Adam Jensen

**Adam Jensen** is the protagonist from *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* video game.

Adam is the mechanically augmented in which he works as the Chief of Security for the biotechnology company Sarif Industries, and *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*, in which he is an operative of Task Force 29aiming to hunt down and capture augmented terrorists while also working for the Juggernaut Collective.

In the TWA fics, Adam debuted in the Twisted World Animania: Legend of Taisuke Sawanaga - Vanguard Warriors.

## **Appearance**

Adam is a tall man with a fit physique. He has a short, dark-brown spiky slicked backed hair alongside a dark-brown facial hair. He wears a dark-brown long coat over a brown muscle shirt and a gray turtleneck shirt, dark-brown pants and brown leather shoes. He also wears brown sunglasses and gloves.

## **Personality**

The personality that Jensen exhibits during *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* is fixed in many ways, but the player has the ability to shape it in various others. The game provides continuous opportunities for the player to decide Jensen's ethical/moral stance towards social behavior and the use of violence. The player can also shape Jensen's evaluation of his own role in events that have already taken place by the time the story begins - such as the Mexicantown Massacre.

Jensen is described as a "working class hero" and exhibits personality traits consistent with that mentality: dependable, resourceful, curious (in a stand-offish way), and with a streak of cynicism. Jensen's childhood and experiences with his mother Margie may have impacted his life and career decisions in that it may have inclined him to a life of service and a desire to help others.

The most prominent fixed element of Jensen's personality is that he is a loner, though he was allegedly getting better before the train attack. He undertakes missions exclusively alone and rarely displays strong emotion even towards close acquaintances. He's also stoic and maybe even a bit melancholic when expressing himself, rarely showing any emotion, be it happiness, joy, sadness or anger when speaking to others. However, a few people in Jensen's life do provoke him to more emotional reactions and his inner thoughts and monologues are highly emotional, but he keeps those emotions to himself. He retains strong affection for his ex-girlfriend Megan Reed and he nearly commits suicide in an attempt to save his new friend and lover, Katrina Sutherland. Although he has a general distrust of authority - perhaps as a consequence of his experiences in law enforcement - Jensen respects and trusts his employer, David Sarif, and reacts badly when that trust is not reciprocated. He shows antipathy toward his colleague Frank Pritchard, who regards him with disdain in return, although their dislike of each other appears to be fairly superficial. Jensen's bitterness toward Sarif carries over into *Deus Ex:* *Mankind Divided* as early on, when Sarif leaves a message on Adam's answering machine, one can simply leave the apartment and not answer. If you come back later to discuss the experimental augs, Adam doesn't retract his eye shields and has quite a few unflattering things to say to Sarif.

By Jensen's own admission he becomes "bore-sighted" on goals, focusing on a target to the exclusion of everything else. Jensen considers this "not one of my better qualities."

When first facing Zhao Yun Ru, Jensen hesitates and is easily distracted when Zhao pretends to be a victim. It slightly suggests something about Adam's personality, possibly that he has a soft spot for women in distress, although the reaction could have easily been manipulated by a CASIE augmentation.

Many of the fixed events in the game, and especially in the comic series, describe Jensen as a professional operative with a high regard for innocent civilians in danger, but he's not above collateral damage if it'll stop further bloodshed.

Furthermore, Adam is both a smoker and a drinker. Adam, before he is augmented, is able to cope with a lot of things, as he takes his separation from Megan Reed in stride. Thus, we see little evidence to provoke his indulgence in vices. However, after the attack, he loses everything that matters to him: his humanity, his lover, and his dog, among other things. The result of this pushed Adam into a depression (he smashed his fist into his mirror), driving him to smoke and drink. We can draw from this that, regardless of the choices the player makes in the game to indicate otherwise, Adam Jensen is often given choices to perform actions that tend to his soul.

