Take this with a mighty big pinch of salt, but it’s claimed that a Deus Ex remake is currently in development and will be announced within a few months.
The news comes via an anonymous user on 4chan, hence the advice to take the information with a small mountain of salt and maybe even a dash of pepper. While many things that have been leaked on 4chan ended up being real, there are also massive mountains of crap that amount to nothing whatsoever.
According to the user, a remake of the original Deus Ex is in the works for Unreal Engine 5, although Eidos Montreal is not developing it. He also mentions the Jensen games (Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided) have been scrapped, although it’s unclear if anonymous means remakes/remasters of those games have been scrapped, or the Jensen series has been scrapped and won’t be getting a sequel.
The user says, “The remake is set to be announced and released within the next year and a half since it is pretty late in development. You should be getting a trailer & announcement around March.”
The 4chan user also mentions that Eidos Montreal is working on a new Deus Ex game, although he/she knows nothing about it. This matches various reports that the series would be getting a new game. When Embracer bought the IP and Eidos Montreal, it redoubled the rumours because Embracer has been very vocal about mining their extensive back catalogue of licenses. In 2020, Eurogamer reported that a new Deus Ex was indeed in development, albeit in the very early stages. Currently, we do know Eidos Montreal is actually helping Microsoft and Playground Games make the new Fable.
Of course, Embracer is kind of busy at the moment, completely occupied with the fact that the company is collapsing under its own weight. A huge restructuring program has resulted in numerous studios being shut down, including Free Radical and Volition, so I imagine that the future of any Deus Ex project is teetering on the edge of destruction. Embracer’s volatility could result in either Deus Ex game being cancelled at the drop of a hat, especially because I’m not sure a remake is something the company would be willing to pour funds into. As historic as Deus Ex is, does it have enough modern-day appeal to do the big numbers that Embracer is looking for right now?
The idea of a remake is also interesting because there’s actually one of those already being made by some fans. DXU24 is looking to bring the original game, which ran on Unreal Engine 1, to Unreal Engine 5 and is even going to include VR support. It’s a tad more complicated than that, though, as the Patreon explains: “How does it work? Well, you need a copy of the original game for this to run at all. The general idea is the original game is booted as it normally would be, and through my software, communicates with another running instance of Unreal Engine 5. Through this communication link the games state, assets, everything, is communicated to Unreal Engine 5 and reinterpreted as a modern game asset, all at runtime. I don’t recreate any content or protected IP from the original title, none of that is shipped with this software, the only thing I ship is the software originally written by me. “
This project would conflict with any plan to bring an actual, official remake to market, though DXU24 looks confident that their unique solution will keep them from being sued. The DXU24 project can also be used for other old games, too, with Unreal Gold being used as a demonstration. It’s a pretty awesome concept, so go check it out.