Square Enix announced today that Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, the next installment in their choice-driven stealth-action-RPG series, has now secured a release date. As promised, the game will be launching in early 2016, specifically, on February 23rd.
On top of revealing when we can expect the game to launch, Square Enix also announced a rather unique pre-order incentive campaign for the game, though one that very much fits its style. Introducing the ‘Augment Your Pre-Order’ initiative at all major retailers, Square Enix is allowing pre-ordering customers on any platform to choose which reward they’d like to snag as a pre-order bonus when the game releases, among several options. These include weapons packs, costumes, exclusive missions, art books, and digital comics.
The customizable incentives are based on four ‘tiers’, which gradually unlock as the game achieves more pre-orders worldwide, allowing pre-ordering customers to choose more options. If enough pre-orders are released to reach the fifth tier, Square Enix is also pledging to release the game four days early! It so far appears that the early four-day window is only being offered to those pre-ordering however, with the general public release date still being February 23rd.
This is a very unique promotion, and if nothing else, it’s certainly creative. Critics of pre-order culture will likely find this to be another aggressive pushing of early purchases however, even if fans of Deus Ex are surely happy to have so many potential pre-order rewards at their fingertips.
Square Enix also revealed a Collector’s Edition for Deus Ex: Mankind Divided alongside the release date and pre-order campaign. The Collector’s Edition will include all of the bonuses from the ‘Augment Your Pre-Order’ campaign for the standard editions of the game, along with an exclusive 48-page art book, a steelbook case, and a 9-inch statue of protagonist, Adam Jensen.
Developed by Eidos Montreal, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided unfolds in the year 2029, a couple of years after the events of the previous game, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. Players return to the role of protagonist, Adam Jensen, now working to thwart a rising tide of terrorist attacks, as sentiment toward augmented humans, humans that have their biology and capabilities enhanced with cybernetic parts, becomes more negative than ever. As with its predecessor, the game will encourage stealthy, methodical action-RPG gameplay, in a first-person shooter-esque setup, and will also force players to make challenging choices to advance the story, particularly in regards to whether Jensen is kept a natural human, or moulded into a cybernetic killing machine.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will release for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Keep augmenting Eggplante for all news and updates on the Deus Ex series.