What do Phantasy Star 3, Devil May Cry 2, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution have in common? A group of people who were not in the original team put their grubby hands on it and ruined either all of it or part of it. The boss fights in Deus Ex were widely criticized and panned by both players and critics, and there’s a reason for this. They outsourced the development of bosses to a studio called GRIP.
It’s not unheard of for a company to have another person from another group to take care of something that they would have a specialty in. I wouldn’t mind trying to hire Nippon Ichi’s Takehito Harada for character design, or ZUN of Team Shanghai Alice to compose some tracks for me, but GRIP didn’t know anything about the Deus Ex setting or what the game was about.
A YouTube video shows that Eidos did this on purpose, as GRIP was hired in the later stages of production and after practically everything else was taken care of in the most complete fashions possible. Video below.
The top-rated comment puts the words of all gamers in a nutshell.
“ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME? You gave the boss battles: the most intimate experiences of the player with it’s enemy to a guy that DIDN’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE ORIGINAL GAME NOR THE UNIVERSE? No wonder the boss battles were so incredibly bad and didn’t fit at all with the experience. You don’t outsource important parts of the game to people that don’t know jack about it!”
Other than the boss fights being shoddily done, going through a stealth game with minimal use of violence often provides bragging rights and often unlockables. Metal Gear and Hitman both great examples of this. The bosses forced you to kill in sheer defiance of Deus Ex giving you a choice and the ability to be a pacifist.
Developers, take note. If you’re going to hire another team for something, make sure that they’re a competent bunch who have gotten praise from gamers for their accomplishments and make sure they understand your vision.
