Deus Ex is celebrating its 25-year anniversary today, June 23, 2025. Below, we chat with designer Steve Powers about how he created one of the most franchise’s most iconic stages.
Steve Powers has never visited Hong Kong, but he’s been there in his dreams.
As a designer on the original Deus Ex, he walked the city’s in-game streets every day for more than two years. Development was, he says, “a bit of a haze” of hard work and at least once, when he closed his eyes at night, he saw those virtual canals and neon-lit alleys: those sides of meat hanging in the market and the fog draping a temple in the city center.