Skip to main content
GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ GamesRadar+ The Games, Movies, TV & Comics You Love
Sign in
  • View Profile
  • Sign out
flag of UK
UK
flag of US
US
flag of Canada
Canada
flag of Australia
Australia
  • Games
  • TV
  • Movies
  • Hardware
  • Video
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Guides
  • Deals
  • More
    • PS5
    • Xbox Series X
    • Nintendo Switch
    • Nintendo Switch 2
    • PC
    • Platforms
    • Tabletop Gaming
    • Comics
    • Toys & Collectibles
    • SFX
    • Newsarama
    • Retro Gamer
    • Newsletters
    • About us
    • Features
Total Film
Gaming Magazines
Gaming Magazines
Why subscribe?
  • Subscribe from just £3
  • Takes you closer to the games, movies and TV you love
  • Try a single issue or save on a subscription
  • Issues delivered straight to your door or device
From$12
View
Trending
  • Summer Game Fest
  • New games for 2025
  • Upcoming Switch 2 games
  • Switch 2 stock

Recommended reading

Deus Ex cover art
Stealth Games Warren Spector celebrates 25 years of Deus Ex, reiterates he wasn't some sole creator: "The Deus Ex concept may have been mine, but the game itself and all kudos aimed at it belong to the great, great team"
A masked boss from the trailer for Crimson Desert, holding a knife.
Open World Games I saw the dirty little secrets of Crimson Desert's open-world engine, and I'd kill to do it with games like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Red Dead Redemption 2
A barrage of enemy bullets flies towards the Doom Slayer in Doom: The Dark Ages, mostly consisting of red orbs except for one column of green which indicates it can be parried with the shield saw - with a frame for the GamesRadar+ Big Preview
FPS Games Doom: The Dark Ages' team found new inspiration from the original Doom: "We play it at the start of every project"
A Doom: The Dark Ages Big Preview frame shows key art of the Doom Slayer tearing a horde of demons apart using the shield saw, super shotgun in his off-hand
FPS Games Big Preview: Doom: The Dark Ages – Exclusive access and hands-on impressions with the fiery FPS
BlackSpace Engine screenshot showing water crashing on rocks
Open World Games At a ridiculously detailed showcase of the open-world engine behind the RPG Crimson Desert, I asked a ridiculously detailed question about water and all hell broke loose
Metaphor: ReFantazio
RPGs After nailing his first JRPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio lead UI designer has one piece of advice for his old self: "Your PC is going to break in 2021. Do something about it!"
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 combat
RPGs Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 head was "bored" at Ubisoft and hungry for a JRPG, and made the highest-rated game of 2025 – "Somehow it worked, which still makes no sense to me"
  1. Games
  2. Action
  3. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Designing Deus Ex's futuristic Dawn Engine

Features
By OXM Staff published 21 April 2015

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works.

A New Dawn

A New Dawn

This picture might look familiar. The various shades of yellow, the impractical but oh-so futuristic fluorescent bulb formation - it's Deus Ex all over. Of course, for a long time, we weren't technically supposed to know that.

Eidos Montreal released this in-engine image of Dawn well before they were ready to announce Mankind Divided, the first game to utilise their new-gen engine. You may detect a hint of vagueness about what game could possibly use such a thing. That's presumably because Director of Technology, Julien Bouvrais and Art Director, Martin Dubeau presumably had lawyers holding non-disclosure agreements origami-ed into the shapes of guns held up to their employment contracts while we talked to them.

What we did get was a tonne of deliciously nerdy detail on building a proprietary engine, how (or if) it could be applied to other Square Enix games and lots of uses of words we had to look up the meaning of. Enjoy!

Page 1 of 6
Page 1 of 6

OXM: The big question on everyone's lips ours, anyway is why 'Dawn Engine'? Is the name symbolic of anything in particular?

Eidos: The name Dawn is metaphorical, and represents the beginning/dawn of a new era for Eidos Montreal in terms of both ambitions and philosophy. It is also inherently linked to our vision for the future of the Deus Ex franchise.

OXM: It sounds like you taken a game-first approach to the engine creating a tool to enable a specific vision. Is this the usual approach when developing a new game engine?

Eidos: During our development of Human Revolution, we had to adapt our gameplay/environments according to what we were capable of creating within our existing engine. While we were very happy with the results, it helped us understand that, if we wanted to really push things to the next level, wed have to build an engine crafted specifically to our needs. We cant necessarily say if this is the typical approach within the industry, but it is almost always something that is considered when developing AAA titles.

Page 2 of 6
Page 2 of 6

OXM: When you say it is an engine tailored to your needs, could you outline what those needs are?

Eidos: The Deus Ex franchise has a very unique art direction, where the ambition is to create an immersive and unparalleled game world. In turn, we wanted to make sure that this engine allowed us to push the limits of our creative vision.

