‘Deus Ex: Mankind Divided’: Getting The Most Out Of Adam Jensen


Deus Ex: Mankind Divided arrives today, and much like the original, you can tailor Adam Jensen to suit your play style. But if you want to get further in the game — and quickly — here’s a brief look at what you need to get the most out of Jensen and his augs.

Hoard Everything

Some games will shower you with ammo, grenades, and other useful things. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is decidedly not one of those games. Specialty ammo and grenades like EMP and armor-piercing in particular will be incredibly hard to find, since they’re useful. The good news is the game does ply you with plenty of credits, but scavenging is generally going to be how you get by, especially when you’re not in Prague. So whenever you’re carrying too much, find a safe place, like your in-game apartment, to dump it in.

Search Carefully

There’s a handy feature the game offers where everything that you can interact with is highlighted by being wrapped in a digital wireframe. This is the kind of game that loves to tuck little items under desks, inside vents, next to bookcases, and so on, especially highly useful credit chips, so look everywhere and watch out for that wireframe. Searching also usually offers you new routes into areas through vents or new areas to poke around and drink all the booze in.

Invest In Hacking Early And Often

While hacking is generally associated with stealth playthroughs, in Mankind Divided, it’s fairly essential whether you plan to kill everybody in the room with a shotgun or sneak past like a ninja. Pretty much everything in the game is hackable, from alarm panels to security terminals to locks to laptops, and hacking is crucial to opening up new pathways, finding caches of ammo and weapons, and shutting down annoying security features. Remote Hacking, one of the game’s “hidden” augments, is also incredibly useful, as it’s a low-cost way to shut off pretty much anything once it’s fully upgraded.

Hacking in general also offers you a lot of experience points and credits as well, which are useful. But keep an ear cocked; as you hack, you might be observed, or even shot at, if you’re not careful.

Ignore The Flashier Augs

Most of the game’s more exotic augs have a balancing mechanism where to avoid “overclocking” your system, you have to permanently disable a tree of augments. There is a way to get all the augs you want via a fairly simple little side quest you can knock out early in the game, but if you’re not the side quest type, then, honestly, skip the flashier ones like the arm cannon and the ability to slow down time, and focus on Jensen’s core powers. We spent 25 hours playing the game the first time and didn’t need them once. You also won’t be able to unlock every aug on your first playthrough, so spend those experience points accordingly.

Do Sidequests

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided really only has a handful of sidequests, and they really are optional. But it makes up for quantity with quality, and it’s really the game at its best. The side quests will have you bringing down cults, hunting down serial killers, robbing banks, and going undercover with the mob, among other things, and they’re often the best parts of the game.

Don’t Forget To Craft

Crafting parts are useful for upgrading your weapons and building things like health boosters and other mods on the fly, but the game doesn’t really emphasize it. So if you’re stuck, remember your crafting and use it.

Stealth, Paradoxically, Is Easier

If you really want a challenge, play this game on the hardest mode possible and just walk in the front door with your guns out. Going toe-to-toe with swarms of enemies can be incredibly tough and often means running low on ammo, switching through guns, and dodging grenades. Sneaking around is usually a lot easier; most of the game’s levels are complicated knots where half the fun is untangling them. If you’re concerned that you might somehow be seen as a kind, sensitive lover of puppies because you go non-lethal in the playthrough, well… “non-lethal” doesn’t rule out fighting dirty.

Ouch. Who hurt you, Adam Jensen?

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