E3 2016: Deus Ex: Mankind Divided to feature a unique challenge mode called Breach

At a livestreamed event on Twitch on June 8, Square Enix showed off some of the more awesome features in their upcoming game, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Among the highlights of the stream was a special game mode called Breach. It’s a virtual playground in which you get to flex your muscles and try out your skills without worrying about the effect on your character or storyline. That last is important because Deus Ex is a proper RPG and every action of yours has consequences.

In Breach, you’re just a random hacker who’s been tasked with extracting information from some kind of evil megacorporation. The aesthetic is very much along the lines of Tron (the original one) or the more recent Volume. The aesthetic is all polygonal with primary fluorescent colours and the environments are very minimalistic compared to the rest of the game. Since this is a virtual world, real world physics and rules won’t necessarily apply. In Square Enix’ own words, “Breach is abstract, there’s no connection to reality.” The mode will have you infiltrate data warehouse using all the skills you have at your disposal, but it’s arcadey. For example, Polygon was told that you have to earn things like double and triple jumps. “Even with his augmentations, Jensen needs to be doing stuff that makes sense. With Breach, we got rid of that. We looked at abstracting ourselves from the constraints of the real world. It’s taking the core of Deus Ex and having fun with it,” said Fleur Marty, Deus Ex’ producer, to Polygon. You get in, extract the data and get out. There will be a time limit, but you’re allowed to use whatever means you feel like to achieve the objective, be that stealth, melee or guns-blazing. You’ll be rated based on your efficiency and the amount of data that you collect. Your time to completion will be recorded. Square Enix wants this to be the mode for speedrunners and will maintain two separate leaderboards. One will be for rating, the other for time. Square Enix plans to start with 75 levels, but they’ll add to this later on. Whether we’ll see a Doom-like SnapMap feature is unknown at this time, but it’ll certainly be nice. This is just one game mode. Square Enix has a lot more saved up for the actual game and for E3. Keep an eye on this space for updates on the game, as and when they happen.x