Not at all. Human Revolution was a prequel to the originals, however I expect after Mankind Divided and subsequent sequels that it'll end up being a reboot in retrospect. You do probably need to play Human Revolution to understand Mankind Divided.

Dude. Go play human revolution. It's awesome. It has the best art style of any game I've ever played. ( my opinion ).

Nope. Though everyone will suggest playing Human Revolution

Just play HR and you'll be all set.

You owe it to yourself to play Human Revolution. One of the best games I've ever played.

Considering they're all terrible and this one will be terrible...no u dont

Human revolution was more of a prequel to the Deus Ex story. The new game creates a new ending that plays of the previous game's endings. It is good to play Human Revolution to get to know Adam Jensen, but it is otherwise not needed

Definitely play HR. You won't miss a thing in the story, it's dirt cheap now, and its one of the best stealth games you will ever play.

The series timeline goes: Human Revolution -> Mankind Divided -> Deus Ex -> Invisible Wars Human Revolution and Mankind Divided are prequels that star a different main character than the other two. There are references to characters that appear and events that occur in the future games, but nothing game-ruining. Personally, i would recommend playing Human Revolution, as it is a great game and there is plenty of time before Mankind Divided releases. If you don't play it, you should probably read up on it's story to get an understanding of what is going on.

Yes [spoiler]No[/spoiler]

Not at all. They are all stand alone, none of them tie into each other. You could always play them if you wanted to, the first one is a pretty good game though incredibly dated now.

No human revolution is its own story and its sequel is coming out this year so jump on it while you can.

Other than the general arc, I don't think so. DE tends to be relatively labyrinthine with its plot, so you'll get a lot of factions doing various complicated things and it can be tricky to follow sometimes. MD seems to be following from where the big twist of HR left off, and exploring its consequences. Follow the pre-release material and you should be fine. Feel free to play the game, of course.

No, the new games are prequels. Might be worth running through HR though.

While I assume Mankind Divided's story is going to be accessible to new comers, it should be noted that Human Revolution is backward compatible with the X1. It might also be available on PS Now, but I haven't looked into it. The entire series is available on Steam as well. Including the two original games and a PC port of the mobile game. Now to one of your questions, you do not need to play the original Deus Ex or Deus Ex: Invisible War in order to understand what's going on in Human Revolution and Mankind Divided. The latter two games are the prequels to the original game while Invisible War is the sequel that. So, no. You do not have to play [i]all[/i] of the other Deus Ex games in order to understand what's going on in Mankind Divided. Expect a nod to those games here and there though. In response to your question regarding similarities to Final Fantasy's narrative, the short answer is "no." The long answer is "it is not." Mankind Divided is a direct sequel to Human Revolution that picks up two years after the ending of Human Revolution. For your main question, I think it's a bit tricky to say. The big event that occurred in that game [i]will[/i] be referenced in the new game. Possibly a lot too, considering it is the biggest reason for why things are the way they are within the world. However, it's not unlikely that the event won't be explained in some way. If not, sorry about the noodle incident. However, I don't think you'll absolutely need to know about it to grasp Mankind Divided's story. If you're really worried about unknowing, you have at least one option aside from playing the older games. You can look up the entire stories of each Deus Ex game on the Internet and probably gain a little more knowledge than you needed. Oh, and there is currently a comic series that's serving as a prequel to Mankind Divided's story. I recommend it. [spoiler]Sorry if none of this makes sense by the way. It's 3:30 AM EST and I'm half out of it.[/spoiler]