Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the long-anticipated third game in the Deus Ex franchise, hit with a bang last week, ratcheting up an 89 on Metacritic, and receiving effusive praise from critics who are calling it “a game that puts almost everything else in the genre to shame.”

Game Design grad Bruce Kelly has lived and breathed Deus Ex for the last two years, first as a level designer before transitioning into narrative design. He managed to carve some time out of the crazy launch schedule to speak with us about his work on the game, the future of AAA-title gaming, and his advice for people looking to break into the industry.

Tell us a bit about your journey since graduation.

Bruce: Like many in the industry, I owe a lot to a handful of people who took a chance on a wet-behind-the-ears, straight-out-of-school neophyte designer with only his portfolio and aspirations. VFS definitely gave me a substantial leg-up on the competition, and the overall production experience I gained was invaluable, but ultimately your network is your greatest asset. Without one, it’s a hard industry to break into because of the premium put on experience, especially as a designer. That’s only something you can acquire once your foot is already in the door. Luckily for me, a friend of a friend landed me an interview at a company back home in Montreal, and I guess the rest is history.

How did you become interested in game design? When (and why) did you think you could turn it into a career?

Bruce: I love this question, because it feels like traveling back in time every time I answer it. I think at a very, very young age I was lucky enough to know what I wanted to be when I grew up, and it was right around the time StarTropics was released on the NES. I must have been six or seven years old, and while I might not have been aware of it at the time, that game left an indelible impression on me. It was a huge inspiration, and probably still influences me to this day.

Everything about it was so incredibly imaginative and absorbing, from the packaging (if anyone remembers the physical letter you had to dip in water) to the world, characters, and ridiculous story. I was enthralled, and distinctly remember thinking to myself how cool it would be to someday make something like this. After finishing it, I actually ended up drawing (I was a much better 2D artist then than I am now) sketches for new monster concepts, characters and dungeon layouts for this theoretical sequel I had in my head.

So I guess that was the first time I started thinking about a game more as a “designer” and less as a player. That pattern continued, and while at some point in my teens I may have lost sight of the end goal of becoming an actual game designer one day, the passion for both dissecting and creating gameplay experiences always remained. After studying film in college, and a brief stint in 3D animation, I don’t think it was a surprise to anyone when I finally enrolled in the Game Design program at VFS.

What was your involvement on Deus Ex: Human Revolution?

Bruce: I was originally brought on board as a level designer to help out on the city-hub production, but I knew the side-quest team was short-staffed, so I lobbied hard to join their skeleton crew (which at the time consisted of one lead, another level designer, and a contract writer).

While familiarizing myself with the project’s engine and toolsets, I came up with this big convoluted conspiracy plot for a potential side-quest; wrote up a design doc, went bananas on a gym (basically a prototype level), and pitched it all to the lead level designer. It must have impressed someone, because a week later, I was on the SQ team, and knee-deep in, well, everything.

It was a wicked (albeit initially harrowing) experience and I got to work with some amazingly talented people, on practically every facet of production. I can honestly say the last couple of years have flown by.

The Deus Ex games are considered some of the best and most influential of all time. How did you deal with those expectations during development?

Bruce: Something that I kept repeating, at least to myself (and anyone who would listen my rambling and often incoherent tangents) is that we can never underestimate the player. Whenever I was designing something, I always operated under the assumption that someone smarter than me would eventually be playing my content. I think it did a good job of keeping me grounded, and forced me to double-check and often re-think everything. Whether it was writing dialogue for a character, gameplay scripts, or planning out a combat setup, I would always question: “Is this asking the player to think? Am I giving the player enough options? Am I rewarding them even if they do something I didn’t expect them to?”

I think that’s what fundamentally set the original Deus Ex apart, or at least that’s what always made it stand out in my mind. It was one of the few games to treat its audience like adults, where agency was paramount, and thinking outside of the box wasn’t just rewarded, it was encouraged. And I know I wasn’t the only one on the team with that mindset. In the end, because we all knew what was expected of a Deus Ex game, I think we just focused on making sure we made a good game, period; a game that did justice to the spirit of the franchise, without necessarily trying to upstage the original. It’s a classic after all, and you can’t imitate greatness.

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