Exploits (DX)

This page lists various exploits for Deus Ex.

Free skill points
During the 12th mission, make sure your inventory is full before talking to Gary Savage on the rooftop at the MJ12 sub base. Upon talking to him, you will receive 500 skill points and he will offer you an augmentation upgrade canister if you previously rescued Tiffany Savage. If your inventory is full, you can repeatedly talk him for 500 more skill points each time.

Bypassing laser beams
Simply walk close to beam(s), do a quicksave and while saving hold down Up Arrow. When the save is complete, you should be on the other side of the beam(s) without triggering any alarms.

Instant Lockpicking
Find a locked door and use a lockpick on it. As you start to pick the lock, go into any of the menu or subscreens. After 10–20 seconds (it depends on the lock and your skill level), leave the menu and return to the game. You will have instantly picked the lock using a single pick, even if it required more than one! This trick will also work when using multitools to bypass keypads and devices.

NPCs open locked doors
Locked doors can be opened by pushing a random NPC on the way to a locked door. The NPC will open it for you after touching it. This can sometimes be the best way to open special doors (e.g. leading Kaplan to the door of UNATCO HQ) or common doors. A variation of this exploit that involves a gas grenade can be used to let Private Lloyd open the front door of the UNATCO HQ in the first mission. Simply throw a gas grenade at the right side of the UNATCO HQ. It will aggro Lloyd and he'll run outside to avoid the gas clouds. This doesn't always work, however, as it requires a bit of luck.

More skill points at the start
On the character creation screen untrain "Pistol" and start the game. After the intro your skill level will be back at "Trained", but the skill points you gained will still be there.

Trivia: this bug was fixed in demo version Deus Ex.

Super Jump
With the Speed Enhancement augmentation active, entering into the Settings > Game Options menu while the game is paused will re-apply the effects of the aug, greatly increasing jump height, as well as reducing fall damage. This can be repeated as many times as desired.

Minimal Energy Lifting
After lifting a heavy box or barrel with the strength augmentation, aim the box into a wall or other place that isn't a valid drop. Now disable the augmentation. The item drop is only checked at the moment the augmentation is disabled. If it cannot find a valid place to drop, it stays in your hands with no energy cost.

Free Items
Make sure your inventory is full before attempting this. Go up to anyone who will sell you items and make a purchase. Look down at your feet. The item you tried to purchase will be down there. This can also be done for items given to you, such as the upgrade canister given to you by Jaime Reyes in Hong Kong. This trick can be done as many times as you like, as long as your inventory is full.

Bring items back to the first mission
Start a new game in the middle of a mission. Any items that you were carrying will be with you at the beginning.

Unlimited inventory space
Once you run out of inventory space, click and drag away a large item from the inventory and then press I to click off the screen. The next item you collect will appear under the large item you dragged off. This can be best exploited with large weapons like the GEP gun, the plasma rifle, or the flamethrower.

Infinite crate items
Take any supply into a loading screen. Whichever item was inside the crate will be duplicated and fall into the new map. This can be done infinitely so long as the crate is not broken.

Keep your items
After you are arrested by Gunther at the end of the 4th mission, the game will load into the first map of the 5th mission. Immediately after the map loads, hit F1 to access your inventory. Drop all your items and pick them back up. You will keep your items, and will not have to retrieve them.

Elevator of Death
Go to Smuggler's Lair in Hell's Kitchen, make sure you have very low torso health and a few packs of cigarettes. Press the elevator button and then smoke another pack of cigarrettes. When done right you'll die, but the elevator will go down and trigger the transition to Smuggler's Lair, causing you to spawn with zero or negative Torso health. Simply press the elevator button again to lower the elevator and loot your corpse. You can do this over and over again to clone items. (This exploit was found by YouTube user IllterateChild in his Glitchy Walkthrough series of videos.)

Grenade climbing
Find a wall and face it in the crouching position. Stick a grenade to it (you can disable it, so it won't get triggered by an NPC). Now jump on the grenade and place another one above it. Jump on it too and remove the previous one. Repeat.

Grenade jump
Jump and throw a grenade (preferably EMP, so you won't kill yourself) while aiming down. If you time it correctly, you'll bounce off your own grenade and jump higher than you would be able to otherwise.

Grenade falling
Similar to the previous exploit, throw a grenade down when falling from a high building. You'll bounce off it without taking falling damage.

Grenade clipping
By standing on a grenade thrown near a vertical surface when it flips you get pushed inside the wall. Most of the time it equals a telefrag and your death, but with thin vertical surfaces like glass or fences you get moved to the second side, along with a bonus of weirdly turning camera.