Preproduction for Deus Ex began around August 1997[36] and lasted roughly six months. The game's working title was Shooter: Majestic Revelations, and it was scheduled for release on Christmas 1998.[37] The team developed the setting before the game mechanics.[33] Noticing his wife's fascination with The X-Files, Spector connected the "real world, millennial weirdness, [and] conspiracy" topics on his mind and decided to make a game about them that would appeal to a broad audience.[38] The Shooter design document cast the player as an augmented agent working against an elite cabal in the "dangerous and chaotic" 2050s.[34] It cited Half-Life, Fallout, Thief: The Dark Project, and GoldenEye 007 as game design influences, and used the stories and settings of Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Manchurian Candidate, Robocop, The X-Files, and Men in Black as reference points.[34] The team designed a skill system that featured "special powers" derived from nanotechnological augmentation and avoided the inclusion of die rolling and skills that required micromanagement.[39] Spector also cited Konami's 1995 role-playing video game Suikoden as an inspiration, stating that the limited choices in Suikoden inspired him to expand on the idea with more meaningful choices in Deux Ex.[40]