Deus Ex 3 to get BioShock atmosphere

Eidos Montreal wants Deus Ex 3 to be as immediately atmospheric and unique as System Shock and BioShock.

That's according to preview by Czech website Hratelne.cz (translated by a poster on the Eidos forums), which says the cyberpunk style came from a renaissance background and a desire for man to outdo nature. The developer, says the preview, openly admires the Art Deco world of BioShock.

Underneath the visuals there will also be significant gameplay improvements. Groups of opponents will be ordered around by a visually identifiable leader who, once killed, will leave squads in disarray - making leader elimination a key tactic.

Group behaviour will adapt to protagonist Adam Jensen to try and catch him off guard; bosses, too, will scale in difficulty based on previous actions in the game.

Deus Ex 3 acts as a prequel to the revered RPG series, with the action spilling across five metropolises, including Shanghai, Detroit and Montreal - handy.

Hero Adam Jensen finds himself in the middle of a mega-corporation war when his investigation into a black ops raid on his research department opens a wriggly can of worms.

Eidos is apparently attempting to build a strong bond between players and Adam Jensen by opening his apartment for exploration and filling the space with personal artefacts. We're told women will try and seduce or betray Jensen, too.

Combat will be more skill-based and active, and players will use a cover system, as we know. Biological implants return, and Eidos Montreal wants each of these to be visually striking and be upgradeable at least once.

Examples are an X-ray vision claymore ability that causes a crossfire explosion, killing multiple enemies in a very fancy way. There's an even better implant that shoots wires out of Jensen's neck that grapple walls and allow him to scale them. Augmentations are sorted into four areas: combat, stealth, technology and dialogue.

Characters, we're told, will use lots of facial expressions that keen-eyed players will be able to capitalise on and tailor their dialogue options towards.

Deus Ex 3 is in development for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3. There's no release date yet, but we're hounding Eidos to find out more.