Deus Ex: Human Revolution/Shout Out

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Next to a toilet, you can find three seashells laying on a windowsill [dead link]
  • A large mercenary named Barrett with a cyberarm minigun, in a game published by Square Enix? Sounds familiar... (Although Eidos Montreal has stated this was actually unintentional).
    • This is, incidentally, not the first or only Shout Out to that title in the Deus Ex franchise, intentional or not. Invisible War had a couple too.
  • While we're on the subject of Final Fantasy Shout-Outs, don't forget this
  • Although probably unintentional, Adam's retracting sunglass implants are very similar to Vanessa Z Scneinder's. They could also be considered more practical versions of the eye-shades Molly Millions has.
    • Speaking of Molly, one of the Jane Does in the Belltower stasis pods in The Missing Link is labeled with the initials "MM", has implants that include ocular mirror lenses and finger razors, was picked up in Japan, and has "Rose Kolodny" listed as an alias.
  • And then there's this. "The Bull has been asking questions about our little basement club. Has somebody been breaking the first rule?" Probably unintentional, but still.
  • In the police station, you can overhear two cops discussing some 80s movie set in Detroit that had a robotic police officer. One of the two is even named Alexander Murphy, and one of the e-mails on his computer mentions an Officer Lewis. Given the very similar Detroit-cop-gets-beaten-to-death-and-rebuilt-with-technology, this is a pretty deliberate Lampshade Hanging.
    • There's another Robocop shout-out on a computer in the Detroit LIMB clinic, which references Jensen's augmentations; specifically that his left arm and legs were salvageable but were replaced at Sarif's request. A similar scene occurs in the first film, where Murphy's left arm is initially saved but then replaced to fit OCP's plan of "total body prosthesis."
  • The Dopefish appears as graffiti in the DRB gang territory.
  • Named police officers include R. Deckard (short for Robin), W. Gibson, B. Sterling, B. Bethke, H. Ellison, P. Cadigan, J. Ballard and P. Dick. The passwords to their computers are shout-outs too - "lectrolam" (Electro Lamb) for P. Dick, |"solempire" for J. Ballard, "baronnull" for W. Gibson and "cordwainer" for H. Ellison.
    • Not to mention the security log-in for mpost, whose first name is presumably Mike, and whose password is blues
  • Adam & Megan's dog is named Kubrick.
  • Arms manufacturer Steiner-Bisley takes both of its names from Jessica Stevenson and Simon Pegg's characters from Spaced.
  • When Jensen descends to the final floor of the underground base, he sees a mook struggling with controlling a huge robot, who quite obviously resembles Big Dog.
  • Surveillance cameras made by "Big Bro Surveillance".
  • One of the Achievements/Trophies is Foxiest of the Hounds, gained by completing without setting off any alarms. The image for this achievement also shows exclamation marks next to a mook's head.
  • There is a sidequest-important character in Heng Sha named Lee Hong, who shares a name with a character from another Eidos game series.
    • The manner in which you stage Diamond Chan's suicide during the "Rotten Business" sidequest, and the picture for the Achievement/Trophy you unlock for doing so, are also reminiscent of this same franchise.
  • One of the eBooks the player can find mentions a listing of media stream subscriptions, and the news feed mentions an interview with "elder rocker JoCo."
  • One of the achievements/trophies is called "Hangar 18", and it involves hacking into a PC/email whose username is "MSTAINE" and signature is "Dave".
  • The only named NPC that never participates in a two-way conversation with Adam is a "Working Girl" (read: Harlot) named Charlotte.
  • The "Forever Alone" meme can be found on a post-it.
  • During a side-quest in Hengsha, you have to contact a man named Anonymous X. He's wearing a hat with #chan written on it.
  • An eBook in Shanghai details the history of The Triads and the Tongs in the 21st century and makes mention of "the Mark Gor Lau Wars."
  • Jaron Namir's augmentations make him look plastinated, and his Boss Arena looks like Gunther von Hagens' Body Worlds.
  • One of the augmentation companies mentioned in the Picus news reports is called Kusanagi Industries.
  • Apparently, Zero Cool is still up and working in 2027.
  • On your first visit to Hengsha, near the end, there's a computer in one of the rooms near Zhao's penthouse that contains an email directed at a "Kevin Mitnick."
  • Several e-mails found on various computers in Singapore are almost directly paraphrased from the automated speech of the Black Mesa Transit System.
  • Emails found in the Picus Sub-Basement involve one employee complaining that the statue of the MJ-12 logo looks like it belongs in a Bond movie.
  • In the Omega Ranch complex, there is a computer with an email from 'Dwayne' addressed to the security staff, saying (in unnecessarily fancy language) that he wanted to requisition a camera to try and catch who was repeatedly putting animal porn on his computer, suspecting that it's one of his fellow scientists. It's revealed on another computer that three guards, 'Mark,' 'Lou,' and 'Abigail,' are behind it, and are tempted to humor Dwayne by giving him a camera and repeating the process while wearing an office labcoat. It becomes clear what the Shout-Out is toward when Mark mentions, "I can't wait to see the look on his face when he sees what I did with his stapler."
