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PC Gamer
PC Gamer
Harvey Randall

Deus Ex was a hard sell because, among other things, the Thief devs thought 'if you give players a gun, they won't sneak'

Warren Spector PC Gamer
Deus Ex cover art.

Deux Ex, today, is synonymous with the immersive sim genre—paving the way for other games to let you approach a task from all possible angles. A new brand of videogame, unshackled from the straight lines of old school CRPGs, or the hallway trappings of the FPS.

But it didn't start that way. Before John Romero swooped past in 1997 to snap up Deus Ex auteur Warren Spector for Ion Storm, he was trying to get it pitched to his then-current studio Origin Systems as "Troubleshooter", circa 1994.

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