Judging by everything fans have seen so far, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is looking to be a fantastic game. Re-tuned combat, a tighter story, more choices to make — if everything goes according to plan, Mankind Divided should be a worthy successor to the Deus Ex franchise.
Frankly, the only real criticism of the game so far doesn't have anything to do with the game itself: back in August, Square Enix announced that Mankind Divided would be its guinea pig in a new, crowdfunding-esque pre-order plan. Basically, if enough fans pre-ordered the game, more content would be added to the game — there was even a chance that the release date would be moved up.
Despite Square Enix's promises of more, fans everywhere hated the plan. For many, the whole thing felt like a pyramid scheme, like Square Enix was forcing fans to pre-order a game they didn't know much about just to secure pieces of content that could have easily made their way in anyway. The backlash was immense and brutal — and it seems Square Enix listened, as the pre-order program has been cancelled.
"At both Square Enix and Eidos-Montréal, we've been listening to everything you've had to say about the Augment Your Pre-Order program. When it was first conceived, we wanted the program to give you more choice about what you received in terms of pre-order incentives... We quickly noticed that this approach created even more frustration than before, resulting in a resounding amount of negative feedback.
After much thought and reflection, we decided to close down the program and make all of the incentive content available to anyone who pre-orders Deus Ex: Mankind Divided or purchases a Day 1 edition of the game. Additionally, the release date will no longer be changed in accordance with pre-order numbers, and everyone will gain access to the game on February 23rd, 2016."
Depending on your point of view, Square Enix's reversal may be a bit extreme — but, considering the growing number of fans who are refusing to pre-order games at all, it's safe to assume that most people will be happy with Square Enix's decision.
Hopefully, none of this pre-order nonsense has hampered the team in any way: judgring from what was shown back at E3, the game is looking great.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will hit store shelves on February 23, 2016.
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