E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy is now available on GOG.

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The version of the game sold on GOG is a single-player only edition – it means online and LAN modes are not accessible.

As a member of the strange secret society E.Y.E, you wake up after a fight in which your fellow teammates were killed. E.Y.E, an armed branch of the Secreta Secretorum is attempting a coup against the all-powerful Federation, a coalition of several worlds and planets that rule with an iron fist.
To complicate matters, E.Y.E itself is plagued with its own internal conflicts between the Jian faction and the Culter faction, to which you belong. Your loyalties are torn between Commander Rimanah, your superior and the chief of the Secreta who is a separatist with an unstoppable ambition, and the "Mentor" your friend and instructor. The "Mentor" tries at all costs to unite the two rival factions. In doing so, you are thrust into the middle of a fratricidal war frought with political conspiracies and quests for power in which different groups and megacorporations are implicated.
These troubles set the stage for an attack by an unknown force bent on destroying humankind.

Key features:

• Psychological and mental trauma management.
• 25 weapons, different shooting modes, dynamic precision, drilling shots, iron sighting, extended zoom.
• Complete hacking system with game play impact
• 9 devastatingly subtle PSI powers.
• More than 20 NPC with non-scripted, fully reactive and efficient AI, endowed with a sense of initiative. Bloody close combat with technical detail. Incredible physical movement realism thanks to Source Engine physics.
• Excellent replayability - primary and secondary missions, dynamic environments, non-linear level progression, and random NPC spawn, type and appearance. Death doesn't penalize players: no need to restart the current mission.
• Open-level gameplay for hours of fun without reloading.

Steam News announces a free weekend is underway for E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy.

Play E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy for FREE starting now through Sunday at 1PM Pacific Time. You can also pickup E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy at 50% off the regular price!*

If you already have Steam installed, click here to install or play E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. If you don't have Steam, you can download it here.

*Offer ends Monday at 10AM Pacific Time

A demo for E.Y.E. is now available from Steam so you can sample the game and then take advantage of the Steam sale at 60% off.

Remember E.Y.E.? A new v1.31 patch has been released:

Among the many benefits of this new 1.31 update, you will find custom maps support (available in multiplayer and in solo through a new NPC), E.Y.E's FGD, an explicative guideline and some level example sources; everything the community needs to create their own levels. This update also concerns a major change in the secondary mission system (cm_), the re-balancing of the equipment weight, the attack delay after a sprint and a noteworthy improvement of the player’s clones and drones.

E.Y.E. has been patched to v1.3 - from their website:

A new update/patch has been released for E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy. One of the new features is a completely new setup panel for the artificial intelligence. As for the major issues, the characters’ resets and deletions have been fixed; we also heavily modified the respawn systems for the players and especially the NPC, so they don’t feel like they appear out of thin air behind players’ backs or magically spawn anymore. We also resolved various exploits.

We strongly recommend you to start a new game from the beginning with a new character in order to enjoy the various changes and the deletion of many bugs in the best way possible.

We apologize for releasing this update belatedly, for having left the Christmas achievements and features hanging for so long, but we wanted to fix several critical bugs and to modify so many things.

Head over for the full notes.

TruePCGaming takes a second look at E.Y.E., resulting in generally positive article. On the gameplay problems:

The area that caused me the most frustration in E.Y.E. was the overall gameplay.

I suppose the appropriate place to start is with the tutorials, which I will euphemistically call lacking. At the beginning of the game, you are presented with a menu; a daunting list of 23 topics to learn about that slams your HUD with all the elegance of an 18-wheeler. As you may have guessed, I instantly met this with disdain. However, the worst was yet to come as I was treated to a series of outdated, poorly translated videos, each as roundabout and incomprehensive as the last. It wasn’t long before I decided I’d be better off just playing the game. Thankfully, most of the actual gameplay was intuitive enough that I could pick it up without instruction.

