Eidos Montreal, developer of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, has admitted that the game's controversial boss fights were poorly implemented, telling us: "We knew that would be a weakness for the game."
Speaking to us at this week's Montreal International Game Summit, Human Revolution producer David Anfossi admitted that the boss fights were at odds with the freedom afforded the player elsewhere in the game. Development of the boss fights was outsourced to crowd AI specialist Grip Entertainment, but Anfossi says the blame lies squarely on Eidos Montreal's shoulders.
"The problem was not the supplier, it was what we did with them," he said. "The boss fights were too much for the team to do internally in the time we had. We totally underestimated the effort to do that correctly. We had to work with an external supplier with that, but the design and everything is from the team at Eidos Montreal.
"We knew that it would be a weakness for the game, that we had to make a compromise to deliver it [on] two levels. First, the boss fights were forced, which is not the Deus Ex experience. Second, there is no mix [of] solutions to tackle the boss fights, which is not Deus Ex either.
"We knew that before the release of the game, but there had to be some compromise. It [was] our decision."
If that gives the impression of a difficult project, what follows rather rams the point home. "It has been a nightmare, to be honest," Anfossi said. "We started from scratch. From recruitment to release date, it's been a nightmare."
Despite that, Anfossi insists he is proud of what his team achieved, especially the inclusion of so many different mechanics in the game. "It took us two years to do it," he said. "At the end I'm very proud of that, the stealth, hacking, social and combat within the game - it's well done, I think. I'm very proud of that because it's difficult to do."
Yet Anfossi maintained that, if he had the chance to do it all over again, he would still include bosses. "There are two options: no boss fights, or do boss fights correctly," he said. "I'm pretty sure that now we have the knowledge to do it correctly."
Comments
6The fact that this has been admitted makes me happy - DE:HR was such a positive gameplay experience for me and I think the boss fights were a blight on the game.
It's not that they were difficult - just totally misplaced and constricting.
Since this studio are able to knock out games such as Deus Ex, AND can identify faults with it, to say I'm excited about their potential would be an understatement.
they did this in just 2 years ? wow, respect to the guys at eidos montreal
Was a great game but the boss battles were just so out of place-glad they acknowledge this. The good news, I never felt the boss fights were bad enough to make the entire game not enjoyable. I look forward to what Deus Ex has in the future
What I don't quite understand is why they were up against such a compromise. Why not take longer to fix it? An improved, later release would've been more favourable surely.
This was a classic game to be breathing life into, with one very strong reputation. To stop short of what they *knew* was possible is a crying shame. I bought the game, and like it, but it could've been remembered for a true classic itself had this blight not thwarted it.
Liked the game but did not like the boss battles. I dislike bullet sponge bosses.
I also thought that increasing the difficulty should increase the intelligence of the enemies not make them bullet sponges too.
Just a pipe dream I guess.
Fair play to the man for admitting it. Now perhaps Eidos Montreal would like to fix their mistake via free DLC?
Very much agree with the last paragraph - boss fights done well are exciting, challenging, and force you to approach the game in new and unexpected ways. Sadly, this was not the case in DXHR, where they felt unnecessary, forced, and entirely at odds with the rest of the game. Nonetheless, it is hard to see an alternative - boss fights have always been, and to date remain, the best climactic resolution to a game chapter. I agree in principle to the inclusion of boss fights in DXHR, but there really should have been allowances made for the various different routes players are allowed to choose through the course of their game experience.