Deus Ex was released on June 26 2000 and is set in the year 2052. It has sections of the game where New York's skyline is visible, and the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center are missing.

The Twin Towers exist in the game's data files, but were simply left out by mistake.

During development, the game's developers justified the lack of the towers by stating terrorists had destroyed the World Trade Center earlier in the game's storyline. This was over a year prior to the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.