Analysis

Workflow

After deciding to analyze the Level Design of this last DLC of Deus Ex Mankind Divided, I started by replaying it from start to finish, since I already did many years ago. I explored every inch of the map to further understand how the level was made and with which intentions. To get to one objective, there are different paths, the difficulty of which varies depending on the player's choices in the narrative. The difficulty variation can be the number of enemies the player will face or even just spots that require specific upgrades and equipment, motivating the player to fully explore to collect everything he could need.

Through this Level Design Analysis, I analyzed and described what I though were the intentions behind the different paths, how they were thought and the influence of the narrative on the Game Design as well as the Level Design. When I reached that step, I also thought of what could be the possible improvements. One of them being the idea of fully going in the "optimizations blocked" way, by deactivating waypoints in the UI part, and then increasing the immersive sim aspect by making the player rely even more on Level Art to find his location and his objective's. By doing this, the feeling of the player being in full control of his experience would also be greatly increased and play a huge part in this DLC's experience.