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One famous piece of trivia about Deus Ex is that, if you look at the city skyline during the missions set in New York City, the Twin Towers are conspicuously ab

by arcanus 10y ago

One famous piece of trivia about Deus Ex is that, if you look at the city skyline during the missions set in New York City, the Twin Towers are conspicuously absent. The real reason for their exclusion isn’t very interesting: something to do with memory constraints. So in the game’s fiction, the Towers were destroyed by terrorists. Deus Ex was released in 2000, a year before 9/11. ---- 'How deus ex predicted the future' https://www.google.com/amp/kotaku.com/how-deus-ex-predicted-the-future-1616252703/amp?client=ms-android-att-us https://www.google.com/amp/kotaku.com/how-deus-ex-predicted-...

fenomas 10y ago
The specifics here are that the New York skyline was originally two big textures covering two faces of the skybox. Late in production, to save video memory they cut one texture and replaced it with a mirror of the other one, of course cutting the side with the towers so that they wouldn't show up twice. (Source is an old IGN interview that I hunted down ages ago, because every time this trivia shows up somewhere there tends to be a comment war about how removing a building from a skyline couldn't possibly save memory, blather blather.)
rangibaby 10y ago
The pilot episode of "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001, and details a conspiracy by the US government to remote control an airliner and crash it into the WTC to furnish arms sales: "The Cold War's over, John. But with no clear enemy to stockpile against, the arms market's flat. But bring down a fully loaded 727 into the middle of New York City and you'll find a dozen tinpot dictators all over the world just clamoring to take responsibility, and begging to be smart-bombed." https://youtu.be/EjbQ-BDh4PU https://youtu.be/EjbQ-BDh4PU
eswat 10y ago
Although less conspicuous, there’s a similar story with Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2’s box art depicting a NYC skyline being bombarded (also released in 2000).

by arcanus 10y ago

fenomas 10y ago

The specifics here are that the New York skyline was originally two big textures covering two faces of the skybox. Late in production, to save video memory they cut one texture and replaced it with a mirror of the other one, of course cutting the side with the towers so that they wouldn't show up twice. (Source is an old IGN interview that I hunted down ages ago, because every time this trivia shows up somewhere there tends to be a comment war about how removing a building from a skyline couldn't possibly save memory, blather blather.)

rangibaby 10y ago

The pilot episode of "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001, and details a conspiracy by the US government to remote control an airliner and crash it into the WTC to furnish arms sales: "The Cold War's over, John. But with no clear enemy to stockpile against, the arms market's flat. But bring down a fully loaded 727 into the middle of New York City and you'll find a dozen tinpot dictators all over the world just clamoring to take responsibility, and begging to be smart-bombed." https://youtu.be/EjbQ-BDh4PU https://youtu.be/EjbQ-BDh4PU

eswat 10y ago

Although less conspicuous, there’s a similar story with Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2’s box art depicting a NYC skyline being bombarded (also released in 2000).