- Playing Deus Ex: Invisible War like it always should have been - 4 May 2026
To hijack a robot I have to stay nearby for a non-trivial amount of time. When I want to hack a chickenwalker military bot right out of RoboCop, I sneak behind it while a timer counts down as it patrols, every stomp shaking my screen as I follow it—right into the open where guards might see me... Read more.
- Deus Ex: Invisible War's audio director says 'there was room for improvement,' but remains proud of the team's work - 29 March 2026
fter serving as a composer on the original Deus Ex, and contributing some voices, Alexander Brandon was made audio director on its sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War. The second game in the series has long been divisive , and was Brandon's first time as an audio director. As he told PC Gamer's Wes Fenlon in a recent interview, "There was room for improvement, I will just put it that way.".. Read more.
- Deus Ex's maligned sequel was the most 2026 game of 2003: It clocked the 21st century even harder than Metal Gear Solid 2 - 16 March 2026
Picture it: a crumbling world in the wake of a great collapse, filled with pornographic inequality and quotidian violence. A world where the uttermost limit of respectable politics seems to be presiding over—sometimes slowing, sometimes hastening, never reversing—a process of inexorable decline... Read more.
- In defense of Deus Ex: Invisible War - 8 March 2026
Unfortunately, the week I scheduled to write about why Deus Ex: Invisible War is good actually turned out to be the same week its creators disowned it. They admitted to being just as annoyed as years of forumites and commenters were by the loading screens , the switch to universal ammo , and the overall console sensibilities of this sequel to what was an extremely PC-ass PC game... Read more.
- You can blame some of Deus Ex: Invisible War's console limitations on the publisher's 'weird theories that FPS games don't sell or RPGs don't sell' - 5 March 2026
s someone who rarely gets to enter the rarefied airs of the C-suite, my conception of what corporate executives do is roughly this: they issue forth critical misunderstandings of basic things that the people in the trenches then have to operate around and overcome in order to keep their jobs. See further—that time retail honchos told RPG devs n o one wants to buy games like Baldur's Gate anymore... Read more.
- Deus Ex: Invisible War wasn't what it should have been because the studio moved to an engine that was really built for Thief: 'A super-boneheaded call, very bad decision… it really tanked development' - 4 March 2026
Deus Ex: Invisible War has its defenders, including PC Gamer's own Joshua Wolens , but even the most stout-hearted of them would never go as far as saying it was a worthy sequel to the original. Where Deus Ex ripped up the rulebook and set an example that the immsim genre has struggled to replicate ever since, Invisible War was a much more trammelled game that, for all the good ideas, felt less expansive and ambitious... Read more.
- The devs on Deus Ex: Invisible War knew its most-hated part was a 'terrible idea,' and they give the director 'sh*t about it all the time' - 4 March 2026
For nearly four years, my author bio on this website has informed you that Deus Ex: Invisible War was pretty good, actually . The much-maligned sequel to one of the greatest games of all time had its flaws in spades, I don't deny that, but it kept enough of a beating imsim heart that my 13-year-old self fell in love with it nonetheless... Read more.
- The most underrated Deus Ex game is criminally cheap on Steam, even though you all deserve to pay more after being so mean about it - 16 April 2024
Sometimes, in our arrogance, in our ignorance, by some ugly quirk of fate, we reject the gifts we are given. We cast down beauty and topple perfection. We spit on art and forget that what is popular is not always right, and what is right is not always popular. You know, like when everyone pretended that Deus Ex: Invisible War wasn't an absolute, bona fide banger... Read more.
