Elias Toufexis, the actor behind the gravelly, world-weary voice of Deus Ex lead Adam Jensen, has bid what seems to be a final farewell to the series in a heartfelt message posted to Reddit.
Toufexis said in January, following layoffs at Eidos Montreal and the reported cancellation of a new Deus Ex game that was in the early stages of development, that he hadn’t been involved in the project and “gave up on it a long time ago.” But it seems he didn’t want that clear sense of disappointment to be his last word on the matter.
“I wanted to come on here and say thank you for this page, your wonderful messages over the years, and your continued, unbelievably strong support,” Toufexis wrote.
“As you guys all know, Jensen is one of the characters I’ve played who is near and dear to my heart. It seems I will always be associated with him and that’s just fine with me. Alas, his story seems done. I’m relatively certain the game that was canceled was not an Adam Jensen story, so the cancellation angers me more than anything else because friends at Eidos got laid off. Videogame companies right now are in a weird place. I hope it gets straightened out.”
The apparent end of Toufexis’ run in the Deus Ex almost feels like the latest piece in a very slowly unfolding pattern. The original Deus Ex was, and is, brilliant—you’ve likely seen the old “every time you mention it, someone will reinstall it” meme—but the sequel, Deus Ex: Invisible War, was just fine: A decent game in its own right, but a poor comparison to the magic of Deus Ex.
That seemingly killed off the series until 2010, when Eidos Montreal teased Deus Ex 3, and I really can’t overstate how exciting that moment was for me. The teaser was literally nothing more than “it’s happening,” but it was enough. It still gives me tingles.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution lived up to the hype, and Deus Ex was back, baby! Then Mankind Divided arrived, and it was good too. Just not as good, and neither was it a big seller, and despite Eidos Montreal’s big plans for the whole thing—remember the Deus Ex Universe?—interest in the series faded, nothing happened, and hopes that the studio’s acquisition by the Embracer Group in 2022 might get things going again fell apart right alongside the failed $2 billion investment deal that brought Embracer low.
And so here we are: The Jensen trilogy is now a duology, Eidos Montreal is caught in the Embracer swirl, and while I’m reasonably confident that we’ll see a new Deus Ex game someday—that’s just now it goes with videogames—a satisfying conclusion to the Human Revolution series just ain’t gonna happen.
Toufexis seems to be doing pretty well for himself these days—he’s currently starring in Star Trek: Discovery as the alien bad boy L’ak—but he clearly still feels a strong attachment to Deus Ex and its fans.
“I hope you like the other work I’m fortunate enough to put out there, but I know that whatever the character is, he won’t mean as much as Adam Jensen does to a lot of you… and to me,” Toufexis wrote. “For the love and support? I asked for this.”
If you haven’t yet played the original Deus Ex, we’ve got a guide to getting the best out of it today—and I’m happy to say that even though it’s been more than 10 years since the debut of Human Revolution, it’s held up really well too.
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