Why is there so much smoking in this game?

[AEmer]

As I recall, Sarifs employees are smoking outside, so it looks like indoor smoking is probably banned?

At least at their headquarters, this appears to be the case.

It's probably also used for contrasting "clean" facilities from ones where "dirty" things are allowed.

[nerdenstein]

Or it could be a smoking ban...

We've got one here whereby you can't smoke indoors and be a certain distance away or something (I don't smoke myself so I don't know the specifics) so maybe that was put into action in 2027 in Detroit.

[Grammatolatry]

Well actually Athena lights up near the cafeteria after the cutscene with Hugh Darrow and Sarif. When I saw that I thought 'not you too, old lady...'.

[AEmer]

I guess she doesn't care about the ban at that point, if it's indeed there. Which makes a lot of sense, if she's all stressed out.

[Mathalor]

I got into dx1 after watching a review from totalbiscuit on youtube. He mentioned that cigarettes were used later as some form of currency. I carried packs of em around for the longest time before coming to the realization that it wasn't worth it even if this was true. Then I beat the game and felt duped. lol.