- Deus Ex: Invisible War has the best ending in the series - 8 April 2021
Deus Ex is a series about breaking into buildings. What makes it great is that it lets you work out exactly how you want to do that and gives you a ton of tools to execute your plan. Each game presents you with a series of architectural contraptions - puzzle boxes, really - full of guards to deal with (or sneak past), cameras to avoid (or hack), and bite-sized stories to find among the paperwork and email inboxes. A single locked door has a multitude of workarounds: you could hack a nearby computer to find an email that contains the password you need, or you could upgrade your prosthetic arms to lift a heavy box that conceals a nearby vent that lets you bypass the door entirely. For most of the games in the series, this sense of freedom in overcoming the many obstacles that block your way lasts right up until the end. Then it all collapses in on itself when you reach the ending. Even th…
- Which game deserves a No Man's Sky-style comeback? - 28 July 2018
No Man's Sky has managed to rediscover some of the hype it had back in 2016, when it disappointed us (and some other people maybe?) a little . With a peak of over 40,000 concurrent players the day the Next update arrived—now up to 80,000 on the weekend—there's clearly a resurgence of players and interest. Chris likes what he's seen of the expansion: " It's time to try it again ." Not everyone will, of course, but it's an interesting case study for a game staging a comeback, as it were. This week's PCG Q&A, then touches upon that subject. Which game deserves a No Man's Sky-style comeback? The answers can be pretty broad. It can be any singleplayer or online game that didn't quite reach its potential, or the audience it deserved. Maybe it was a patch or expansion away from being really good. We want to read your answers in the comments…
- The History of Ion Storm - 16 February 2018
This article was originally published in two parts across PC Gamer issue 313 and 314 . For more quality articles about all things PC gaming, you can subscribe now in the UK and the US .   Jake Hughes was working as a model designer on Starship Troopers when he received a call from Peter Marquardt. Marquardt was an actor—he played the bad guy in Robert Rodriguez’s first film, El Mariachi—but he also had a passion for games. The pair originally met on the set of Wing Commander IV, where Marquardt was shooting for the game’s cutscenes.  “He calls me up and he says, ‘Hey, John Romero is making a company and they’re looking for associate producers, come on out,’” Hughes says. “Peter was working on Daikatana, and Tom Hall was needing an associate producer. So I came out and I met Tom, and we connected instantly &#…
- The uncertain future of games like Deus Ex and Dishonored - 15 August 2017
Warren Spector is stuck in Prey. The director of Deus Ex, who has worked on many games since labeled "immersive sims"—in fact, he coined the term in a post-mortem of Deus Ex —has been playing the modern games inspired by classics like Thief and System Shock. But he hasn't finished Prey yet. Or, as he puts it: "The crew quarters are kicking my butt." He's enjoying it though, just as he enjoyed the other recent immersive sim from Arkane Studios, Dishonored 2. "I thought they were both excellent examples of what I think of when I say 'immersive sim,'" Spector says. "They removed barriers to belief that I was in another world and they let me approach problems as problems, rather than as puzzles. I'm really glad Arkane exists and that they're so committed to the genre. Without them I'd have fewer games to play!" Spector's not the only one…
- It's time for cyberpunk games to remember how to be punk - 15 February 2017
At the start of the 1988 adventure game based on William Gibson's genre-defining cyberpunk novel Neuromancer, you wake up face down in a plate of spaghetti. Well, it's synth-spaghetti because this is the future, but that doesn't make it any more comfortable. Like the book's protagonist Case you're a down-and-out former console cowboy who has lost the ability to hack, though in your case it's not due to traumatic surgery but simple poverty. You can't afford a new computer. Hell, you can't even afford to pay for the spaghetti. Author Bruce Sterling summed up the cyberpunk genre as a combination of “low-life and high-tech,” and that's a perfect description of both versions of Neuromancer. Later in the game you have the option to sell your internal organs for cash, and hack a computer at Cheap Hotel—its actual name—to…
