Not that they were great in DX. No water segments either, if you were a fan of that. The game is also much shorter than the prequel, which is why the plot feels rushed and also why there is hardly any consequence to choices made earlier in the game with respect to the ending or the overarching plot. Whether this is due to time or console considerations is unknown, but the lack of too much cut content would seem to indicate that the plot was planned like this from the start.
Lastly, the technical state of the game is surprisingly bad, once again due to the console ports. It is unbelievable that a game needs to open a new window to load into a new tiny area. Cinematics were also used too sparingly even if they were not amazing and look bad in 2k. Getting the game to run is also a chore and crashes liberally.
I should also add that the actual gunplay is nothing special at all, though it is somewhat better than in DX, which is much harder to play without laser sights.
With that being said, the game has some value that, subjectively, may make it enjoyable. I know it did for me eventually. This game got a lot of criticism for trying to go into too much sci-fi as opposed to the more grounded setting of DX, but I actually really liked this part, as it
raised somewhat newer questions and gave off a totally unique atmosphere that is not present in any of the other games in the series. This atmosphere, aided by the late-game bgm, is much more mysterious and heavy. For fans of the series in general, this game and its setting is a serious contrast to the other games, especially the ones that followed DXIW. While the story was at times lackluster, it shows an interesting take on sci fi and the direction that the franchise was supposed to take, though it would seem that Ion Storm had trouble with this direction, judging from the failed sequels/prequels and spin offs as well as the plot of this game. Stealth is probably better and more nuanced than in the original (though you can mostly just run the entire last mission through with optic camo).
Most importantly, the narrative freedom of the game creates a rare opportunity for actual moral choices with pretty heavy (even if not varied) in game effects, be it to burn down a man’s livelihood simply because it is expedient or to choose the lesser of two evils. In later years, this has come to be known as “grey morality”, but the choices are somewhat beyond even that COD marketing term; at the start the choices are spoon fed to you, but at the end, you are simply choosing between the most morally corrupt French couple alive, a genocidal maniac, and infodumping expert extraordinaire. You can also simply not choose and the game will punish you even more decisively. Either way you sell yourself. Perhaps the only thing you can’t explicitly do is turn into an Omar. These choices are not particularly complex, nor does one choice affect the next necessarily, but they build up to a pretty dark and unforgiving allegory as well as commentary on sociopolitical problems. This aspect of the game has aged very well. Maybe only Cyberpunk is of a vaguely similar caliber, setting, and uses similar narrative structures, even if almost exclusively in the end game, and it mostly focuses on the personal allegory part, not the social commentary with respect to the choices made. Compare this to the DX endings, where there was only one singular evil in the face of Bob Page, with Helios, Everett, and Tong not yet having shown their flaws nor have they given too much reason to not trust them. They were more like salesman, whereas the leaders here are all creepy in their own way and would have killed you a long time ago if they did not need you.
It is a shame that such a promising game was marred by problems of contemporary games as well as a relatively underwhelming plot. The game came, got decent sales and ratings, and was forgotten, with Ion Storm following it into damnation, and the franchise coming close to following suit. It was forgotten quickly enough that even the dedicated wiki pages are quite a bit thin as compared to any other game in the series. I can only recommend this game to fans of the franchise who have played at least the previous game, if not the Eidos-Montreal ones as well. They may enjoy this game (if they can get it to work) for its atmosphere and setting that is very different to the other DX games, even if the graphics and the map design are pretty dated and look simply odd 20 years later. It doesn’t take much time to play through and can cost very little on sale. I know it will never happen, but I almost wish for some kind of a reboot of this game or perhaps a loose adaptation of it as a tv series or something. In the very least the premise and the narration had the potential for this.
Also, weirdly the steam page only has what appear to be pre-release screenshots and artwork, not the versions one will actually find in game. Finally, it is somewhat curious that some covers had the motto “The Future War on Terror” which hardly applies to this game, but certainly fits the 2003 political climate. Yet another Ion Storm marketing W.