That being said, certain aspects suffered more than others from the lack of explanation. The biggest problem for me was with the hacking system, which felt arbitrary and clunky for almost the entire game. It had perhaps the least helpful tutorial of the lot, which left me to blunder through the process whenever it was called upon. I started to learn the ins and outs as time went by, but my brief experiments with some of the more interesting concepts (like possessing people and robots) were ditched quickly. As far as I’m concerned, these concepts fail due to terrible implementation. If it was just my lack of understanding, however, they fail by lack of instruction.

There's a review of E.Y.E. at Eurogamer with a score of 5/10. For every positive, there's a matching negative:

The weapon mechanics are solid, if a little lacking in visceral oomph, and the game also introduces a feature that I wish more shooters would offer: should you reload with bullets still in the current magazine, you throw those bullets away. There's a clever hacking game, where failure results in your target hacking you back. Along with the multitude of vaguely explained abilities to play around with, these are the small notes of ingenuity that suggest there's a fantastic game to be found in the guts of this unwieldy creation, if only the garbled surface layers would let it out.

Yet this is undermined by simplistic enemy AI and curious weapon balancing. Even when playing in a city environment, there are no civilian characters, which can't help but diminish the atmosphere. Every enemy you see will simply come jogging towards you, chipping away at your health with spookily accurate fire as they go. Until you build up your stealth abilities there's not much point trying to sneak past, and once you are all stealthed up, there's little satisfaction in evading such dimwitted drones.

RPG Italia let us know they have a post-release interview with Streum on Studio about E.Y.E.:

E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy results as one on the most played games on Steam. Do you think there is still room for complex RPG experience, or will the market inevitably shift to more user friendly “consolized” games, like Mass Effect?

We think that hardcore games and especially complex RPGs still have a place on the video game market. A lot of players begin to suffocate from the games’ standardization and from the fact that a lot of games treat them like 5-year-old kids who need to have their hands held. We have faith in players, and we think that their choices and desires can change the video game market’s face. And we also think that there’s room for every type of games.

Edge Online has a review of E.Y.E., noting the "sheer ambition" but finding it not enough. The score is 4/10 and here's an excerpt:

Perhaps the levels’ cavernous nature would be less of a problem if the missions didn’t force players into constant backtracking. In an attempt to make missions multi-stage, you’re forced to fight your way back to your contact, pushing through the waves of enemies conveniently respawned as your back was turned. EYE tries to ape Deus Ex in its freedom of choice, but Ion Storm’s game knew that players were only free when they understood the systems around them – guard patrols, blindspots, escape routes. EYE has none of this nuance: enemies psychically know your hiding spot, and stealth is a maddeningly inconsistent option.

Much more sensible is the choice to grab the largest weapon you can carry and lay waste to everything – there’s no downside to doing so. Non-lethality is never a combat option, and even three-choice dialogue trees usually end with ‘don’t kill’, ‘kill’ or ‘kill!’ as the options. Enemies come in endless waves, the game’s monster-ish manifestations of the metastreumonic Force being the most relentless. EYE’s more subtle tactics – such as hacking – are overwhelmed in the face of such odds.

Jason sent us the info that E.Y.E. has been patched to version 1.13.

At last, here comes the first saving patch for E.Y.E. We hope it will please you and will make the game more enjoyable. We encourage you to recreate a character in order to really improve the experience, and to reset your achievements (in game in the Stats tab).

We may give you the required tools to create level in the near future, and a demo of E.Y.E will be released very soon.

A full list of the changes and fixes can be found on the official site.

GameSpot has reviewed E.Y.E., with the result a modest 7/10, which they label "good". This intro covers the main points:

E.Y.E.: Divine Cybermancy is an unusual, engrossing, and maddening game that is unmistakably itself. This first-person role-playing action game may be painted with shades of Deus Ex, but its atmosphere and pace are unique, and this uniqueness keeps you engaged in the face of some uninviting elements. E.Y.E. is ambitious. It hands you guns, swords, and cybernetic skills, and then drops you into a chilling sci-fi world, letting you accomplish your goals in any way you see fit. It's also confusing and awkward, dropping unnecessary obstacles in your path proudly, as if to say, "These aren't bugs; they're features!" And so you might sometimes curse and grit your teeth, but you will also be entertained and perhaps even in awe at times. Once you've played E.Y.E., you aren't apt to forget it. Whether you remember it more for its oppressive futuristic ambience and impressive flexibility, or for how hard it works to alienate its own players, depends largely on how much patience you have.

