Eidos Montreal's Thief - the perils of teaching an old dog new tricks

Can the reboot unite past and present without tearing itself apart?



Once the only stealth game worth speaking of, Thief is playing catch-up. Assuming there are no further delays, Eidos Montreal's reboot will steal onto shelves almost ten years after Thief: Deadly Shadows slid a lockpick into the original Xbox. During that long
period of absence, we've grappled gargoyles as Batman, lounged on benches as Ezio Auditore, scuttled up walls in Mark of the Ninja and much more besides. What can Thief offer that the younger games can't? And how can the latest incarnation of a genre that
worships obscurity ever satisfy publisher Square Enix, a company that's so hard up for cash it considers four million sales of Tomb Raider a failure?

Official Xbox Magazine | GamesRadar+

:)

 

X box 360s are a lemon

Thank you for pointing that out. I always appreciate good arguments (And looks like you have one).

I guess that I am stuck using the commas in the European way. But I can learn, although teaching a new trick to a 52 years old dog ain't gonna be easy!!!

 

Thief.....finally!!!

www.rockpapershotgun.com/.../thief-eidos-words-vs-my-e3-playthrough

 

I think Thief distinguishes itself quite well from the likes of Splinter Cells, Assassin's Creed, Batman, Hitman (does this really count as a stealth game?), etc.

.

The reason being, like the name implies, that you are a thief. You arn't out for a vengeance.. you arn't out to kill someone for money, you arn't an NSA agent. You are a thief that is after peoples belongings, not their lives. You arn't out there to save
the world from the bad guys that built a nuke.

.

Sorta much like the Thieves Guild in the Elder Scrolls-series. It's VASTLY different than the Dark Brotherhood-questline that focuses on assassination. Assassin's Creed has never really been a stealth game anyways, it's more of a hit n run and hide in plain
sight, while Thief is all about moving in the shadows, much closer to fe. Splinter Cells, but once again, you arn't out there to kill people.

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I've always been a big fan of the series, having played all of the original Thief games.

 

I'm also a massive fan of the series and I'm really hoping this brings back the magic of previous games.

What concerned me is back in December Eurogamer and OXM got to play it at a behind the scenes event and the feedback from that wasn't that great. I remember one guys comment were along the lines of ...
"This feels nothing like a Thief game" ...Hopefully since then and the delays they got back on track.

According to most sites it's still down for release in late February but I have a feeling we might hear of another delay soon. Saying that, I'd rather them delay it and get it right than release something that could end up disappointing fans of the series.

I have my fingers crossed.

 

The thing is though that the last Thief is over a decade old game. I can't really remember when was the last time I played a sequel that was over a decade older and it would've felt the same to play. Deadly Shadows is bound to it's own time and the usual
mechanics around that time. When I first played Deadly Shadows I was thinking along the same lines that this doesn't quite feel as good as Thief 2.

.

I would be quite mad at them if all they managed was a prettier graphics and new maps and jobs to do.

.

I think it's inevitable that over such a long time, mechanics are bound to evolve. Hell, BF4 feels nothing like BF1942 which I loved, but BF4 is great, it's evolution and the core idea of the game (big maps, all kinds of vehicles, lots of players) is still
there. Obviously I havn't played the new Thief myself, but unless it suddenly becomes a hack n slash or a game about assassination, I don't think it can go too wrong. So far I like what I've seen in videos.

 

I agree Lofty. Deadly Shadows was a brilliant game and I can't help but think the new game wont live up to expectations.I have great memories of playing Thief and I'd hate for the new game to put a massive damper on the series. It been a long time coming
so it wouldn't hurt for them to delay it further if it means we get a true Thief game.

 

[quote user="Coreldan"]

The thing is though that the last Thief is over a decade old game. I can't really remember when was the last time I played a sequel that was over a decade older and it would've felt the same to play. Deadly Shadows is bound to it's own time and the usual
mechanics around that time. When I first played Deadly Shadows I was thinking along the same lines that this doesn't quite feel as good as Thief 2.

.

I would be quite mad at them if all they managed was a prettier graphics and new maps and jobs to do.

