For many older gamers, especially those who played on PC in the 1990s, the originalDeus Ex, which came out in 2000, will be remembered fondly as something of a sci-fi RPG marvel. In fact,Elon Musk named it one of his favorite video games, along with the likes ofBioShock,Half-Life 2,andSaints Row 4. One memorable thing about it is JC Denton, the game’s male protagonist. Now, more than two decades later, someone has modded the game so that players will now be able to take on a female version of Denton.
Uploading the file to Mod DB recently, user andDeus Exfan Xriborg has created the “Lay D Denton Project” which remodels the game’s playable agent to be a woman instead of a man. The mod description even says that they went to the trouble of revoicing the character based on the original game’s dialogue, though they say it’s not a 100% duplication of the script.
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The general attitude that’s gone into the modification is to preserve the sharp one-liners that fans have come to love from this franchise. After all,Deus Exhas a lot of hidden detailsand a lot of lore that has made it such a fan favorite over the years, and it seems as though Xriborg did not want to detract from that. It’s clear that the “Lay D Denton Project” has been done with careful consideration for the original game, and to keep fans happy, but also to bring it into the modern gaming era. They also say that all pronouns have been adjusted accordingly to match the female Denton.
The past few years in the games industry have shown that attitudes towards gender have changed, and while thisDeus Exmod is one example, it’s also not the first time people have wondered how popular games would look with a female protagonist instead of a male one. Recently, anartist reimagined some of gaming’s most iconic male characters as women, which includedHalo’s Master Chief and Johnny Silverhand fromCyberpunk 2077.
As forDeus Exin general, it’s a franchise that saw a reboot back in 2011, but has since dropped off the radar. Given that the last installment was in 2016,some argue that it’s time to bringDeus Exback, especially given how old the original is now. Xriborg’s mod shows what such a game would be like with a female character, and it would probably be a winning formula to have aDeus Exgame with either a female lead or the chance to choose one’s gender altogether.
