Just because a remaster of an old game has improved textures, better lighting, runs at a higher resolution, and features fancy new effects doesn’t mean it’s better. I mean, technically it is, but the end result can often look very ugly and wrong. And sadly, this is the case with the recently announced Deus Ex Remastered.
Yesterday, during Sony’s short and so-so State of Play, we got our first look at a newly announced remaster of the classic immersive sim Deus Ex. This new version of Elon Musk’s favorite video game is being marketed as a remaster, with higher resolution textures and fancier lighting. And yes, technically, what is seen in the trailer is “better” than the original release. These are higher-resolution textures with more detail. Models are more detailed and complicated, too. What’s here is better in the sense that it is all stuff that couldn’t have been done 25 years ago in 2000. And yet many online, myself included, aren’t impressed with Deus Ex Remastered’s “improved” visuals. In fact, I think the new game looks really terrible.
You would think that replacing the old textures from 2000 with new and higher-resolution textures would make Deus Ex look great. The problem with this new remastered port isn’t that the textures are bad, but that they are being slapped on a very old game. The models, levels, and other parts of Deus Ex were designed 25 years ago, with the tech limitations of the period in mind. The original devs and artists worked within those limits to create art that offered just enough detail and let your mind fill in the gaps.
Covering the game in new, sharp textures that don’t seem to take into consideration the art design and intentions behind the visuals of the OG Deus Ex leads to an odd juxtaposition. You have the old game running under this new skin that feels out of place. Add in new lighting that changes the mood and appearance of the characters and world even more, and you end up with this odd plastic-y look that we’ve also seen in other similar remasters, like the infamous GTA Trilogy bundle. It’s also the same look I spotted in the remastered Tomb Raider games, which were also developed by Aspyr, the same team that’s behind Deus Ex Remastered.
Reactions to the Deus Ex Remastered trailer have been nearly universally negative. People have criticized the plastic-like sheen on everything, the way the game now seems filled with Doom 3-like stencil shadows, and the overall vibes of this new remaster being off. One highly upvoted comment on YouTube said: “Upgraded visuals from 2000 to 2005.” In direct comparisons between the two, it’s hard not to see the remastered Deus Ex as anything but an ugly mess.
It seems like the remastered version of Deus Ex will be the worst way to replay the original game, especially considering the fact that for decades, fans have created incredible mods that improve the game in smart ways without altering its overall look and vibes too much.
And that’s the most annoying thing to me about this remastered version of Deus Ex. There are ways to remaster and modernize old games and make them look great. Nightdive Studios has done some fantastic work bringing back classic titles, like Dark Forces and The Thing, without making these games look horrible. I think the key is that Nightdive is very careful with the new art it adds to its projects. They tend to create remasters that perhaps aren’t as “fancy” as some others but which almost always look like you remember the games looking back in the day, despite them very much not appearing that way back in the ’90s. Nightdive also tends to let you turn off many or most of the new visual features, too, which is always an appreciated option.
So you can definitely remaster a classic game in a faithful way. It can be done. Sadly, for Deus Ex, it seems that it won’t be so lucky with this remaster, and instead, we are left with an overly shiny and visually jarring port of one of the best PC games of all time. Ah well, at least it’s easy as heck to play and mod on PC in 2025.
