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At first glance, the pitch for Eidos Montreal's Deus Ex: Human Revolution is somewhat of a paradox. It's a game that offers a rich, pre-defined narrative, but also allows players to choose how the experience plays out. As writer Mary DeMarle tells it, it wasn't easy to offer meaningful choices within an authored storyline.
At last year's Game Narrative Summit at GDC Online, DeMarle explained how Eidos Montreal walked the line between player autonomy and authorial control, and created a game that found a satisfying middle ground between these two seemingly dissonant ideas.
As the game's narrative designer, DeMarle played a major role in blending story with gameplay. Unlike a typical game writer, who writes in isolation from the development team, she stayed on board throughout much of the development cycle to ensure that her writing supported the choices and options that remained crucial to the game's design.
"My job, in the narrative design position, is to collaborate with [the lead game designer] to know and understand the game direction," she said. "Then you have to create a story that's going to fulfill the needs of that game direction."
During Human Revolution's inception, the team at Eidos Montreal came up with a unique blueprint that helped keep track of its complex narrative and its myriad player choices. To see for yourself how that process guided development, check out the above video, courtesy of the GDC Vault.
Simply click the Play button above to start the video.
Video: How Deus Ex: HR balanced authorial control and player choice
Deus Ex: Human Revolution writer Mary DeMarle explains how Eidos Montreal created a game that offers meaningful choice within the context of an authored narrative.