A little while back, Square Enix unveiled a large-scale pre-order campaign for next year’s upcoming blockbuster game, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. Many people weren’t happy about it. In fact, YouTube game industry pundits such as Jim Sterling, Boogie2988 and TotalBiscuit, among many others, aggressively spoke out about the issues with the campaign, and how it was, in their words, a bastardization of Kickstarter sensibilities that took overdone pre-order culture in video games to an almost awe-inspiring extreme.
Well, if you’re among the many fans and general gamers who objected to the ‘Augment Your Pre-Order’ initiative for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, you can put down your torches and pitchforks. Square Enix has just announced that, after overwhelming negative feedback, they’ve canned the entire campaign. Augment Your Pre-Order is no more, and instead, Square Enix will simply offer all of the planned pre-order bonuses to anyone who pre-orders Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, or at least buys a Day-One Edition copy, along with ensuring that the game publicly releases to everyone on February 23rd, 2016, completely axing the ultimate reward of pre-ordering customers getting the game four days early.
Putting aside critics of pre-order culture in video games obviously flying off the handle with rage, fans of Deus Ex complained about Augment Your Pre-Order forcing them to pick certain rewards, which included art books, a soundtrack CD, in-game costumes, exclusive missions and more, while sacrificing whatever they didn’t choose. Fans and pundits alike also took issue with Square Enix appearing as if they were trying to ram pre-orders of the game down people’s throats, enacting what appeared to be a pyramid scheme to convince fans of the series to twist their friends’ arms to pre-order, just so they could get more bonuses.
Beyond this controversial campaign however, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided itself is enjoying positive buzz. Like its predecessor, 2011’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is a hybrid first-person shooter/stealth game/action-RPG, starring Adam Jensen. Players can develop purely human talents with Jensen, or augment him into a cybernetic killing machine, altering the course of the narrative and gameplay according to their preferences, amidst a war that is erupting as unrest increases toward people augmenting themselves with cybernetic parts in the year 2029.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is set to release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.
Keep augmenting Eggplante for all news and updates on Deus Ex.