GAME · 2000 · USA
Deus Ex
- Developer
- Ion Storm
- Publisher
- Eidos Interactive, Suntendy Interactive Multimedia Co.,Ltd.
- Platforms
- PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, Mac operating system, Classic Mac OS
27 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Nov 2026
27 Interesting Facts About Deus Ex
Interesting Facts (5)
- #001
Due to memory constraints, the World Trade Center towers were not included in the New York skyline. In an eerie coincidence, the in-game story told of the Twin Towers being destroyed in a terrorist attack, exactly one year before the September 11, 2001 attacks.
- #002
Warren Spector did not much care for the opening music. While planning to tell the composer to do something different, he realized he could not get the melody out of his head, and so decided to leave the music as it was.
- #003
The entire game takes place at night; the only exception is the scene at the end of the Hong Kong missions where the helicopter picks you up, which is set during the day.
- #004
Thanks to its structure, which gives players the freedom to find different solutions to problems, it is possible to finish Deus Ex without drawing a weapon.
- #005
The design of the robots was inspired by the ED-209 robot from the 1987 film RoboCop.
Production Story (17)
- #006
Deus Ex began life as "Troubleshooter", a design that laid out its core gameplay ideas and a setting grounded in the real world.
- #007
Warren Spector pitched Deus Ex to Origin Systems and Looking Glass Studios, and both turned it down: too ambitious, beyond the technology of the day, and of little interest to senior staff.
- #008
Ion Storm co-founder John Romero invited Warren Spector to join the new studio with complete creative freedom on his next project. Spector said yes and set up Ion Storm's Austin studio, where Deus Ex was made.
- #009
- #010
Spector's goals for Deus Ex, set down in his design document, included "problems, not puzzles", "no forced failure", "players do; NPCs watch" and "areas with multiple entrance and exit points", all in the name of giving players as much freedom as possible.
- #011
The Unreal Engine was made for first-person shooters, so the Deus Ex developers had to build RPG systems such as leveling and inventory themselves, plus graphical extras like lip syncing for dialogue.
- #012
Bad press around Ion Storm's Dallas studio, from the Daikatana (2000) controversies to the troubled production of Anachronox (2001), dragged down morale on the Deus Ex team. The Austin group fell into what Spector called an unhelpful "'we'll show them' mentality", determined to distance its work from Dallas.
- #013
Completed pieces from the parts of Deus Ex that were cut found their way into the final story and levels.
- #014
Martin was unhappy that parts of Deus Ex had to be cut, but understood that the game had to ship given the problems with Ion Storm's other titles. Spector later said that, apart from inventory management and NPC conversations, every part of the game's systems was redesigned in some way during production.
- #015
The Deus Ex story changed a great deal in production: supporting characters and villains were heavily reworked and the plot was streamlined at the suggestion of staff such as Smith, while JC Denton's presence and his role as a government agent stayed the same.
- #016
Much of Deus Ex's subject matter, terrorism and cybernetically-enhanced soldiers among it, came straight from news stories that kept appearing in 1997, and some plot points, like the references to the Trilateral Commission and modern protest groups, were described as "literally ripped from the headlines."
- #017
Sheldon Pacotti was Deus Ex's lead writer, with extra material from Chris Todd and Austin Grossman: Grossman handled the short verbal "barks" and conversation rewrites, and Todd wrote the in-game texts and the opening and ending cutscenes.
- #018
By the time Sheldon Pacotti came aboard Deus Ex in 1999, every character already had a name and a detailed backstory; his main task was turning Spector and Smith's plans into the finished game.
- #019
Dozens of character ideas from the original Deus Ex design document made it into the final game, though they had to be adjusted to fit design limits.
- #020
Because characters like Paul could die in Deus Ex, they couldn't be fully woven into the second half of the story. Scenes wrapping up their storylines if they survived were added late in development, after a meeting between Smith, Church and the writers.
- #021
Deus Ex's endings were built as separate choices near the end, unaffected by anything the player did earlier; Smith explained that this avoided locking players into a path because of choices they might not have understood. An ending in which the player either died at Page's hands or joined him was planned and then dropped for lack of time.
- #022
The club music in Deus Ex's New York, Paris and Hong Kong settings is by Reeves Gabrels.
Behind the Scenes (4)
- #023
An early industry demo drew negative feedback from attendees including well-known designers Doug Church and Gabe Newell, and in response Deus Ex's augmentation gameplay was reworked around a limited energy supply.
- #024
Deus Ex programmer Scott Martin wrote a wide range of new NPC behaviors, such as patrolling, idling and sitting down. Early testing showed enemy reactions and detection were so sharp that he had to tone them down.
- #025
Brandon called the Deus Ex voice acting "really cheesy", but said it worked because it put across each character's personality quickly.
- #026
Franke reckoned his Deus Ex lines came to between 11,000 and 14,000 words. Since he was also a QA tester on the game, the sound team put his lines in very late so he wouldn't have to listen to himself while testing.
Characters & Cast (1)
- #027
Both JC and Paul Denton in Deus Ex were voiced by Jay Anthony Franke, an aspiring voice actor then working in quality assurance at Ion Storm.
Related pages
- BioShock — Deus Ex comes up in the facts on that page
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic — Deus Ex comes up in the facts on that page
- Donnie Darko — Deus Ex comes up in the facts on that page
Sources & editorial notes
Sources for the entries on this page
- Wikipedia Deus Ex (video game) — Wikipedia
Information from external sources is independently selected, consolidated and edited by Arka Evren. Sources are listed for verification and further reading. Encyclopedia text is used under its licence (CC BY-SA). How we work