  • And later, when you find Dwayne's computer, not only does it have conspiracy theories in the outbox, but the general message he sent out includes a postscript accusing someone named 'Jim' of stealing his stapler. It doesn't get much clearer than that.
  • Elsewhere in the Omega Ranch, a security memo to all staff from the admin team is a "Urinalysis and Radiation Screening Reminder", and is a word-for-word quote from the original Black Mesa Commute. Later, there's also a "Safety Policy and Regulation Reminder", an "Annual Interdepartmental Mensa Competition Reminder"...
  • In Montreal, you visit a seemingly harmless location that turns out to have been guarded by mercenaries, with a secret basement containing critical intelligence, owned by a conspiracy that secretly controls the world from behind the shadows. Oh, and in aforementioned basement, There are extension leads with one end plugged into a wall socket, the other plugged into another wall socket on the other side of the hallway. Subtle.
  • During the quest with Brent Radford, if you listen into the conversation between him and his attacker, he will ask if he is getting a new rug, since it really tied the room together.
  • In the Detroit police station the hacker's body has been classified Ultraviolet and is off-limits to Blue clearance. One of the classic era supplements was Hil Sector Blues in which the Alpha Complex police were all classified as Blue security clearance.
  • Praxis points and kits are very similar to cyber-modules in System Shock 2.
  • You can discover an email from one "veronica_m" who's working in the sleuthing business.
  • There is a GURPS SWAT RPG sourcebook sitting on one of the desks in the police station.
  • You can overhear a mention of a General O'Neill.
  • Inherited from System Shock and the original Deus Ex: the Arc Number (0)451.
  • In the "Forgotten Acquaintances" mission, you can read a note on one of the MIBs that details "Mr Grey"'s iteniary. It includes stopping at a place called Wimbledon Bridge House. This building exists in Real Life and is one of Square Enix's registered offices.
  • There's a sniper rifle on the roof of a gas station. It's entirely possible to get it during the 2nd chapter, even though the normal method for obtaining it requires you to hack a level 4 security panel. Hint: There's a barrel outside of the gas station, and a vent on the inside positioned just above a rack. You can use the barrel to jump up and grab it before you fall.
    • You can also just use a barrel or the high jump augmentation to climb the red dumpster behind the gas station, from which its trivially easy to jump up to the roof.
  • The 10mm Zenith pistol grip is taken from the Seburo M-5, the standard issue pistol of Public Security Section Nine.
    • Which is also a call forward to the original Deus Ex; the stealth pistol is closely modeled after the Seburo Compact eXploder, another of Masamune Shirow's designs.
  • A subtle one: the manager of the Alice Garden Pods is named Jay Chou, a Taiwanese singer/songwriter who's a superstar in Asia and unknown in the west.
  • An email exchange between a base officer and a logistics officer in The Missing Link has the logistics officer advising the base officer that if he is really serious about getting a pizza oven, he should just fill out one of the standard machine gun requisition forms, cross out the machinegun model, and write "pizza". This is something a requisition officer onced told the doctors of the 4077th that they could do, after telling them that they could not get supplies they actually needed.
  • When obtaining information from Picus, Jensen receives the inquiry "Would you like to know more?"
  • One of the Picus emails references the employees playing "Universe of Shadows" on Saturdays.
  • A possible scroll on the bottom of a Picus news broadcast is, "Pirates sighted off the coast of Tortuga."
  • A blink-and-you'll-miss-it double shout - a computer at Sarif's Milwaukee Junction factory has the password "redwings". You decide whether it's calling out the Final Fantasy IV airship squadron or Detroit's NHL team.
  • Barrett's death is pretty much the same as Leon's in Léon: The Professional.
  • The launch sequence codes for the LEO shuttle are the same codes Kirk uses to activate the Enterprise's self-destruct in Star Trek III the Search For Spock.
  • You can find email correspondance for a Corporal Dwane Hicks.
  • The Plasma Rifle shares a lot of characteristics with the Quake 3 BFG 10 K. Both are extremely rare, state of the art weapons. Both shoot powerful green projectiles that cause splash damage. When the characters hold them, only small portions of the tips (of otherwise pretty massive guns) are being shown. To top it off, the rate of fire is nearly identical. The plasma rifle's description even seems to be a shout out, as it states targets can occasionally be vaporized by the gun. This doesn't actually happen in the game, but was really common with Quake 3's BFG.
  • Over the road from the Detroit Police Station is a building that resembles the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles. This is presumably another shout out to Blade Runner, as the real world building is shown in several shots because of it's location across from the Bradbury Building. The game version is even called "MDM," which is obviously meant to be Million Dollar Movies or similar.
  • One of the computers in Tai Young Medical belongs to a Ms. Tam. This may be coincidental, as Tam is a (relatively) common surname in China.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Deus_Ex:_Human_Revolution/Shout_Out?oldid=2031071"