Whatever your position on mobile device/touchscreen “serious” gaming, the kind that goes beyond the arcade-like Angry Birds/Candy Crush Sagas of the world, there is no denying these devices have become a viable destination for games with a more serious tone and more complicated control schemes. With that in mind, the moderate level of interest surrounding Square Enix’s Deus Ex: The Fall, a Triple A title that is normally found on the PS3/Xbox 360/PC Game environment, is warranted.
Deus Ex: The Fall is an ambitious title, at least regarding mobile gaming, offering a level of depth not normally found in less-serious mobile gaming environment. Because, however, there is a tendency in the video game publishing community to treat everything related to jailbreaking devices with piracy, and so, when the game was first released, iPhone owners who purchased the game and tried to play it on a jailbroken iPhone–a completely legal activity–they were greeted with the following screen:
Needless to say, such a programming decision was met with much scorn. The response, which featured a large Reddit contingent, was so loud, it caused Square Enix to respond:
“We have not been clear in our communication earlier this week when we launched Deus Ex: The Fall. We did not state clearly that the game would not support jailbroken devices and so we will be switching this off via an update, so that all the supported iOS devices will be able to play the game in the near future.”
“We feel it’s the right thing to do in this situation and apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused. No customer should be out of pocket when we were not clear from the start, so we’ll get the game updated as soon as possible so that everyone who wants to play Deus Ex: The Fall can do regardless of whether their device is jailbroken or not. As soon as this update is live we will communicate this via the Eidos Montreal Community channels.”
To their credit, Square Enix was true to their word and quickly issued an update, which is available for download. The update notes include the following:
– Restriction on weapon firing which affected jailbroken devices have been removed;
– Improved enemy AI reaction and combat behaviour;
– Increased XP rewards for completing objectives;
– Increased the amount of credits gained as rewards, across the game;
– Improved damage and accuracy stats for the Combat Rifle;
– Increased accuracy of Shotguns for better mid-range effectiveness;
– Reduced some weapon costs (including high-end Plasma Rifles and Rocket Launchers).
It should be noted the developers are planning to release an Android version of Deus Ex: The Fall, although, no date has been discussed.