Gameplay director "truly sorry" for Deus Ex: Human Revolution's bosses

In a GDC 2012 post-mortem entitled Reimagining a Classic, gameplay director Francois Lapikas reiterated Eidos Montreal's regret over Deus Ex: Human Revolution's highly criticised bosses.

“[The boss fights] were a big part of the game, and we should have put more effort into them. I’m truly sorry about that. Next time we’re gonna think about it more," Lapikas said during the presentation, as reported by GameInformer.

Eidos Montreal staffers have made similar comments in the past, but this session was one of the first chances for the developer to go deeper into what caused the problem. Lapikas explained that the boss encounters weren't developed with detailed direction sheets, as the rest of the game was.

"We saw them as a thing to break up the pacing more than a way to test the player’s skill,” he admitted, saying the team believed the weapons and ammo scattered throughout boss fights would compensate for any difficulties.

“Play tests did flag the boss fights as a problem, but they didn’t flag the severity of it.”

Shooter RPG hybrid Deus Ex: Human Revolution released in August 2011 on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and was almost universally praosed - except for the boss fights.