How Deus Ex: Human Revolution Actually Predicted The Future

When a video game takes place in the past, a studio (usually) has to put time and effort into historical research. Nothing breaks immersion quite like seeing anachronistic technologies before they were invented — unless that's the point. But, developing a game that takes place in the future creates the opposite problem: You have to craft a world filled with predictions. They don't have to necessarily come true, but they have to be believable. This is especially true with the Deus Ex games.

While studios have a ton of leeway when they produce games that depict the far future, such as with Mass Effect and the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West, Deus Ex didn't have that luxury. The franchise started with an entry that takes place in 2052, and it was revived with the prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which winds the clock back to 2027. Since that game is so close to reality, at least time-wise, the team had to fill it with predictions that made sense (super prosthetics notwithstanding). One such prediction was a believable guess (that actually comes across as an afterthought) on future politicians. Somehow, much like with many of The Simpsons' jokes, this prediction came true.

Which digital omen was this? You can either scour the game for clues or read this article. The choice is yours.

Throughout Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you will discover a library's worth of digital pocket secretaries that include important information, as well as bits of world-building. If you dig around the arctic ocean facility Panchaea for these items, you will eventually discover a message addressed to the executive assistant of Prime Minister Trudeau. This name should sound familiar if you pay attention to Canadian politics.

The combination of the position "Prime Minister" and surname "Trudeau" would seem to obviously refer to the current Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. But, when Human Revolution was in development, he was only an up-and-comer. Justin Trudeau didn't follow in his father's footsteps to become Prime Minister until 2015, one year before Square Enix released Deus Ex: Human Revolution's sequel, Mankind Divided.

Since Canadian Prime Ministers do not have term limits, Justin Trudeau could easily remain in that seat until 2027, although whether he will spend that year in an arctic facility is another story. Still, because someone at Eidos Montréal fabricated a world-building letter about a Prime Minister by the name Trudeau (and the real-world Justin Trudeau has had a successful political career), the studio blundered into predicting the future.