The backstory and continuity of the Deus Ex series is incredibly complex and confusing. When you have multiple shady organizations, shadowy figures controlling a puppet government, and a multitude of plot threads running parallel to it all, things can get confusing.

Since Deus Ex: Mankind Divided takes place two years after the end of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, it’s worth brushing up on what happened at the end of Adam Jensen’s first adventure and what the Deus Ex universe is like.

The fall of Panchaea

Panchaia is a huge geotechnical facility in the Arctic, ostensibly built to combat global warming, and the setting for the finale of Human Revolution. The facility also contains a secret broadcasting center, which emitted a signal near the end of the game that caused hallucinations and diarrhea in all augmented humans worldwide.

Jensen reaches the source of the signal and turns it off. He then gets to choose between four endings. He can broadcast a video revealing the Illuminati’s responsibility for the mass hysteria of the augmentators and getting humanity to abandon mechanical augmentations. Alternatively, he can blame the incident on political groups opposed to augmentation, thereby increasing support for augmentation. Alternatively, he may shift the blame to the companies developing the augmentations and impose strict restrictions on the use of this technology. Finally, he may self-destruct the facility without revealing the truth behind the incident, and humanity may decide for itself how to view the augmentations.

According to an interview first published in the last issue of GameInformer, this final ending continues the story of Mankind Divided. However, Eidos Montreal will also interweave selected elements from the other three endings to build the state of the game world. Finally, while Human Revolution hinted that Jensen would sink with the ship, the reveal trailer for Mankind Divided shows Jensen finally being rescued from the Arctic Ocean.

What does this mean for the world situation in 2029? Humanity is struggling with mechanical augmentation. In some parts of the world, owners of these devices have been confined to ghettos. Organizations of augmented people have been fighting for equal rights through terrorist attacks. And soon there will be a referendum in which humanity as a whole will vote for its final stance on augmentation. All of this is the result of Jensen’s destruction of Pancare.

The return of Adam Jensen

After being rescued from the wreckage of the Pancaia, Adam Jensen, disillusioned with the consequences of his actions, joins Task Force 29, a counter-terrorism organization run by Interpol. However, Jensen does not fully trust his new employer and secretly passes on information to a group called the “Juggernaut Collective”. This is not the first time this shadowy hacker group has appeared. They previously appeared in the Human Revolution prequel novel, Deus Ex: Icarus Effect (and its sequel, Deus Ex: The Fall), as well as the Human Revolution DLC, The Fall. Missing Link, a Key Role.

Not much is known about the Juggernaut Collective, but the group has important connections to people and organizations that played key roles in the first Deus Ex game. They support a US separatist organization called the New Sons of Freedom. This organization is the same organization that later became the National Separatist Force (NSF) in Deus Ex. Along with the “Juggernaut Collective,” these two groups essentially form an “anti-Illuminati” coalition.

Given Jensen’s connections to them, Mankind Divided is sure to be the setting for some interpersonal conflict or dark conspiracy. At the end of Human Revolution, Jensen’s ex-girlfriend Megan Reed can be heard talking to a character, implying that she will join the Illuminati in her next project. This character is Bob Page, the unnamed conspirator who appeared in Human Revolution’s introductory cinematic and the main antagonist of the first Deus Ex game.

The rise of the Illuminati

What new projects are the Illuminati working on in 2029? Given what we know about the ending of the first Deus Ex and Human Revolution, three of them stand out. Before speaking with Megan Reed, Bob asks Paige to search the remains of Pankea for technology that can be used for something called the Morpheus Initiative. This is a reference to the artificial intelligence that Morpheus discovered and dealt with in the first Deus Ex. It is the precursor to the AI ​​called Daedalus, which the Illuminati created to control the world’s electronic information.

In the same conversation, Reed also mentions the Nanite virus, which is said to be a precursor to the Gray Death plague that ravaged the world at the start of the first game. The Nanite virus is manufactured by VersaLife, a company controlled by Bob Page, whose logo can be seen in the trailer for Mankind Divided. The Nanite Plague is a type of research and development aimed at accelerating the creation of the next generation of nanoaugmentation technology.

The most important thing about Mankind Divided’s 2029 setting is that this is the same year that JC Denton, the protagonist of the first Deus Ex game, was born. He and his brother Paul are among the first people physiologically capable of accepting the next generation of augmentations. In Human Revolution, it is revealed that Jensen is the first human being able to be augmented with current mechanical augmentations without needing an expensive drug called Neuropozyme to prevent the body from rejecting them. How do we know this? The first book we read in Human Revolution reveals that Reed experimented on Jensen’s DNA without Jensen’s knowledge.

The mechanical apartheid

All this suggests that Mankind Divided may have a stronger connection to the original Deus Ex. Jensen’s destruction of Panchaia left the Illuminati with the ability to create Daedalus, and his DNA may have enabled the creation of the Grey Death and the subsequent nano-augmentation itself. There’s a reason why Megan Reed appears in the first Mankind Divided trailer. The end of the Human Revolution could make the future of the Deus Ex universe a reality. With public opinion divided on machine augmentation, it’s time for the dark conspiracy to make its next move. We’ll have to wait for Mankind Divided to find out how that happens. Also, the achievement you get for completing Human Revolution is called “Project D” and includes a photo of JC Denton’s face, so it’s very likely that Jensen’s and the Denton family’s lives will cross paths.