Eidos Montreal planned on more Deus Ex hubs

Eidos Montreal, developer of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, has told us that it originally planned for more city hubs in its chart-topping RPG shooter.

In a recent interview, art director Jonathan Jacques-Belletête told us that the team originally planned for Montreal to be a fleshed-out city hub, and lead game designer Frank Lapikas added that there were even initial plans for a fourth.

"There were definitely supposed to be some streets to Montreal," he said. "There were outdoor locations set in one of the most famous neighbourhoods of Montreal, called Plateau. It's got very specific architecture, called tri-plexes, with twirling exterior staircases made of this old metal.

"It's very specific to Montreal, and we'd drawn concept art of how these streets would look in 20 or 30 years from now. We even tried them in-game. Walking around them felt quite special - that architecture had never been in a game before, and never realised alongside a vision of 2027. It was really cool."

Lapikas, meanwhile, goes even further. "We had planned for a lot more city hubs," he told us. "Montreal was supposed to be one. Upper Heng Sha was actually built, but it was never finished.

"At the beginning of the project we even planned to go to India. But as we constructed the city hubs, and understood the amount of work it took, we had to pare it down."

It's a disappointing admission, but one that is understandable given the detail packed into the city hubs, and their streets, homes and offices which, Jacques-Belletête explains, was no easy task.

"I studied a lot about interior decoration and industrial design," he said. "We could fill an Ikea catalogue with all the furniture we designed. I should thank all my bosses for allowing me to spent so much time designing chairs and stools and cushions."

He is satisfied, though, that the final product justifies all that effort: "[My bosses] allowed me to five into his heavy design research aspect of the game which I think is awesome and, even if the players don't notice, I'm utterly convinced your subconscious registers these things."

It's an interesting point: one of the things that makes Human Revolution so engaging is how detailed each of its city hubs is, and how distinct they are from each other. Would you have preferred a bigger game, with more areas to explore, if it meant sacrificing some of that detail? Let us know in the comments below.