Gameplay in *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* does not usually force the player to commit to a particular personality, or at least not completely. The player has freedom to be inconsistent. It is possible for the player's actions to result in the implication that Jensen is extremely manipulative, to the point of being sociopathic. Practical consequences from the game world and story are mostly determined by *what happens,* rather than by an assessment of *why the player did it,* so Jensen's motivations are largely open to the player's interpretation.

## **Augmentations**

Alongside Jaron Namir, Adam Jensen is likely the most augmented character in *Deus Ex: Human Revolution*, with forty to fifty percent of his body replaced with augmentation. All of his initial augmentations were produced by Sarif Industries, and were given to him as a result of the attack by the Tyrants. While Namir seems to have his head and spine implanted into a robotic body, Jensen's augmentations are grafted into his organic torso and skin.

All of Adam Jensen's limbs have been completely replaced: his arms include nanoceramic blades that can be released at either the wrists or elbows for close quarters combat, a function that enables him to punch through walls by opening a section of his forearm, and the ability to dislocate his fingers (which he uses when grabbing a guard's helmet and spinning him in midair, causing massive spinal trauma). Other augmentations include firing stability, lifting heavy weight, and firing accuracy while running.

Jensen's legs are not visible as he wears pants and combat boots to cover them; however, they have various abilities, with no working parts shown to move. It is revealed in the comic that his legs are mechanical from just above the knee down. *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided* corroborates this early in the game when Jensen is first seen in his apartment, sporting Sarif manufactured legs. If the player interacts with the shower they can see the extent of Jensen's augmentation.

His torso appears to be biological, but is covered in dermal armor, along with bolt ports from the bar placed within his chest to support said augments. Underneath he has a variety of cardiovascular and muscular augmentations, such as an internal rebreather, a Sentinel RX health system, three types of bio-electric batteries, and the Typhoon Explosive System, its ejection ports mounted on his upper and lower arms.

Jensen has two augmentations attached to his spinal column: a Reflex Booster and the Icarus Landing System (although the effects of the landing system appear to originate from anywhere in his body).

Jensen uses the Glass-Shield cloaking system, which classes as a skin augmentation. The origin of the mechanism is still indeterminate.

Jensen's head has a plethora of augmentations, most notably a variety of hacking tools and the CASIE module (allowing him to see personality traits and emotional reactions of those he converses with). Jensen bears a hexagonal scar on the left side of his forehead, the result of the insertion of the Infolink's implant module containing a neural hub server, which is paired with a communications bead bonded to his mastoid bone, allowing for subvocal communication. He also has a cochlear implant within his ear cavity. Jensen's eyes have notably been replaced with cybernetic eyes (Eye-know Sarif brand) with gold irises that display various information about the environment, and can be used to record and view video, as well as serve as the base layer for some rather uncommon augs, like Smart Vision and its MAGPIE upgrade, Flash Suppressant upgrade, and a complete suite of Wayfinder Radar System modules. Jensen's eyes are compatible with another Sarif Industries cybernetic eye, the "Atid" model. Additionally he has an unspecified implant that allows him to cover his eyes in eye-shield lenses hidden in black comma-shaped augments around his eyes, an augmentation he shares with Ben Saxon. NPCs occasionally refer to this augment as "mirrorshades." Jensen almost always keeps the lenses activated, appearing to only retract them when sleeping, showering, or engaging in important conversations or interaction.

Adam is the only known Neuropozyne-independent augmentee, the result of experiments performed upon him as an infant at White Helix Labs. However his augmentations post-surgery are for the most part immediately "locked" to prevent overexertion of the brain during his recovery. Over time (or with the use of Praxis kits), Jensen learns to use his augmentations effectively, one at a time.

By the time of *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*, he's the most advanced aug in operation, and possess orange level clearance (do what he says, question his motives at your own peril), and his classification is B-H-8-4-7. This marks him out as a walking weapon of the most extreme class, with the most cutting edge augs, abilities, and growth factor (first digit), he has overall respect for authority and the law, to a point (second digit), and a license to carry, employ, and possess weapons of mass destruction (third digit). Not only does he have his Interpol papers, his orange level ID card, and his ogre classification, but he's also been granted a weaponized augmentation license, which allows him legal use of a, as one metro station cop puts it, "reusable suicide vest." Sometimes panic-stricken civilians will cry "There's an ogre after me!," which is more than fitting, because after the standardization Jensen legally became an ogre: an aug built for combat and subterfuge. In the future, after killing at least a thousand men, Gunther Hermann would also earn this by then old-fashioned nickname.