GameBanshee let us know they have posted a review of E.Y.E. There are elements they like and they say the game can often be fun, but ultimately, the problems overwhelm:

The problem, predictably, is that with so many elements in the pot, E.Y.E never really comes together in a coherent sort of way. The issues with E.Y.E are so numerous and so pervasive, that it's honestly very difficult to decide where to start, but they crop up early and never relent. There's no easy way to say it: this game is broken. Maybe not to the point of it being unplayable (on the contrary, at times it can be a lot of fun), but it's hard to believe it was deemed acceptable to release in this state.

The most obvious problem the game has is poor communication. Put simply, E.Y.E is terrible about presenting information, whether that's critical mission details, storyline elements, or even basic tutorials. For instance, jumping into the game, all you get are a set of poorly-subtitled videos; these are either overcomplicated or completely useless, yet you'll have to rely on them to understand many of the game's basic elements. Others, like how gaining experience functions, the nuances of the surprisingly involved hacking minigame, or the details of the research system, are left unexplained. At its worst, E.Y.E will outright contradict itself, such as in one mission where I was told to "get the hell out of here", yet it was only after running back to the drop zone that I realised the game actually wanted me to stand exactly where I was and protect the same NPC who gave me the instruction to run, who ended up dying shortly after. In a nice move, the game didn't just fail the mission, but instead let me continue without him... until he inexplicably reappeared in the next mission, anyway.

IGN reviews E.Y.E., with a score of 5/10:

Once you're kind of up to speed, jumping into the campaign missions and putting all the nifty cybernetic and magical powers to use is the reason to play E.Y.E., but this too became disappointing as I slowly realized the levels aren't all that fun. The enemy A.I. all but sprint straight at you once they've seen you, and appear to possess an omniscience that allows them to instantly turn and shoot at you once you're exposed or detected. Stealth or brute force never seems like a viable option with the character I hodge-podged together—before knowing anything about how a certain build or skill might be superior to another—which left me to witness every skirmish descend into the same, repetitive long-range gun battle against enemies who always magically knew where I was. Maybe with enough time to learn the ins-and-outs of proper builds and where to allocate my hard earned experience and money, I could craft the ideal character to make a more satisfying play through, but E.Y.E. just isn't entertaining enough to warrant the effort or revisiting.

Aussie site Games On Net has a short review of E.Y.E. with a score of 3.5/5:

EYE: Divine Cybermancy is a game that, despite Toby’s protestations, has taken most people by surprise: an open-ended cyber-punk techno-wizard game full of swords, demons, psychic powers and sniper rifles. Many are comparing EYE to the much-beloved Deus Ex and, mechanically at least, the similarities are undeniable. The open-endedness of the levels and the flexibility in weapons and character skills means there is a hugely different number of ways to approach any given problem, and reactive NPC AI means you’ll often find yourself in unpredictable situations.

One of the key selling points of Deus Ex was of course the excellently written, beautifully-told storyline - something that, unfortunately, EYE fails to deliver on. It’s not that the storyline is bad, per se, it’s just that it’s obscured behind poorly-written English that, when combined with an dense lattice of complex in-world teminology, makes for chat boxes and dialogues that every player I’ve spoken with agrees should be avoided at all costs. This is sad, because what glimmers of the storyline you are able to make out paint a compelling world, realised in a unique and beautiful aesthetic reminiscent of a Japanese-French Warhammer 40,000 techno-gothic.

It's become apparent E.Y.E. is a little more MP shooter and a little less RPG but since we've covered it for so long, we might as well throw in a review. FiringSquad has the first critique we've seen and their score is a healthy 80%, although the price and the indie developer seem to have impacted that. A sample on the gameplay:

It’s a good thing there are so many ways to play, too, as the entire game basically boils down to killing a lot of enemy AI in huge, open environments. There are some basic objectives for eliminating specific enemies, placing, finding, hacking, or destroying items, investigating areas, and the like, but they’re really just excuses to explore the map and seek conflict. Whenever you leave the safety of the hub or home base within each map, you can basically fight a never-ending force of human, monster, and robot enemies, as they will continuously respawn all over the map in set intervals. This can make things rather hectic, especially if you’re going at it solo... I remember one mission in particular where it was a constant struggle to survive, let alone progress and complete objectives, even though I was using the .50-cal sniper rifle that usually kills in one shot. If you get caught out in the open by shock troopers with miniguns and/or a flying gunship with battle turrets, your only option is to run for cover because getting hit that much will prevent you from being able to return fire with any kind of accuracy.

In other E.Y.E. news, the official site apologises for bugs and says they are working on fixes:

E.Y.E. has suddenly launched on Steam (thanks Matt!) and you can pick it up on a 10% launch discount for $17.99. You would have thought a release date to build a modicum of hype would be a good idea but there you go. Here is the feature list as a reminder:

• Multiplayer co-op modes directly influence solo play, and vice-versa. The limits of solo and multiplayer games are finally left behind.
• Psychological and mental trauma management.
• 25 weapons, different shooting modes, dynamic precision, drilling shots, iron sighting, extended zoom.
• Complete hacking system with game play impact
• 9 devastatingly subtle PSI powers.
• More than 20 NPC with non-scripted, fully reactive and efficient AI, endowed with a sense of initiative. Bloody close combat with technical detail. Incredible physical movement realism thanks to Source Engine physics.
• Excellent replayability - primary and secondary missions, dynamic environments, non-linear level progression, and random NPC spawn, type and appearance. Death doesn't penalize players: no need to restart the current mission.
• Open-level gameplay for hours of fun without reloading.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has some impressions from Jum Rossignol - he sounds a little confused by the game, to be honest, and sums it up with "intrigued but not convinced":

The whole thing is four-player co-op, so you can play through it multiplayer as you see fit. I suspect this is the optimal way to get through it, because the combat does feel more like you are playing basic multiplayer bots than well scripted enemies. I say this partly because I haven’t really figured stealth out, and therefore have fought my way through most of the levels, but ultimately baddies aggro you from far away, and then run to get into line of sight. Snipers pick you up almost immediately, which can be a little annoying. Ultimately enemy activity is a bit simplistic and doesn’t compare well with other, similar FPS behaviours, or the diverse range of options that the rest of E.Y.E. wants you take advantage of. Also modern games have really pushed the audio-visual feedback of being shot at, and here it feels very lightweight, which makes dying (and then being peculiarly instantly resurrected) all seem a little weightless. As a consequence I’m not finding the combat particularly satisfying, but I also haven’t quite figured out how to adapt my character to stealth. It might involve starting over.

All that said, the combat has some positive aspects: It’s fast-paced, especially in how quickly enemies go down. No bullet sponges here. In fact it all speaks of hardcore multiplayer influences. Once again there’s that tinge of Source mod to it. You get the feeling that mods like NeoTokyo might have had some influence here. Streum clearly want their combat to be respected, and ignore the slow, challenge-free cover-systems that contemporary gaming tells us we want. The result of this is a game that feels old fashioned and at the same time bold and independent.

There are some player comments at RPS that are definitely mixed, so go in with your eyes open if you decide to pick this up.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun has interviewed StreumOnStudio’s Christophe Longuepee about E.Y.E, which is described as having finished development with the release imminent. I must say my personal interest dropped with an emphasis on "fast-paced combat" and player skill - here's a snip:

RPS: Okay! What sort of game is E.Y.E.? What kind of experiences are you hoping to offer players?

Longuepee: E.Y.E is a FPS/RPG game, rather old school, and banking on a fast-paced combat gameplay. The player dives in a very dark Cyberpunk world (we’re not talking about the lack of lights in the maps, as said in some comments, it looks like a French specialty, sort of like cooking, cute girls, or bad moods) where he embodies an assassin, torn apart between his sense of duty and his friendship with his mentor. We wanted to put an emphasis on the player’s skills rather than his avatar’s characteristics.