That said, here is a brief list of some of the needs the engine is tailored towards:
A physically based material pipeline to achieve a realistic and tangible world;
A color grading tool to help enhance image quality in real time;
High polygon counts to improve the visual fidelity of environments, while also helping to better define the visual details of all the objects/characters within the world.
A volumetric lighting system that will allow for multiple light sources, increasing the depth and detail of each and every scene.

Page 3 of 6
Page 3 of 6

OXM: Does building a new engine to serve a specific need not run the risk of painting yourself into a corner? You've called it the cornerstone of the Deus Ex Universe, but could it equally be applied to a Final Fantasy, a Hitman or something even more 'out there'?

Eidos: We wouldnt go so far as to say that the Dawn Engine specifically serves the needs of the next Deus Ex game. However, it is certainly going to assist in making a new generation Deus Ex possible, particularly by addressing specific areas we felt needed improvement.

For a game like Deus Ex, we want to be able to accommodate our creative vision, and we dont want to limit ourselves to what a multi-purpose engine can do. Take the Unreal Engine for instance. This is a very good piece of technology, which enables development teams to quickly design and create the core content for a game. Its also fairly easy to learn, but it comes with a few limitations. If you can live with these, thats fine, but if you are trying to make a game that needs to go beyond those limits, you will be forced to either work within the limitations of the engine, or make changes to it. This can be a very time consuming, and can potentially create more problems than it solves. With Dawn, we can easily avoid these types of situations, putting less time solving technical problems, and allowing us to put more focus on creating an awesome experience for gamers.

It is very much possible, and is our hope, that it will be used to craft other experiences in the future. We are, however, very confident that it will greatly assist us in creating some of the things youve come to expect from the Deus Ex franchise.

Page 4 of 6
Page 4 of 6

You worked using IO's Glacier engine as a base what are the strengths of that engine, and what areas did you hope to most improve/alter?

At its base, Glacier 2 is a very good engine. It provides the ability to implement game logic and design elements rapidly, along with some more complex elements (such as AI), without requiring any low level coding. It does this through what we call entities. An entity is a block of logic that performs an operation given a set of inputs. Assembling, piping and organizing those entities together actually creates behaviors. Those are then attached to characters or objects to create gameplay. This can become quite complex, but it is a very great tool to have within an engine.

That being said, in order to make the engine more efficient for a game like Deus Ex, we had to create some new tools, whilst also working to improve existing ones. Most of these are related to the way we tell the story, shape the characters and setup gameplay.

We also invested a lot in improving the graphics engine, opting to almost completely rewrite the original version in G2. This was done in order to insure that we were fully leveraging the power offered by the PC and new gen consoles. As a result, it is very easy to create both compelling and complex visual settings within the Dawn engine.

Page 5 of 6
Page 5 of 6

OXM: The released image is designed to show us what the Dawn Engine could do. Could you maybe pick out a few elements in that screen that demonstrate engine features you're particularly proud of?

Eidos:
1. We cant miss the most important feature here, and its everywhere in the framethat is the skill of the artists that made the creation of this scene possible.
2. The color grading tool allows us to alter and enhance the frames colors in order to reach levels of quality that match what you see in motion pictures.
3. Thanks to our new rendering system, materials are accurately portrayed throughout the world, no matter the lighting conditions.
4. The ability to saturate an environment with a staggering amount of objects, resulting in a more real and lived-in feel throughout all the areas in the game.
5. The subtle depth-of-field and chromatic aberration simulates a real camera lens.
6. The air density feature adds more depth into our scenes, helping the lighting to blend into empty spaces.
7. The unsharp mask post-processing gives us a crisper and less blurry image.

Page 6 of 6
Page 6 of 6
CATEGORIES
Xbox One Platforms Xbox
OXM Staff
OXM Staff
Social Links Navigation

The official source for everything Xbox One, Xbox 360, and Xbox Series X. We're also a magazine, covering all things Xbox in the UK and the US. Originally established in 2001, the magazine was discontinued in April 2020. 

