Square Enix Allows, then Advertises, Fan Remake of Deus Ex

Game Companies and fans don’t always meet eye-to-eye, and that’s never more apparent when fans try to express their love for a game--say, with fanart or by painstakingly reproducing an older game with updated graphics, sound, and quality--and the company shuts them down with legal anger rather than embracing their hard work and fan devotion as a product of love (and free advertising). Every company, from Nintendo to Sega to Capcom, has had fan remakes shut down at some point or another, and very rarely does it ever works out well for either side.

But sometimes it does.

In an honestly baffling move, not only has Square Enix allowed a group of fans to work on an HD remake ‘mod’ of the original Deus Ex--a game Square Enix now owns the rights to despite never having produced the first two games--they’ve even gone so far as to let them share it over Steam and put Deus Ex on sale for less than 2 dollars so people can buy it with said mod for the cheap. They even released a press statement advertising the mod, called ‘Revision.'
 

“Today Square Enix and Eidos-Montréal continue to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the release of the original Deus Ex® by authorizing a fan-created mod for the first Deus Ex game originally released in 2000. Called ‘Revision’, the mod by Caustic Creative overhauls the environments and soundtrack of the original Deus Ex and is available to download for free today on Steam®.

 
Now, it’s weird enough this is happening by its own merits, but to see it coming from Square Enix is especially strange, as they have a long and storied history shutting down ambitious fans. As for why they accepted this particular remake… it could be because it’s just a mod, so people have to buy the first game anyway to use it. It could be because Mankind Divided is a few short weeks away and this is a great form of cheap advertising AND an opportunity for fans of Human Revolution to see where the series started. Or it could just be that they don’t care about a game they didn’t really have a hand in. Either way, it’s here to stay, and probably worth checking out.

Just don’t get started on your claymation Final Fantasy IV flash game. That’ll probably still get shut down.