Deus Ex is about sci-fi tropes, 2077 is about late 1980ies/early 1990ies nostalgia, just dressed up a little as 1980ies/90ies sci-fi. Corporate Japan on the ris

Deus Ex is about sci-fi tropes, 2077 is about late 1980ies/early 1990ies nostalgia, just dressed up a little as 1980ies/90ies sci-fi. Corporate Japan on the rise, peak MTV rock stars so full of themselves they are hardly able to live. Edgy cars with huge combustion engines, cockpit electronic looks created by people who must have spent many hours studying the elaborate display designs of the modular hi-fi stacks of that era to get that look so right. All those veteran stories in the background, similar ones had been a Hollywood focus point until well into the 1990ies from Vietnam. The most amazing part about the 2077 retrofuturism is its secrecy, because they clearly shared the agenda internally (cockpit designs! But also many other things), but apparently took extreme care to never mention any of that in PR material. Deus Ex is story, 2077 is ambience. Both games do very different things as their centrepiece, even if they both aren't too bad at their also-ran complement: ambience in Deus Ex, a bit aimless but they did find their style in the main Eidos iterations, story in 2077 which just happens to work well despite perhaps some of the supposed highlights not being the most memorable parts.