See more Xbox One Features
Read more
Deus Ex cover art
Warren Spector celebrates 25 years of Deus Ex, reiterates he wasn't some sole creator: "The Deus Ex concept may have been mine, but the game itself and all kudos aimed at it belong to the great, great team"
A masked boss from the trailer for Crimson Desert, holding a knife.
I saw the dirty little secrets of Crimson Desert's open-world engine, and I'd kill to do it with games like Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom or Red Dead Redemption 2
A barrage of enemy bullets flies towards the Doom Slayer in Doom: The Dark Ages, mostly consisting of red orbs except for one column of green which indicates it can be parried with the shield saw - with a frame for the GamesRadar+ Big Preview
Doom: The Dark Ages' team found new inspiration from the original Doom: "We play it at the start of every project"
A Doom: The Dark Ages Big Preview frame shows key art of the Doom Slayer tearing a horde of demons apart using the shield saw, super shotgun in his off-hand
Big Preview: Doom: The Dark Ages – Exclusive access and hands-on impressions with the fiery FPS
BlackSpace Engine screenshot showing water crashing on rocks
At a ridiculously detailed showcase of the open-world engine behind the RPG Crimson Desert, I asked a ridiculously detailed question about water and all hell broke loose
Metaphor: ReFantazio
After nailing his first JRPG, Metaphor: ReFantazio lead UI designer has one piece of advice for his old self: "Your PC is going to break in 2021. Do something about it!"
Latest in Action
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Link wanted for counterfeit as The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's Switch 2 edition adds a new item duplication glitch for infinite rare materials
Death Stranding 2 Sam touching Lou and Fragile
Full Death Stranding 2 cast and cameos list
A living puppet sits on Fragile's shoulder in a Death Stranding 2 PS5 screenshot
Death Stranding 2 players discover that they're being penalized for efficiency, as bulk-delivering items rewards you less than handing them in one at a time
Death Stranding 2
Do you need to play Death Stranding 1 before Death Stranding 2: On the Beach?
GTA Online Safeguard deliveries
How to complete GTA Online Safeguard deliveries
Death Stranding 2 PS5 screenshot
If you play Death Stranding 2 on your birthday you're treated to a 90-second cutscene that's unbelievably ridiculous even by Hideo Kojima's standards
Latest in Features
One-Punch Man season 3: Saitama punching while in mid-air during the anime One-Punch Man.
Anime Expo 2025: dates, announcements, and why One-Punch Man fans should be excited
The Shrouds
It may feature corpses, missing limbs, and AI, but with The Shrouds, legendary director David Cronenberg has made the ultimate meditation on grief: "To me, there is no afterlife"
A full setup for Fate of the Fellowship with cards, tokens, and pieces all laid out
Legendary board game designer says his upcoming Lord of the Rings project is "definitely the most thematically and mechanically rich game I’ve worked on"
Promotional artwork for the Steam Summer Sale 2025 which runs from June 26th - July 10th at 10am PT
I've spent six hours exploring the Steam Summer Sale with our Games Editor, and these are the 10 best games on discount I'd recommend so far
The Outer Worlds 2 screenshot of Aza, a cultist companion with short pink hair who holds a dagger
The Outer Worlds 2 is "going deeper and more complex" with its companions, and I'm already making grabby hands at this RPG
Ruffy runs across the ocean on wooden crates in Ruffy and the Riverside, with the GamesRadar+ Indie Spotlight logo
Banjo-Kazooie and Paper Mario mix together in this delightful puzzle platformer that has me swapping textures to solve puzzles by changing the world
  1. Sam fires at the ghost mech squid boss in Death Stranding 2: On the Beach
    1
    Death Stranding 2: On the Beach review: "This tarpunk delivery epic is more Metal Gear Solid than ever, for better and worse"
  2. 2
    Rematch review: "As with Rocket League, the just-one-more-game pull is magnetic"
  3. 3
    Tron: Catalyst review: "Disc slinging is a thrill in this gorgeous rendition of the series, but I'm let down by a time-loop story that falls flat"
  4. 4
    FBC: Firebreak review: "A disappointingly bland multiplayer FPS that's missing far too much of what made Control special"
  5. 5
    Dune: Awakening review: "Both extremely compelling and extraordinarily boring, sometimes at the same time – yet still a true Dune love letter"
  1. M3GAN doll in M3GAN 2.0
    1
    M3GAN 2.0 review: "A bold sequel with a slightly underwhelming conclusion"
  2. 2
    28 Years Later Review: "Enough terror, splatter and suspense to satisfy”
  3. 3
    Predator: Killer of Killers review: "Great characters, thrilling action, and gorgeous Arcane-esque animation"
  4. 4
    From the World of John Wick: Ballerina review: "Brilliant action, even if the plot gives you a sense of déjà vu"
  5. 5
    Karate Kid: Legends review: "Better than Karate Kid (2010), nothing on Karate Kid (1984)"
  1. Lee Jung-jae as Gi-hun in Squid Game season 3
    1
    Squid Game season 3 review: "A staggeringly excellent final season wraps up one of the greatest Netflix shows ever"
  2. 2
    Ironheart review: "A relic of Marvel's content-at-all-costs era"
  3. 3
    Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 review: "The show's most assured run of episodes to date"
  4. 4
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 8 spoiler review: 'The Reality War' is "a mix of the good, the bad, and the truly baffling"
  5. 5
    Doctor Who season 2, episode 7 spoiler review: 'Wish World' is "an exciting and ambitious" start to the season finale, with hints of WandaVision

GamesRadar+ is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site.

  • About Us
  • Contact Future's experts
  • Terms and conditions
  • Privacy policy
  • Cookies policy
  • Advertise with us
  • Review guidelines
  • Write for us
  • Accessibility Statement
  • Careers

© Future US, Inc. Full 7th Floor, 130 West 42nd Street, New York, NY 10036.

Please login or signup to comment

Please wait...