Deus Ex: Human Revolution vs. BioShock Infinite
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Deus Ex was a revelation, it combined RPG leveling of skills, stealth, dialog trees and first-person shooting in a way no game had ever done before. It's fair to say few have done them since. The ability to choose multiple paths, and solve situation in different way is something that was mostly forgotten in the years following its release. True some hard core RPGs maintained these mechanics, but it wouldn't be until Bioshock and Mass Effect in 2007 or Fallout 3 in 2008 that anybody truly tried to create a hybrid like Deus Ex. Even the game's sequel, the much maligned Invisible War, failed to live up to its predecessor. Once the mechanics that made Deus Ex became popular again (with the help of the games mentioned above) Eidos brought the series back from the grave and began work on Human Revolution.
The Bioshock side of the family tree doesn't relate to one person but a group of people at Looking Glass Technologies, the developers of the original System Shock. They were also the makers of the original Thief, and when they left their parent company in 1997 Ken Levine, Jonathan Chey, and Robert Fermier created Irrational Games. Their first project was 1999's System Shock 2, a game that combined FPS and RPG mechanics in ways very similar to how Deus Ex would a year later. It also added more than a few survival horror elements as well. Bioshock borrowed the dark, moody atmosphere of the game and became known as its spiritual successor.