Only a handful of characters in the game know the full ramifications of Adam's papers and licenses, and all but one (a train checkpoint guard on the second day) respond with outright terror. The one who knows what it means has a lot to say in the few words he gets).

## **Trivia**

* Jensen's famous quote, "I never asked for this," is only said once in *Human Revolution*.
* Jensen's blood type is O Negative.
* Jensen's weight is 182 lbs.
* Jensen was likely inspired by the character Alex Murphy, or better known as *RoboCop*. Both are from Detroit, both served as members of the police, and both were severely injured to the point of near (Jensen) or clinical (Murphy) death in the line of duty, only to be saved via cybernetic technology. This connection is lampshaded in the Detroit Police Station as two officers can be overheard discussing *RoboCop*.
* Jensen's character design resembles a composite of the three Denton brothers: he wears a longcoat and sunglasses at all times, speaks in a nearly emotionally-detached accent similar to that of JC Denton, his goatee resembles that of Paul Denton, and he wears his hair in a spiky hairdo akin to that of Alex Denton.
* According to the developers, Jensen's design guidelines were that he "...had to look like he could either walk into a posh restaurant just to talk to someone, or be dropped behind enemy line and take care of business--all within the same design."
* Jensen received a tattoo of a rifle sight on his right bicep when he joined Detroit SWAT, along with the other members, as a gesture of camaraderie.
* He is voiced and performance captured by actor Elias Toufexis, the husband of Michelle Boback, who voices Megan Reed.
	+ According to this video, Elias and Michelle got into an argument on the day they were supposed to record the lines for Adam and Megan at Omega Ranch, causing them to be genuinely angry during the scene.
	+ Elias Toufexis also voiced Gabriel Nowak in *Rainbow Six: Vegas 2*. In an incident similar to Jensen's, Gabriel was disgraced after a sniper situation caused a bad situation to turn worse. But whereas Gabriel provoked the situation, Jensen walked away.
* In *Deus Ex:* *Mankind Divided* Jensen's skin color appears paler, and his hair a darker black-brown compared to his appearance in *Deus Ex:* *Human Revolution*, due to the removal of the gold-yellow graphic filter used in said game. His face has also been made less angular and more sculpted.
* Jensen wears his eye-shields most of the time, even at night. In *Deus Ex:* *Human Revolution* he covers them the moment he steps into Sarif Industries and retracts them only once: when talking to Megan Reed in Omega Ranch.
	+ Jensen's eye-shields are presumably not tinted in the conventional sense, as they do not seem to affect his perception of light levels. However, since Jensen never removes them during gameplay, it is hard to be sure of this as the whole game has a gold tint. As this tint is apparent even before Jensen receives his augmentations though, it is more likely that the eye-shields are not tinted.
	+ In *Deus Ex:* *Mankind Divided*, Jensen tends to retract his eye-shields more often, like during personal conversations. This is heavily dependent on how much "your" Jensen actually trusts the person in question.
	+ The Eidos logo can be seen on the frames of his eye-shields in artwork and the trailers for *Deus Ex: Human Revolution*. In *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*, his eye-shields are styled after the Eidos logo, as well as having the logo printed on them.
	+ His original set of eye-shields from *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* were heavily damaged during the events of *Deus Ex: Black Light*, being replaced by the set he wears in *Deus Ex: Mankind Divded*.
* If the player chooses to have Adam get the new biochip (that allows Zhao to temporarily shut down his augs), Megan Reed will inject him with a nano-augmentation that shields his biochip from the Illuminati's signal. This would make him the second character in *Deus Ex* to have both mechanical augmentations and nano-augmentations at the same time.
* An e-mail discussing Jensen's DNA reveals that his biological mother did not share the mutation that allows him to tolerate mechanical augmentations.
* Jensen has various vices shown throughout the game. Bottles of whiskey and packs of cigarettes are strewn around his apartment and office and in the cinematic trailers, he drinks and smokes during his recovery. It is revealed in the *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* comics that he took up smoking again after Megan Reed was presumed dead, yet due to his Sentinel RX Health system the negative health impacts of smoking do not affect him.
