Deus Ex: The Fall

Setting

The game is set in the year 2027 and features the playable character Ben Saxon, a former British soldier who becomes an augmented mercenary for Belltower Associates, a private military company. The story in the game directly follows that in James Swallow's Deus Ex: Icarus Effect, a tie-in novel to the 2011 game Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Plot

In their safe house in Costa Rica, Ben Saxon and Anna Kelso are hiding from the Illuminati, their henchman Jaron Namir, and his covert black ops unit, the Tyrants. Anna mourns the death of her superior, Matt Ryan, who was killed by the Tyrants. Ben recalls the loss of his squadmate, Sam Duarte, in the Australian civil war, and how Duarte's death lead to Ben's recruitment, and ultimately his falling out, with the Tyrants.

Both Anna and Ben are beginning to suffer the effects of mechanical augmentation rejection because of a global shortage of Neuropozyne, an anti-rejection drug that augmented humans must take to avoid augmentation rejection. Following advice from the mysterious Janus, Saxon travels to Panama City to acquire more. In Panama, he is offered an alternative: Riezene, a cheaper anti-rejection drug still being tested, while at the same time being sold on the streets. Ben eventually acquires Neuropozyne for himself and Anna from local LIMB doctor Camila Cardoso after he investigates the black market for Riezene, discovering that his old employer, Belltower Associates, is supervising illegal and dangerous population testing of Riezene on behalf of its manufacturer, Zaaphire Biotech.

Aided by Alex Vega, a disgruntled Belltower pilot, Ben tries to warn an inspector of the World Health Organisation about Belltower's involvement. However once he reaches the inspector, Ben witnesses his assassination at the hands of a new Tyrant operative, Sam Duarte, who hesitantly spares Saxon and escapes. Shocked, Ben warns Anna not to return to the safe house. Determined to follow the trail, he infiltrates Belltower's base of operations to rendezvous with Alex. They depart Panama, heading for Zaaphire Biotech headquarters in Canberra, Australia.

In the epilogue, Jaron Namir and Sam Duarte apologize to their Illuminati handler, Bob Page, assuring him that Saxon will die. The game closes with a "to be continued" message.

Development

The game was developed by N-Fusion Interactive under oversight by Eidos Montréal. The Deus Ex: Human Revolution team at Montréal, which included Jean-François Dugas, the director of both games, developed the original concept and worked in concert with the team at N-Fusion Interactive. The game utilizes the Unity engine.

Marketing

In March 2013 it was reported that Square Enix trademarked the phrase "Deus Ex: The Fall" and registered related domain names. In early June 2013, the official Twitter account of Eidos Montréal, the developer of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, posted a message referring to the game and later a teaser trailer was released featuring the title of the game. On June 5, 2013, Square Enix announced that Deus Ex: The Fall would release on iOS in the summer and that an Android version would be released later. Square Enix showcased the game at Electronic Entertainment Expo 2013 in June and released additional gameplay footage and screenshots. In early July, Square Enix revealed the worldwide iOS release date to be July 11, 2013. The game debuted one day early for the iOS platform on July 10, 2013, and finally released for Android devices on January 22, 2014. A PC port was later announced, and released via Steam on March 25, 2014.

Reception

Deus Ex: The Fall received positive to mixed reviews from critics and aggregate sites upon its release. The iOS version garnered a rating of 69/100 on Metacritic and a rating of 70% on aggregate site GameRankings.

IGN's Justin Davis gave the game 8/10, praising the game's story, presentation, exploration and streamlined build, but criticized the awkward combat. He concluded that "frustrating combat aside, it's almost astounding how successful The Fall is at distilling the core Deus Ex experience onto a mobile device. The mysterious and well-told story, steady stream of powerful new augments, and impressive game world all combined to create a mobile experience I didn’t want to put down after I started".

Specialist mobile gaming site Touch Arcade gave the game a high rating of 4.5/5 stars. The site acknowledged criticism that the game was published on iOS rather than PC or console, but described it as a high quality and engaging experience: "it reeks of 'console quality' in terms of story, production values and visuals, and it's just straight-up fun to play."

Eurogamer's Christian Dolan gave the game a far lower score of 5/10, citing game-crashing bugs, awkward combat and controls, repetitive graphics and shaky story and voice acting, but still praised the touchscreen functionality and general atmosphere. He concluded that "it's Deus Ex in cross-section, but although so many of the right pieces are in place, the energy and skill that usually brings the whole thing to life is missing".

Digital Spy gave it three out of five stars, saying that "Deus Ex: The Fall is a short but sweet spin-off for fans of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, just make sure you double check your iOS device's firmware and hardware before downloading".

Upon release, it was found that the player's ability to fire weapons refused to function on jailbroken devices, which caused some controversy within the gaming community. Square Enix later confirmed and released a patch to fix the issue.

PC release

The PC release of Deus Ex: The Fall received generally unfavorable reviews, attaining a 46/100 rating on Metacritic and a 45% rating on GameRankings.

IGN reviewer Craig Pearson gave the game a 3/10, with criticism focusing on the game's poor adaptation to the PC, particularly the lack of a jump button, inability to remap controls, and issues with the game not properly responding to menu actions and button presses. He concluded, "Beneath the struggle with terrible controls and bugs, there are vents to sneak through, email to hack, and people to confuse. It’s something that could shine on the PC if any sort of care was taken."

Daniel Hindes of GameSpot gave the game a 4/10, praising N-Fusion's original effort to capture the aesthetics of Human Revolution on iOS while strongly criticizing them for failing to take advantage of the expanded capabilities of the PC, especially for retaining the game limitations required by the original tablet interface. Hindes also criticized the limited, fixed-binding controls, calling them "clunky and unresponsive in ways that a keyboard and mouse never should be."

PC Gamer reviewer Andy Kelly gave the game a 40/100, calling it "truly one of the worst PC ports I’ve played in some time", in part citing the game's unresponsive controls, particularly in menus.