Deus Ex's D'Astous: Teamwork, Honesty Required For Quality

Author: by Staff

Eidos Montreal general manager Stephane D'Astous says that while Deus Ex: Human Revolution has a very strong vision, building a strong team and carefully vetting creative ideas is what allowed that to take shape. Though the game's visual aesthetic is very distinctive, D'Astous says that refinement was just as important as the original inspiration. "It was trial and error at certain points, and it's during the process of the stage-gating process that, well, this seems when we were showing our stuff internally, because we need to be honest during these meetings," he tells Gamasutra in today's in-depth feature interview. "And people were saying, 'This doesn't work. This works.'" "We went back to Montreal and we re-grind our ideas, re-filtered them..." says D'Astous. "We have dozens and dozens of artists, but if it's too clear, they feel like a robot and they won't be productive. So, you need to have a little margin, but you need to have a clear vision. 'We're going this way.'" In fact, building this strong team is the key to the forthcoming game's successes in development, he says. "If you have a large ego, unfortunately you won't fit in our culture." "Somebody can have great ideas, great direction, and a great vision, but to make this reality, it's a team push, a team effort, and that makes the difference between an excellent game and an average game," says D'Astous. Eidos Montreal also collaborated outside the studio with Vancouver's Goldtooth Creative and Tokyo's Square Enix Visual Works on Deus Ex: Human Revolution. The full interview, which goes into great detail on the creative culture of Eidos Montreal and the development of Human Revolution, is live today on Gamasutra.