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The Art of Deus Ex Universe
The Art of Deus Ex Universe is the ultimate gallery of art from Deus Human Revolution and Deus Mankind Divided, featuring over 300 images, including sketches and concept art. With commentary throughout from the world-renowned art team, this extraordinary collection of groundbreaking game art depicts a dystopian future where mankind has evolved... at the cost of its humanity.
- GenresArtVideo Games
192 pages, Hardcover
First published February 23, 2016
About the author
Paul Davies
24 books7 followersPaul^^Davies
Paul Davies has worked in journalism for over 25 years, first editing gaming magazines and websites and now as a writer and consultant to games developers and publishers. He is the co-author of numerous gaming books including The Art of Assassin’s Creed Origins, The Art of Deus Ex Universe, The Art of Horizon Zero Dawn, Awakening The Art of Halo 4, The Art of Thief and Tales From the Sea of Thieves.
Paul Davies has worked in journalism for over 25 years, first editing gaming magazines and websites and now as a writer and consultant to games developers and publishers. He is the co-author of numerous gaming books including The Art of Assassin’s Creed Origins, The Art of Deus Ex Universe, The Art of Horizon Zero Dawn, Awakening The Art of Halo 4, The Art of Thief and Tales From the Sea of Thieves.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 13, 2020
Very few books on the Cyber Renaissance aesthetic, so perhaps the biggest fish in a small pond.
July 18, 2016
The book overall is on the better side of artbooks that blows a bit of something out of the water.
It delves into the design process, or rather the design choices behind the two games: Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.
Main protagonist, Adam Jensen is well and thoroughly covered from the very first design, with all the side steps and landing on the perfect model. But as you get further and further away from Adam Jensen, the design process fades away and you're staring at a few different designs that say "These were the final contestants"
In the end you're staring at merely two pictures of main protagonist's ex-girlfriend who fuels the protagonist onward, or his underground aug-doctor, a character who really stands out in physical appearance and in lore details; "-his left arm, which can be swapped out with a selection of specialized industrial arms (surgical arm, blowtorch arm, heavy-lifting arm, etc.)" which sounds really neat on paper, but the lack of pictures demonstrating this idea, just bothers me. Even brainfarted sketches would suffice when we're talking about the design process.
Human augments, equipment and weapons are covered in an acceptable depth: Everything has a purpose and that purpose has to be communicated to the player with ease. Most handheld firearms plus vehicles and aircraft have been pulled from the "Final designs only" folder, with only a couple of exceptions that stretch no further than a few small sketches.
The art itself is amazing, there's no way around it. The blocky future feel is there right from the first page to the last, deviating only a couple times for the artistic sugar on top. One can see there's been a tremendous amount of thought that has been put into the world and story. How every area has to give a certain feel, but at the same time everything also has to be plausible; from the re-imagined two storey Hengsha to the locking mechanism of a cell/capsule based apartment system, and onward to the robots that transform into cubes for ease of transportation.
It's a good read (or look) for anyone interested in the futuristic, man and machine, action blockbusters. Put into one personal phrase, this book would read "How to think when designing worlds"
It delves into the design process, or rather the design choices behind the two games: Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided.
Main protagonist, Adam Jensen is well and thoroughly covered from the very first design, with all the side steps and landing on the perfect model. But as you get further and further away from Adam Jensen, the design process fades away and you're staring at a few different designs that say "These were the final contestants"
In the end you're staring at merely two pictures of main protagonist's ex-girlfriend who fuels the protagonist onward, or his underground aug-doctor, a character who really stands out in physical appearance and in lore details; "-his left arm, which can be swapped out with a selection of specialized industrial arms (surgical arm, blowtorch arm, heavy-lifting arm, etc.)" which sounds really neat on paper, but the lack of pictures demonstrating this idea, just bothers me. Even brainfarted sketches would suffice when we're talking about the design process.
Human augments, equipment and weapons are covered in an acceptable depth: Everything has a purpose and that purpose has to be communicated to the player with ease. Most handheld firearms plus vehicles and aircraft have been pulled from the "Final designs only" folder, with only a couple of exceptions that stretch no further than a few small sketches.
The art itself is amazing, there's no way around it. The blocky future feel is there right from the first page to the last, deviating only a couple times for the artistic sugar on top. One can see there's been a tremendous amount of thought that has been put into the world and story. How every area has to give a certain feel, but at the same time everything also has to be plausible; from the re-imagined two storey Hengsha to the locking mechanism of a cell/capsule based apartment system, and onward to the robots that transform into cubes for ease of transportation.
It's a good read (or look) for anyone interested in the futuristic, man and machine, action blockbusters. Put into one personal phrase, this book would read "How to think when designing worlds"
July 3, 2024
Probably the last compelling cyberpunk text in an otherwise gutted and aestheticised genre. I mean, what other video game series begins with the cyber renaissance ends in corporate feudalism?
January 4, 2021
A beautiful book stuffed with insights into the art design development process behind the recent Deus Ex games.
A really lovely portfolio with a nice foreword by Warren Spector. Every page is full colour, and there's some interesting commentary from the art directors, which gives you a good idea as to what they were aiming for and how they got there. As lovely as it is, it's a great shame they weren't able to incorporate any material from the first two Deus Ex games, or any meaningful commentary from the broader team.
Overall: a feast of evocative eye candy for cyberpunk aficionados.
A really lovely portfolio with a nice foreword by Warren Spector. Every page is full colour, and there's some interesting commentary from the art directors, which gives you a good idea as to what they were aiming for and how they got there. As lovely as it is, it's a great shame they weren't able to incorporate any material from the first two Deus Ex games, or any meaningful commentary from the broader team.
Overall: a feast of evocative eye candy for cyberpunk aficionados.
February 14, 2021
The art is gorgeous, obviously, and it was interesting to read the thought process behind it. So much works went into these games! Shame there wasn't more about Mankind Divided, it was focused pretty heavily on Human Revolution with only a couple of areas/characters mentioned from MD, but it's still a beautiful book.
November 24, 2022
Wonderful art book both for fans of Deus Ex and for the cyber renaissance aesthetic. Almost every page has artist insights on it and the book as a whole conveys the intention and design the team intended. Really informative and makes me want to replay Human Revolution! Beautiful art book that will look good with the rest of my collection!
April 18, 2023
Great art book full of gorgeous artwork and interesting behind-the-scenes information covering the two games, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
April 4, 2017
To me it separated itself from most art books by not only going through parts of the lore but giving the design reasons behind the decisions they made. You get to see some designs from characters that were cut during development and read about what impact they would of had on the story.
The book is written well and it isn't information overload, they have paragraphs instead of full blown pages of information which is nice.
You can clearly see the teams worked hard in establishing a universe and it's nice to see how much of the feeling you get from the games, actually comes from the art style.
Nice artwork, well written and a great setting. Not much really else to say, if you're interested in Deus Ex like me, you should grab it and have a look for yourself.
The book is written well and it isn't information overload, they have paragraphs instead of full blown pages of information which is nice.
You can clearly see the teams worked hard in establishing a universe and it's nice to see how much of the feeling you get from the games, actually comes from the art style.
Nice artwork, well written and a great setting. Not much really else to say, if you're interested in Deus Ex like me, you should grab it and have a look for yourself.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews