Deus Ex: Mankind Divided isn’t a shooter. Instead, it’s a role-playing game where you can shoot things. It’s a surprisingly deep experience – one with myriad options available, from how to play the game, to the individual choices you make along the way.
There’s loads to find, learn and manipulate in Adam Jensen’s cyberpunk world, so here’s some tips to make your adventure a bit more rewarding.
SEARCH EVERYTHING
It can take a while to realise quite how much stuff there is in Mankind Divided, and almost all the best rewards are found by looting drawers, safes and locked compartments.
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There can be weapons or weapon accessories like silencers, Praxis kits to give you bonus upgrade points, credits for buying new gear, or precious consumables like Biocells and Hypoderms to keep you alive and kicking. It’s the best way to keep stocked, otherwise you might find yourself struggling.
ALWAYS CHECK YOUR SMART VISION
Mankind Divided is absolutely teeming with multiple routes through missions. You can hack terminals, climb into vents, bypass certain checkpoints, and discover secret passageways through different rooms.
The best way to find all this is to invest in the smart vision augment, which will not only allow you to see enemies through walls, giving you a heads up if you’re about to get caught, but also alerts you to all the opportunities at your disposal at any given time.
UPGRADE YOUR HACKING
The hacking mini-game in Mankind Divided isn’t the most thrilling thing you’ll play this year, but doing it will open up a multitude of opportunities.
By investing in the upgrades for hacking augmentations, you’ll not only be able to unlock doors and containers that may hold valuable goods, but you’ll be able to control cameras and manipulate robots and drones, which will give you the upper hand in battle.
BUY BIOCELLS WHENEVER YOU SEE THEM
Biocells are the fuel with which you power your augmentation abilities. In the game’s early stages, you’ll often run out of juice in the middle of a mission, with biocells being pretty rare.
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Pick them up whenever you find them, and if you speak to any merchants while out and about in Prague, buy all of their stock. One, in the western district, sells five, so make sure you buy as many as you can afford. You can never have too many.
SELL ANYTHING YOU DON’T NEED
Depending on how you choose to play Mankind Divided, the chances are you’ll pick up loot that you have no need for.
I played the stealthy, non-lethal route, taking down thugs with a stun gun and my trusty invisibility cloak, hacking cameras and turrets to stay undetected. Therefore, when I found a sniper rifle and a battle rifle, I flogged them for a tidy sum, including the valuable ammo, which I then used to buy some gear I could actually make use of.
SPEAK TO ALL NAMED NPCS
As well as its 20-hour-odd story, Mankind Divided is packed with a load of great side quests, each with their own branching paths and unique moments.
The best way to find them is to speak to all named NPCs – if you do that, you’ll get access to some fantastic missions that lay waiting off the beaten path, including a bank break-in and an investigation into the occult underground. They’re fantastic to see, and in some ways the side missions outweigh the interest of the main story.
UPGRADE CASIE
CASIE is basically the Deus Ex science flash word for social upgrades. Buy this early on and you’ll get access to more conversational options in certain situations. It fleshes out the interactions you have with characters throughout the game and – no spoilers – will definitely help you out of a few sticky spots.
SAVE REGULARLY
Mankind Divided is an old-school kinda game – it has auto-save, but it’s rare and won’t help you out during a mission. To counteract any frustration that you might have if you’re playing with pure stealth, or if you get into a bit of a firefight and end up dead, save regularly.
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More importantly, keep multiple different saves. It’s more than plausible that you’ll realise you’ve missed something, or that you’ll want to try something a different way. Keep that option open to you and have a multitude of saves to reload at any point.
TRY EACH CONTROL SCHEME
The controls in Mankind Divided take a little time to get used to. There’s a huge amount of stuff at any given moment – your weapons, your powers, the cover system, and much more. In order to get the best experience for you, it’s worthwhile looking in the options and experimenting with the game’s preset controls.
Mankind Divided’s default is a definite win for anyone who’s used to a standard iron-sights cover shooter, but if you want to slip in and out of stealth quickly and quietly, it might be worth changing to the controls from Human Revolution.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
