When it released last year, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was met with generally positive reviews from critics and fans. Despite this, many took issue with the game’s boss battles. These unsubtle bulletfests stood out from the main game’s nuanced, option-filled action. During his “Reimagining a Classic” GDC talk today, gameplay director Francois Lapikas addressed these complaints.

Most of the game featured intricate direction sheets, but the studio never put the same level of detail into the boss encounters. “We saw them as a thing to break up the pacing more than a way to test the player’s skill,” said Lapikas. He said that the studio felt that if there were enough weapons and ammo in the boss rooms to take them down, players wouldn’t have much of an issue with them.

During development, the team recognized that the boss fights were an issue, but didn’t anticipate the widespread criticism of them. Lapakis explains, “Play tests did flag the boss fights as a problem, but they didn’t flag the severity of it.”

He concluded discussion of the subject with “[The boss fights] were a big part of the game, and we should have put more effort into them. I’m truly sorry about that. Next time we’re gonna think about it more.”