Although it isn't out until February, Deus Ex Remastered hasn't exactly been a huge hit with fans thanks to its lackluster visuals, and now even the game's original art director is joining in.
In an upcoming episode of the FRVR podcast, Deus Ex art director Jerry O'Flaherty reacted rather bluntly to the remaster, developed and published by the Embracer-owned Aspyr. O'Flaherty didn't mince words.
"Oh, what the f*ck," he said. "No. This did not need to happen. Sorry whoever was involved in this. Oh man, yeah, no. If you're gonna do it, yeah, alright, why not? Why am I judging?"
You can definitely tell O'Flaherty was put on the spot and reacting in real-time here, as he seemed to walk back his criticism immediately. Still, there's little room for misinterpretation here. He does not like how the remaster looks.
OK, let's all calm down. Surely it's not that bad, right? Deus Ex Remastered must be a visual upgrade from the original game, which I'll remind you looked like this:
The problem is, the remastered version looks like this:
There's no denying it looks more HD, but as many have pointed out, it's an upgrade you might expect to see in a year like 2007, not 2025. I'm not one to dogpile, but since it's Embracer, a company infamous for chewing up and spitting out video game companies and their staff, I feel slightly less bad.
Anyway, uh, Deus Ex Remastered is out on February 5.
Here are the best games of 2025 so far.
