One of Deus Ex: Human Revolution‘s level designers, Steven Ciciola, has decided to talk a little bit about some of the challenges he and his team faced while working on the game. Throughout the design of their levels they have tried to consistently work in “multi-path, multi-solution” scenarios, some of which has been shown off already in a recent gameplay video at gamescom. This means for every challenge or encounter, there are numerous ways to achieve your goals, giving the game a great level of replayability, and a unique experience for each player.
In a post on the US PlayStation Blog, Steven said:
The truth of the matter is that there are far more than just four different ways to progress through that level. There are so many different ways to progress through that I couldn’t possibly list them all; and chances are there are even methods to progress through that we haven’t even thought of! … All we have to ensure is that we’ve provided the tools and the environment for the player to just explore, imagine, and act-out their creative solutions.
This is a quality that the original Deus Ex was known and loved for, so it will be great to see this all come through on next-gen consoles. Trying to design levels that can play out in so many ways is a big challenge, but it’s worth it. Games that encourage players to come up with their own unique solutions to problems provide a unique challenge that can appeal to many different gamers with a large variety of playing styles.
