Deus Ex: Invisible War faltered after studio moved to a Thief-focused engine

Deus Ex: Invisible War has its defenders, but even staunch supporters stop short of calling it a worthy sequel. Where Deus Ex ripped up the rulebook and set an example for the immersive-sim genre, Invisible War felt more trammelled: it had good ideas but seemed less expansive and ambitious than the original.

The trouble began when Ion Storm Austin was ordered to use the same engine for Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows. The plan was to let team members shift between projects, but the studio "didn't have the actual tech." Smith reflected, "I wish we could redo that project and just stitch the maps together.

You get to a room, there’s a load. Another room, another load. It hurt the game. It sucked." Eidos then pushed the team toward consoles, with Xbox becoming a primary target, amplifying the engine's limits.

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