	+ While the player can consume alcohol within gameplay, the player has no opportunity to smoke tobacco.
	+ He still smokes as of *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*, his favorite brand apparently being Royal Hellhounds.
* Jensen enjoys baseball, as demonstrated by the baseball bat in both his Detroit and Prague apartments and the autographed baseball in his Prague apartment, as well as his watching a Detroit baseball game in the opening scene of the *System Rift* DLC.
* Jensen's pantry selection reveals surprisingly large quantities of sugary breakfast cereals, hinting at a personal preference for sweet food. However, seeing as his augmentations are supposed to draw bioenergy from his systems to function, the strong preference for sugary food might have been a way to adapt to his body's increased energy demands.
* In *Mankind Divided* his favorite drink is Nye's rye, a Canadian made whiskey "proudly produced in Montreal." Coincidentally, it's among the best health restoring drink items in the game.
* Jensen's trench coat is tailor-made to have custom Typhoon ports and blade slits that are magnetically attached to his body to allow him to perform Typhoon blasts or lethal takedowns without having to worry about the condition of his suit. These blade slits are much more noticeable in *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*, due to the higher detail in the coat's design and rendering.
	+ ACRONYM, a real-life apparel brand, collaborated with *Mankind Divided* artists to create a real, working version of Jensen's trench coat.
* In Jensen's office, there are three diplomas from three different universities for the same degree: B.S. in Criminal Justice from Ferris College, Phoenix University, and a third school whose name is illegible.
* In Jensen's apartment and office, there are several whiteboards with mathematical writings and mechanical schematics and an eBook in his apartment tells the story of the first mechanical clock. All this suggests that he has an interest in mechanical theory, though he also used clock-making as a method to learn to control his artificial arms during the 6 months he spent recovering.
	+ As of *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*he continues to enjoy clock-making, as he has a work table dedicated to the hobby and he visits Nomad Staněk's watch shop often enough for the owner to comment on it when being interrogated by Jensen.
	+ Initially the developers intended Jensen's clock-making to indicate that he had always been a collector and simply enjoyed taking devices apart out of curiosity. However during playtesting the testers perceived Jensen's crafting to be his way to learn about his augmented body rather than his being a collector. The developers preferred this interpretation to the original idea and it became canon, so much so that in *Deus Ex: Black Light* Jensen notes that building model clocks was part of his physical rehabilitation.
* He is ambidextrous, although this is for gameplay reasons. Various weapons and objects in the games require Jensen's animations to use both hands. As of *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided* the presence of the Reflex Booster would make him ambidextrous, even if he wasn't already. In spite of this in promotional material and in general in combat, Jensen is demonstrably right-handed.
* Jensen's preferred beard style appears to be the "anchor beard."
* His first name may be a direct reference to Adam, described in the Bible as being the first man created by God. This would fit with JC Denton's first initials possibly being an allusion to Jesus Christ.
	+ Jensen's first name may be intended to imply a parallel with Frankenstein's monster, which is also compared to the Biblical Adam. *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* includes a number of other allusions to *Frankenstein*, particularly in reference to Hugh Darrow and the technologies he has created, but couldn't control.
* In the *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* comics, it states that over 50% of Jensen's body has been replaced. It also shows only the bottom half of his legs have been replaced. However in the comic his eyes are blue rather than yellow.
	+ The comics are further contradicted in *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*whenits shown that Jensen's leg augments go all the way up to his hips, instead of half-way down his thighs.
