"TNM" was started as a mod for "Deus Ex" on January 6, 2002 by Lawrence Laxdal. The original mod was similar to the finished product only by the basic premise, as it was planned as a one or two map mission. At the time, Jonas Wæver acted as the lead writer of the project, with the rest of the team made up of volunteer modders from the PlanetDeusEx forum. After a false start as an open-world game, TNM tried to follow "Deus Ex"'s design style, but only in later stages was "Deus Ex" analyzed from a design point of view. According to the team, there was no pre-production phase – game assets were being produced while the design documents were written.