The only benefit is that JC Denton’s adventures will be playable on consoles. Other than that, we can’t think of anything else.

Aspyr’s remastered version of Deus Ex received a lot of criticism when it was unveiled in September, and it looks like it will continue to be criticized in the long run. Jerry O’Flaherty, the art director of the original Deus Ex, recently spoke with FRVR about the remaster and didn’t seem very positive. We don’t blame him. Deus Ex was never a graphical marvel, but it still had its atmosphere and coherent aesthetic in 2000. O’Flaherty points out that many of the hand-crafted elements in the original Deus Ex did not attempt to achieve the high-fidelity, realistic look that many remasters and remakes strive for:

“Oh, what the f*ck? This did not need to happen. Sorry to whoever was involved in this. Oh man, yeah, no. If you’re going to do it, then fine, why not? Why am I judging? You wanted to lean into what the engine does well and avoid what it doesn’t do well. You’re not trying to be efficient; you’re trying to be realistic. Sometimes, reality just isn’t what you want. This is why Hollywood lights their movies so intensely. They put up a big screen and light it as if it were sunlight. They want it to be exactly what they want,” said O’Flaherty.

The remaster replaces all of that with a sloppy resolution increase that makes the game too bright, bulky, and strangely even more archaic than before. When it was unveiled, one commenter wrote that the 1999 graphics had indeed been transformed into 2003 graphics. Another commenter asked how anyone could have failed to notice how awful these visuals were.

We hope that Aspyr will take the criticism into account, change its approach, and delay the release. Alternatively, they could allow players to switch back to the old graphics at any time, as we can do in the Tomb Raider remasters.

Source: PCGamer, FRVR