When news broke that Deus Ex, Elon Musk’s proclaimed favorite game, is getting remastered after 25 years, it felt like more than just another gaming announcement. This revelation offers a fascinating window into the mind of one of the world’s most controversial tech billionaires. Musk’s gaming preferences aren’t just casual entertainment choices—they’re a reflection of his worldview, his ambitions, and perhaps even his anxieties about humanity’s future. The fact that he champions a game about conspiracies, government collapse, and technological augmentation speaks volumes about how he perceives our current trajectory.
Looking at Musk’s gaming library reveals a consistent pattern: he gravitates toward titles that explore themes of technological advancement, space exploration, and societal transformation. Mass Effect 2, which he called “one of the best games ever,” centers on interstellar diplomacy and humanity’s place in a vast cosmic community. The Fallout series presents post-apocalyptic worlds where technology both destroys and potentially saves civilization. Even his passion for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate hints at his competitive nature and desire for dominance in any arena he enters. These aren’t just games to Musk—they’re thought experiments playing out in digital form.
Perhaps most telling is his relationship with Polytopia, the mobile strategy game he reportedly skips international meetings to play. His claim that it’s “more complicated than chess” and his declaration that he’s “wired for war” reveal how he approaches both gaming and business. There’s a pattern here of Musk immersing himself in worlds where he can exercise total control, build empires, and engage in strategic conquest—mirroring his real-world ambitions with Tesla, SpaceX, and his various other ventures. The line between his gaming habits and his business philosophy appears remarkably thin.
The timing of the Deus Ex remaster feels particularly resonant given Musk’s current position in the tech landscape. The game’s themes of corporate power, government surveillance, and technological augmentation now feel less like science fiction and more like commentary on our present reality. As Musk pushes forward with neural interfaces through Neuralink and satellite networks through Starlink, one can’t help but wonder if he sees himself as one of the architects of the very future Deus Ex warned us about—or perhaps as the hero who can steer us away from its dystopian outcomes.
Ultimately, Musk’s gaming preferences offer us a rare glimpse behind the billionaire’s public persona. They suggest a man who doesn’t just want to build the future but to play with it, test its boundaries, and understand its mechanics through interactive simulations. Whether he’s exploring the moral complexities of BioShock’s objectivist utopia or building civilizations in Polytopia, Musk seems to approach gaming as both escape and education—a sandbox where he can work through the philosophical questions that his real-world projects raise. In an era where tech leaders increasingly shape our collective future, perhaps we should pay closer attention to the virtual worlds they choose to inhabit in their downtime.
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