* Jensen's apparel also appear as promotional content in various other video games. His augmentations, combat armor and Zenith pistol are available as DLC for *Hitman: Absolution*. His augmentations, combat armor, and the FR-27 SFR are featured in *Sleeping Dogs*. His eye-shields, cybernetic arm, and Diamondback .357 revolver appear as promotional miscellaneous items in *Team Fortress 2*.
* Jensen is available as a map commentator in *DotA 2*, for those who purchase *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided* on Steam.
* In a low temperature container on one side of the VersaLife Vault in the Palisade Corporate Vaults is the head and torso of a human being, who looks nearly identical to Jensen. This unknown being even shares Adam's facial hair, scars on his cheek, and scar over his eye. The only noticeable difference is that he lacks Jensen's full hair model and the eye cover (eye shield/sunglasses) augmentation (however, he has a faint scar at the locations flanking the eyes where the eye cover aug would be mounted). By using third-party tools to see through the entire container, the torso's shoulder area shows indentations corresponding to the parts of Jensen's cybernetic arms that extend onto the torso around the shoulder socket.
* During Steam's Summer 2017 sale, a sticker book was added for the event and Jensen was included in one of the pages.
* When the final touches were made on Adam for *Deus Ex: Human Revolution*, the character designer strongly opposed the semi-auto superspy look with silenced weapons, and made his default (if you can call it that) a big revolver, with as much bite as it has bark. This was allegedly a throwback to the old noir days of PIs using large caliber revolvers, *Blade Runner'*s iconic pistol, and the fact that neither Clint Eastwood nor Peter Weller (*Robocop*) ever used tactical silencers, and in Clint's case a big gun doesn't need to be fired, as long as you're deathly afraid of the man wielding the gun.
* By the time of his augmentation, and even before, Jensen showed signs of being an experienced Silhouette revolver shooter, based on how he grips his 'trademark' .357 revolver, which would quality him for 'lightweight,' based on caliber alone, but even by the events of *Mankind Divided*, his old habits reign strong, and he holds his revolvers with the signature 'cradle,' normally reserved for .44 special and above.
* *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided'*s revolver amplifies the noise and power of Jensen's *Deus Ex: Human Revolution* revolver and makes it into the strongest weapon in the game. With certain versions of the game, you'll have access to the "classic" .357 Diamond Back, which is a souped up version of the *Human Revolution* gun, that inflicts even more damage than other revolvers. Unfortunately you can't modify it to fire explosive ammo, but you can mod it to have Jensen fan the trigger, and empty 9 shots in blink of an eye.
* In Side Mission 10 of *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*, Jensen reveals he was the captain of the debate team in his high school.
* On the coffee table of Jensen's Prague apartment can be found a signed copy of Pritchard's *Nuclear Snake*screenplay, possibly indicating that Pritchard sought Jensen's opinion on it.
* As of the time period of *Deus Ex Universe: Children's Crusade* Jensen speaks and understands some German. By the time of *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided* Jensen is attempting to teach himself Czech, as evidenced by the Czech language books on his coffee table.
* By the time period of *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided* Jensen demonstrates an interest in cooking, as in Jensen's Prague apartment can be found a Czech cookbook.
* Adam's cybernetic arms are a matched pair of the bleeding edge Sarif series 7 arms: S7 combat arm replacement 0903\_93AJ. He seems to be the only character throughout the series to sport these incredibly advanced and versatile arms. Based on their production number ending in AJ, it's possible they were a one-off production specifically for Adam. Most Sarif aug owners are limited to series 5, but a handful of (formerly) very rich, influential, and successful people, like Irenka Bauer, have Sarif series 6 arms, which were considered some of the best arm replacements money could buy in 2027. His arms` serial number is #0099D56Y as seen in the *Human Revolution* trailer.
* The toy cop car Adam gifted Megan with on their first date, which can be found on Megan's desk in *Deus Ex: Human Revolution*, appears later on Adam's desk in the TF29 headquarters in *Deus Ex: Mankind Divided*.