Eurogamer: What inspired you in coming up with Deus Ex's story?
Mary De Marle: I came onto the game about four months into it. There were few things that were determined. They determined already they would do a prequel to the first game, they would set it in 2027, and it would deal with mechanical augmentations rather than nano ones. And a couple of other things that gave me the initial direction for my research to take.
I started then researching into everything from where is biotechnology today and where will it be in 18 years to possible conspiracy groups. So a lot of my inspiration, believe it or not, came from non-fiction and writings about transhumanism, the singularity and where will we go, and is technology going to lead us to heaven or hell? Even reading about Howard Hughes and Bill Gates to see what kind of people they are.
A lot of that fed the initial idea. I'm a drama junkie, as I like to say. I can never get enough of story because I'm very curious about characters and interpersonal things. So everything I've ever read both in science-fiction and fiction and every TV show I've ever seen feeds into it. It's difficult to pinpoint anything in particular. This project, the focus was on the non-fiction at first.
