Project Snowblind, The Deus Ex Spin-Off Everyone Forgot About
In an April 2004 financial report, Eidos revealed to investors that "a new Deus Ex action game" had begun production. This combat-focused spin-off, tentatively titled Deus Ex: Clan Wars, was to be developed by Crystal Dynamics, while Ion Storm—the studio behind the original game and its poorly received sequel—would oversee the project. Eidos was looking for ways to broaden the appeal of the Deus Ex IP, and Clan Wars, which prioritised guns and action over the series' trademark cerebral role-playing, seemed like the perfect way to do it. Set between Deus Ex and Invisible War, the game would have starred a character named Dixon Denton—presumably a relation or clone of original hero JC Denton. But little over a month later, Eidos changed its plans.
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In May, Eidos brought a game called Snowblind to E3. This tactical squad-based shooter was set in a dark, dystopian future and featured a special ops commando packing an arsenal of high-tech weaponry and nano-augmentations that granted him superhuman abilities. It didn't take long for people to figure out that Snowblind was, in fact, Clan Wars, the game Eidos teased in April. For reasons that have never been fully revealed, the publisher decided to distance this new project from Deus Ex entirely. A strange choice given that Invisible War, despite bad reviews, sold over a million copies. According to an anonymous source quoted in a Gamespot report from June 17, 2004, "Snowblind did begin as Clan Wars, but then it began to take a direction of its own."
In December, 2004, Gamespot interviewed Zak McClendon, a designer on Project Snowblind—the final name Eidos settled on for the project. "Warren Spector (director
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