Eidos Montréal producer David Anfossi told Edge that farming out the boss fights to Grip Entertainment was a mistake -- not because Grip failed, but because the implementation and design of boss encounters was poor. "We knew that it would be a weakness for the game, that we had to make a compromise to deliver it [on] two levels. First, the boss fights were forced, which is not the Deus Ex experience. Second, there is no mix [of] solutions to tackle the boss fights, which is not Deus Ex either. We knew that before the release of the game, but there had to be some compromise. It [was] our decision."
That's not to say Anfossi isn't proud of Deus Ex -- he's quite content with the hacking, stealth, social and combat aspects of the game -- but if he had a chance to do it all again, he'd handle the boss fights differently rather than taking them out entirely. "There are two options: no boss fights, or do boss fights correctly. I'm pretty sure that now we have the knowledge to do it correctly."