- Deus Ex: Invisible War gets all-in-one unofficial patch - 19 January 2017
A new unofficial patch has arrived for Deus Ex: Invisible War , bringing widescreen support and a few fixes to the game that I still think would be remembered quite fondly if it weren’t named ‘Deus Ex’ . I found Invisible War technically fiddly and sloppy when I replayed it a few years back, and it sounds like the Visible Upgrade patch by ‘snobel’ fixes most of my gripes. It supports modern aspect ratios, including for folks who tape a dozen screens together, has an adjustable field of view, and fixes a few bugs. Oh, and it includes an optional high-res texture pack. Good stuff! …
- Deus Ex: Invisible War - what's good about the series' worst? - 27 October 2016
This article was originally published in PC Gamer issue 297 . For more quality articles about all things PC gaming, you can subscribe now in the UK and the US . Deus Ex opens on Liberty Island pier. Under the nighttime glow of New York s skyline, JC Denton gets to work, first making his way across the island, then infiltrating the statue and taking out the NSF terrorists inside. As an intro, it s indicative of the game to come: large, open and potentially alienating. No concessions are made. Deus Ex throws you straight into the deep end and challenges you to swim. By comparison, the opening of Deus Ex: Invisible War is a paddling pool. Alex D gets to work, walking through a blue-grey corridor not yet trusted with the tools that would allow her (or him) to break into the rooms of her fellow Tarsus recruits. She enters an elevator, triggering a loading screen. Playing now, on Windows 10,…
- Pip And Alice Chat: What Is Deus Ex Anyway? - 22 August 2016
With Deus Ex: Mankind Divided coming out on Tuesday (read our review ), Pip comes to Alice with an important request. Pip: ALICE! Alice: Hullo there, old chum! What’s cracking? Pip: The internet under the strain of all the Deus Ex: Mankind Divided reviews popping out of their embargo wombs, through the various CMS birth canals and into the digital world, I should think. On a related note, I have a question… Alice: You evidently already know where babies come from, so what can I help you with? Pip: Alice, I don’t get Deus Ex. Explain to me Deus Ex. …
- Revisiting Deus Ex: Invisible War, one of PC gaming's biggest disappointments - 16 August 2016
The Statue of Liberty doesn t play a huge role in either Deus Ex or its sequel, but I ve still come to think of it as the symbol of those games. It book-ends the series-as-was, prior to Human Revolution. The first mission of Deus Ex, the last mission of Invisible War. In the first game, it s a symbol of ambition: one of the largest and most intricate game spaces designed up to that point, full of secrets and ways to chart your own path. In Invisible War, it s more a sign of submission, where the sequel s many concessions to the original Xbox hardware are all on display. The inferior aesthetics that make every location look the same. The map split into chunks because the system can't keep it all in memory. The once natural choices now stated outright, blunt and simplified. Everything that the original map did so well, its return trip fails miserably to match. Such is the risk of followin…
- Have You Played Deus Ex: Invisible War? - 19 December 2015
Have You Played? is an endless stream of game recommendations. One a day, every day of the year, perhaps for all time. We’d remember Deus Ex: Invisible War more fondly if it weren’t named Deus Ex, wouldn’t we? So let’s imagine that. Released in 2003 by Ion Storm, Invisible War is a flawed but pretty fun FPS action-RPG, where we get to be a swanky cyborg larking about in that grim cyberpunk future. …
- Is Deus Ex Still The Best Game Ever? The Conclusion - 29 April 2015
This took rather longer than we thought. But after five entries, and two weeks, I’ve come to my conclusions. You can read the whole saga here , if you’ve not yet caught up, as I chronicle my experience of replaying Deus Ex – a game I’ve always maintained is the Best Game Ever – fifteen years later. Was I wrong? Is it even possible for me to be wrong? Read on. …
- Is Deus Ex Still The Best Game Ever? Part Five: Living, Playing, Ending - 23 April 2015
My chronicle of returning to Deus Ex fifteen years later, to see if I’m right when I tell anyone who comes near that it’s the best game ever, is nearing its end. You can read the whole saga here . In this fifth part I contemplate the significant change in approach in the last third of the game, and then make my choice for the ending. …
