Deus Ex writer Austin Grossman has hit out at mega fan Elon Musk, saying his praise is the “worst legacy” of the game.
Action role-playing game Deus Ex launched in 2000 and was followed by a trio of sequels including 2016’s Deus Ex: Mankind Divided. A number of spin-off games and comic books have also been released.
The original follows cybernetically enhanced secret agent JC Denton as he uncovers a conspiracy tied to the pandemic and his own employers. “Deus Ex takes place in a dark near-future world where a small number of enormously wealthy people are deciding the fate of humanity,” writer Austin Grossman previously explained. “The player stumbles into the middle of this and winds up being a pivotal figure: the sole honest, humble man in a nest of power-mad manipulators.”
Musk has praised the game several times (“the storytelling is amazing”), used the artwork as his Twitter profile picture for a number of years and even has a replica Deus Ex weapon on his bedside table. He’s also compared the plot of the first game to the COVID-19 pandemic repeatedly.
Deus Ex / Half-Life 2 / Bioshock / Mass Effect 2 / Fallout 3 & New Vegas / Saints Row IV
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 21, 2020
Now Grossman, who co-wrote Deus Ex alongside Sheldon Pacotti and Chris Todd, has hit out at Musk.
“That kind of political weight and social satire [in Deus Ex] is the thing that Elon Musk likes. It is creepily in Elon Musk’s worldview, so that may be its longest, worst legacy,” he explained in an interview with PC Gamer. “It’s bizarre that Elon Musk would not recognise where he actually sits in the Deus Ex universe because it is not in the JC Denton role.”
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Speaking to The Independent in 2022 for the Brain implants, dark conspiracies and digital gods: How the ‘Deus Ex’ games help explain Elon Musk article, Grossman said: “Musk plainly imagines he’s the JC Denton of this world – a plainspoken everyman, standing up to the elite. As is obvious to everyone, Musk is the one with power and he’s just pathologically incapable of honest introspection. I would say Musk is like a Deus Ex villain, except that the franchise doesn’t have any villains as whiny and self-servingly delusional as he’s shown himself to be.”
“It’s no surprise Elon Musk likes the Deus Ex franchise,” he added. “I’ve met more than one billionaire, and they’re all like Musk… they can’t look in the mirror of fiction and see anything that doesn’t flatter them.”
My bedside table pic.twitter.com/sIdRYJcLTK
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 28, 2022
Speaking to PC Gamer, Grossman said he “probably went a little over the top” in his 2022 rant. “Honestly, I hope Elon Musk never Googles me, because I’ll then be murdered.”
Back in 2021, Deus Ex‘s lead designer Warren Spector said that he might not want to make the game today. “The conspiracy theories we wrote about are now part of the real world. I don’t want to support that.”
Earlier this year, Musk said gaming was his “one recreational activity” and he does it to “quiet” his mind.“Some days are real tough, so playing video games is my strange solace.” However he’s been heavily criticised by the gaming community for “faking” achievements and paying other players to level up his in-game characters for him.
In other news, Team Cherry has confirmed it is set to make Hollow Knight: Silksong easier after complaints from fans that it was “too difficult”.
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