The RPG part is very present in the dialogues and the choices that player’s character will make, that will influence the events and the scenario of the game. Another priority for us was to offer the player an immersion and a freedom of choice as powerful and complete as possible.

The EYE website is pointing to a new trailer on Youtube with a little over 2:30M of footage. After a bit of a corridor tour, the trailer switches to combat and a few quick looks at the skills / levelling UI.

A new trailer has been released for E.Y.E., the Source-based FPS/RPG from Streum on Studio that has been delayed several times. On the other hand, the appearance of the Achievements for the game (thanks, SpoonFULL !) might indicate it's getting closer.

E.Y.E. was supposed to be released at the end of February - two weeks later, Streum on Studio has announced they have delayed the game to add more polish. In return, they have released the game's soundtrack for free.

We were ready to release E.Y.E at the end of February, but our final tests showed us some weakness in the polishing. We preferred to re-work these few points to offer you a game as perfect as possible instead of hastening ourselves to release it. A new release date is going to be announced very soon.

We hope the people who are waiting for our game will be ready to forgive us. In order to thank you for your patience and to help you waiting, we offer you the complete E.Y.E OST by our composer Olivier "_Max_" Zuccaro.

Streum on Studio sent us a press release with a trailer and the system requirements for their upcoming shooter/RPG, E.Y.E.:

At the request of the security department of our corporation, we've ordered an efficiency test from Angel Corp's WEAPONS ENGINEERING AND ENFORCEMENT DIVISION © concerning the purchase of our next Motra sub-machine guns. The test subject is a level 5-accredited agent and using A+ class cybernetic implants.

We'd like to remind you that E.Y.E: Divine Cybermancy is a FPS/RPG on PC, with a solo campaign, a cooperative campaign (from 2 to 4 players) and a special cooperative missions mode (4 players recommended, but can be played up to 8 players). That playable in Lan or on the Internet, with the possibility of having dedicated servers.

Here are the recommended configurations:
Minimum:

• Supported OS: Windows® 7 32/64-bit / Vista 32/64 / XP
• Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz, Athlon 64 3000+ or better
• Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
• Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
• Hard Drive: At least 6 GB of free space
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended:

• Supported OS: Windows® 7 32/64-bit / Vista 32/64 / XP
• Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz ou AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
• Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
• Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better
• Hard Drive: At least 6 GB of free space
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

And as a bonus, a small explanation concerning the term Divine Cybermancy, as some people asked us about it:
Divine Cybermancy is a reference to Dante's Divine Comedy, as the player's character more or less follows a similar path. Cybermancy, that means the divination by the cybernetic way, comes to replace the term Comedy. More explanations could spoil the game's plot that we want to preserve Here are the recommended configurations:
Minimum:

• Supported OS: Windows® 7 32/64-bit / Vista 32/64 / XP
• Processor: Pentium 4 3.0GHz, Athlon 64 3000+ or better
• Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
• Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with 128 MB, Shader model 2.0. ATI X800, NVidia 6600 or better
• Hard Drive: At least 6 GB of free space
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

Recommended:

• Supported OS: Windows® 7 32/64-bit / Vista 32/64 / XP
• Processor: Intel core 2 duo 2.4GHz ou AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
• Memory: 1 GB for XP / 2GB for Vista
• Graphics: DirectX 9 compatible video card with Shader model 3.0. NVidia 7600, ATI X1600 or better
• Hard Drive: At least 6 GB of free space
• Sound Card: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card

And as a bonus, a small explanation concerning the term Divine Cybermancy, as some people asked us about it:

Divine Cybermancy is a reference to Dante's Divine Comedy, as the player's character more or less follows a similar path. Cybermancy, that means the divination by the cybernetic way, comes to replace the term Comedy. More explanations could spoil the game's plot that we want to preserve.

Check out the short trailer here, which unfortunately only shows the shooter action.