Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is the follow-up to the hugely successful Human Revolution from all the way back in 2011. Despite 5 years in development, the game itself is set two years after the events of Human Revolution and the world seems to be right on the brink of civil war. Half a decade, however, is a long time to leave between games, and a lot can change in that time. Back in 2011, everyone was coming to terms with what an iPad was, Kony wasn’t even a thing, and Donald Trump running for President of the United States? Phh, never in a million years! Fortunately, (or unfortunately, if you didn’t like Human Revolution) Eidos Montreal have stuck to their guns and pumped out a game that has improved on the best parts of its predecessor, while still leaving the weaker elements of the game unchanged.

Most open world RPG’s these days look at creating the biggest environments they can. Once that is complete, they are filled with fetch quests, very familiar looking NPC’s and repetitive side missions. Mankind Divided has gone in the opposite way, and while still an open world game,it has been crafted to work hand in (mechanical) hand with your upgradeable augments. I haven’t come across many games where I have felt like I can really play the way I want to play. My first play through, I upgraded my hacking skills and dash ability to let me reach ledges that would have been otherwise inaccessible. These led me to vents so I could sneak to an objective. My second play through I invested in a cloaking augment and silent footsteps, so I could run through areas undetected. You can invest in strength to move heavy objects to clear doorways, armour to resist electricity shock or the ability to punch through walls, all to navigate into different areas. Your other option is to invest in the less subtle approach, which has been hugely improved in Mankind Divided. Rather than feeling like a blind stormtrooper trying to shoot those damn rebel scum, the weapons and combat system feels like it’s gone through an overhaul. You can now upgrade weapons as well as adding different attachments to them, craft ammo and tools that will help you fight or sneak your way through encounters and have access to multitudes of different mines and grenades to suit any play style. By the time I had got about halfway through my new game plus, I had unlocked every augment fully, so you are certainly not limited to one style of play over another.

The environments themselves are the perfect playground to test all your new-found augments in. The fictionalised version of Prague is where you will be spending most of your time in Mankind Divided. Prague is a city that had taken its first steps towards the future by encouraging augmented citizens to take up residents in it’s streets. If it sounds nice, that’s probably because it was. By the time you rock up, the shit has hit the proverbial fan, and segregation has come back around like it’s going out of fashion. The game does take you to a couple of other locations that are all interesting in their own ways as well, and all of them encourage exploration (despite most areas being quite quick to get through if you wanted too). For almost all of these areas, there are dozens of ways that they can be approached, depending on the skills that you have. Can’t hack a key code to disable a security station? That’s fine, take out one of the cops and they’ll have it on a pocket secretary. Can’t find an upgrade part you need to steal to make yourself more of a badass? Have a chat with the mob boss and use your social enhancer to convince him to give it to you. Mankind Divided has some of the smartest and most fun level design I have played in recent memory, and that’s no small feat to accomplish.

The other very refreshing thing about this game is the side missions. Mankind Divided has clearly gone for quality over quantity, which I normally always prefer with the exception of alcohol (how else does a poor man drink away his regrets?). There are around 15 side missions in the game, some of which can actually be very easy to miss since you are only prompted to start about 5 of them. Every one of these side missions focuses on a story, rather than just collecting something or killing someone. In all cases there is a short way and a long way to complete something, and depending how much time you want to spend on it, it can give very different results. I played through one side mission where I had missed information and it resulted in a firefight, closely followed up by me having to explain myself to the cops and risking another firefight. The second play through I found the extra information, and was able to get them to turn themselves in (as well as unlock a nifty trophy since I’m a pretty big trophy whore). These side missions always offered up interesting breaks from a relatively short story turning the game from around 7-8 hours for the main story, to anywhere between 16-20 hours long. As with most games nowadays, Mankind Divided does offer you a player choice to a degree, but the consequences of these choices are relatively minor. There is one choice in particular that will give you the option between two different missions and affect if someone dies or not at the end, but whatever choice you make, the end result overall can be the same.

Since even perfect games are normally not, I will briefly touch on the few things that didn’t work so well with this game. Visually, this game goes from looking amazing to looking dated very quickly. All the environments are knockouts, walking through different areas tells a story as to what might have happened there which is fantastic. As soon as you see another human being (augmented or not) it goes downhill very quickly. It seems that Adam Jensen is the only man in Prague whose lips actually move to the words he is saying. The rest of the cast looked like they had all just discovered Dubsmash but then were all equally shit at using it. That’s not having a crack at the voice acting, which was good (although nothing particularly memorable), but the character models in cutscenes and conversations often looked like something you would have expected to see from last generation game, and not even a high quality one at that. As well as that, the story does leave a little bit to be desired. Prague, and the wider world as a whole, is at the boiling point of confrontation between Naturals and Augs, and there are all types of radical parties on either side. The Illuminati from Human Revolution are still pulling the strings and the story drives you towards uncovering a big conspiracy. Ultimately, however, the story ends investigating the events that Mankind Divided opened with and doesn’t evolve from there. While it’s not a bad story, it feels like either wasted potential or an overly drawn out prequel to something bigger (especially given a scene revealed during the credits).

Mankind Divided is what most people are looking for in most open world RPG’s, and that is the ability to play the way you want to play. It is clear that its priority was to create an enriching experience that would have you going back for multiple playthroughs above all else. All else in this case, was a stronger story and some visual quirks, but those are definitely not things that should stop you from buying, playing and loving this game. Very rarely have I finished a game, only to immediately start new game plus and then complete it all over again the next day, but with this one I did. You don’t know me, but that should be a better indication for you than any number out of ten. Since you don’t know me, I’ll add one anyway.