Posted March 22, 2013
OK, I had a chance to read the Game Informer piece on the new Thief. The thing that's troubling me most is this new "Focus" ability. In the article they descrbie a playthrough of a level, and Garrett ends up using Focus a lot. He's snuck into a private room, and uses Focus to magically see which desk drawers contain valuable loot. He's picking a lock and hears a guard coming, so he uses Focus to somehow make the lockpicking much easier and faster. He sees an NPC carefully examining a wall, looking for something, so Garrett activates Focus and can suddenly see a magical rune inscribed in the wall. Garrett gets cornered by a guard, so he uses focus to see weak points on the guard's body, and selects one to attack, crippling the guard so Garrett can get away.
This is not what I like about the Thief games. I like how Garrett doesn't have any supernatural abilities, he's just a regular human who's very skilled at remaining unseen. Stealing stuff in Thief is so satisfying because Garrett accomplishes it with nothing more than his skills, tools, and careful planning. The Focus ability smacks too much of a superhuman power that will make Garrett better than everyone else, which I really don't like.
As for linear levels... the demonstrated gameplay sequence sounds very linear, but it was obviously a demo designed to show some different aspects of gameplay. The devs claim that missions are nonlinear and largely unscripted, so I guess we'll see about that.
There were some other small details that bugged me too... they're apparently toning down the magical elements of the world, which is disappointing because I quite liked how creepy that stuff was in the original games. Also, the premise sounds like a ripoff of Dishonored. There's a despot who's taken control of the city, crushing the populace with his militarized City Watch! There are plague victims everywhere! Dishonored borrowed a lot from the Thief series, to be sure, but at least it had an original world. I guess the new Thief was in development at the same time as Dishonored but it still feels too similar... even the demonstrated level sounds just like the Golden Cat mission from Dishonored.
Oh and all that stuff in the CVG article linked earlier is actually taken from the Game Informer piece. So the stories about losing focus, and having to bring in new producers to avoid a trainwreck. It's their way of justifying the long development time, but that kind of thing rarely bodes well for the game.
And there's no mention whatsoever of who's going to voice Garrett. I know it's a reboot, but I think a lot of fans will be very disappointed with anyone other than Stephen Russel. They might be very disappointed long before that, of course.
This is not what I like about the Thief games. I like how Garrett doesn't have any supernatural abilities, he's just a regular human who's very skilled at remaining unseen. Stealing stuff in Thief is so satisfying because Garrett accomplishes it with nothing more than his skills, tools, and careful planning. The Focus ability smacks too much of a superhuman power that will make Garrett better than everyone else, which I really don't like.
As for linear levels... the demonstrated gameplay sequence sounds very linear, but it was obviously a demo designed to show some different aspects of gameplay. The devs claim that missions are nonlinear and largely unscripted, so I guess we'll see about that.
There were some other small details that bugged me too... they're apparently toning down the magical elements of the world, which is disappointing because I quite liked how creepy that stuff was in the original games. Also, the premise sounds like a ripoff of Dishonored. There's a despot who's taken control of the city, crushing the populace with his militarized City Watch! There are plague victims everywhere! Dishonored borrowed a lot from the Thief series, to be sure, but at least it had an original world. I guess the new Thief was in development at the same time as Dishonored but it still feels too similar... even the demonstrated level sounds just like the Golden Cat mission from Dishonored.
Oh and all that stuff in the CVG article linked earlier is actually taken from the Game Informer piece. So the stories about losing focus, and having to bring in new producers to avoid a trainwreck. It's their way of justifying the long development time, but that kind of thing rarely bodes well for the game.
And there's no mention whatsoever of who's going to voice Garrett. I know it's a reboot, but I think a lot of fans will be very disappointed with anyone other than Stephen Russel. They might be very disappointed long before that, of course.
