Why are the Twin Towers missing from Deus Ex a full year before the 9/11 attacks?
The episode begins by explaining the meaning behind the game's title, Deus Ex, derived from 'Deus Ex Machina'. It then jumps into the first major mystery: the missing Twin Towers in the game's Liberty Island skyline, which was released in June 2000. The hosts examine conflicting explanations from developer Warren Spector (calling it a cool mistake) and technical lead Harvey Smith (citing memory limits), noting the texture exists unused in the game files. The discussion moves to cut content, including two planned space station levels that would have connected to System Shock and satirized the ultra-rich. Several scrapped gameplay mechanics are detailed, such as stealth, melee, and communication skills, an improved light augmentation, and a scent-tracking system for guard dogs that was cut due to implementation challenges. The hosts reveal hidden content, like a fourth 'ending' file that is actually a dance party Easter egg activated by the 'Dance Party' cheat. They explain how to enable cheats in Deus Ex and highlight unusual ones like 'Open Sesame' for opening doors and 'There is no spoon' to activate a Matrix visual mode that replaces all textures with green code cascades. A technical deep dive covers the confusing 'True North' variable for level designers and the hacky implementation of ladders in the Unreal Engine. The episode also notes Deus Ex's early dynamic lip-sync technology, developed by programmer Chris Norden. A segment on bugs and glitches includes enemies incorrectly using tranquilizer darts and the game not saving the player's crouched state. The hosts discuss the poorly executed Game of the Year edition, which reverted hundreds of fixes, and the short-lived multiplayer mode. They cover the Deus Ex Development Kit and the modding scene, highlighting major mods like GMDX and Revision, and the infamous 'The Nameless Mod', a total conversion based on the game's fan forum. The episode concludes with a segment featuring 'mythology expert' Christian, who contrasts the game's portrayal of the Illuminati and Majestic 12 with their real historical and conspiratorial origins. He explains the real Illuminati were a small 18th-century Bavarian secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt, and Majestic 12 was a debunked UFO conspiracy document from the 1980s.