.

I think it's inevitable that over such a long time, mechanics are bound to evolve. Hell, BF4 feels nothing like BF1942 which I loved, but BF4 is great, it's evolution and the core idea of the game (big maps, all kinds of vehicles, lots of players) is still
there. Obviously I havn't played the new Thief myself, but unless it suddenly becomes a hack n slash or a game about assassination, I don't think it can go too wrong. So far I like what I've seen
in videos.

[/quote]

If they turn it into a hack n slash game then they won't be getting my money lol

Like you I have liked what I've seen but I just hope they haven't strayed too far from what in my opinion made the original so good, I'm quietly confident they haven't

 

Well, what is it that scares you guys about it? Movement being more than WASD, crouch and jump? Combat being something else than hitting a button once behind the targets back?

.

I don't see anything to worry about this far. The above are just results of game development moving forward and I'm quite excited for them. It would be a terrible lie if I claimed that I really liked the combat or movement of the old Thief-games, that's
not why the games were great and that's pretty much the biggest change I'm seeing here.

.

That said, I believe they've said you can turn off the focus mode for example if you want to play it old school.

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Then again we also have to remember that Thief 1 & 2 were made by different devs than Deadly Shadows, while this new Thief has been made by different devs than all the earlier ones

 

Games can kick u in the A...played all Ace Combat games since release and there was a strong community. Then they made AC Assault horizon. It is trash. Tried to make an FPS with an arcade flight sim. Some may like it but it's not AC. They lost about all
the AC community. Realizing they're folly NOW they made a new F2P game for release on PS only, returning to their original scheme and controls. AC enthusiasts seem F'd, unless there's something in the works that's not assault horizon. A 10+ year franchise
destroyed for all intents & purposes. Good luck with thief...

 

[quote user="Lofty Who"]

[quote user="Coreldan"]

The thing is though that the last Thief is over a decade old game. I can't really remember when was the last time I played a sequel that was over a decade older and it would've felt the same to play. Deadly Shadows is bound to it's own time and the usual
mechanics around that time. When I first played Deadly Shadows I was thinking along the same lines that this doesn't quite feel as good as Thief 2.

.

I would be quite mad at them if all they managed was a prettier graphics and new maps and jobs to do.

.

I think it's inevitable that over such a long time, mechanics are bound to evolve. Hell, BF4 feels nothing like BF1942 which I loved, but BF4 is great, it's evolution and the core idea of the game (big maps, all kinds of vehicles, lots of players) is still
there. Obviously I havn't played the new Thief myself, but unless it suddenly becomes a hack n slash or a game about assassination, I don't think it can go too wrong. So far I like what I've seen
in videos.

[/quote]

If they turn it into a hack n slash game then they won't be getting my money lol

Like you I have liked what I've seen but I just hope they haven't strayed too far from what in my opinion made the original so good, I'm quietly confident they haven't

[/quote]

From what I read after last years E3, it was going to have hack and slash elements, however after some really bad feedback from fans they have removed pretty much everything that the fans didn't like and returned the game back too its roots.

-

Personally I loved Thief on the PC, the only way to play the game was to put the difficulty up too the top, that meant steal a huge amount of gold, without killing anyone, and without setting off any alarms, awesome game but damned tricky.

 

It's the worry of it feeling nothing like a Thief game anymore. It's hard to explain. I think because I've been really excited about this, I'm worried about it being a Huge let down. I think they will get it right.... Just that feeling it could go wrong.

 

uk.ign.com/.../thiefs-xp-system-scrapped-after-fan-feedback

 

Yeah, it's at least great that they've actively responded to fan feedback.

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Probably the thing I'm most excited about is... that based on feedback they removed the stupid *** totally unrealistic things like some weird mutated dinodogs and steam operated robots -_- That's sorta where Deadly Shadows lost me.. when I was sent into
some cave with those pagan people and there was some weird creatures.. I sorta had to cringe my way through Thief 2: Metal age after the robots came in to the story..

 

Wow whoever wrote the article really knows nothing about the game at all.

Thief the Dark Project 1998.

Thief the metal age 2000.