The godfather of stealth games is looking to make a comeback but to be perfectly honest I’m a little worried that long-time fans of the franchise might be disappointed at what the team at Eidos Montreal is preparing. At E3 this year the team at COG got to take a look at the fourth game in this franchise which is essentially a reboot of what we know and love. While there was certainly a focus on the lurking in the shadows that the original three games were known for it seemed that the larger focus of the demo was to showcase how quickly Garrett, the master thief, could escape a burning mansion.
Many current generation games owe a debt of gratitude to the original Thief for PC. It took a bold new direction in non-linear gameplay and was essentially one of the first games to allow you to use the shadows to your advantage and indulge your inner kleptomaniac. With a brand new next generation title on the horizon gamers are hopeful that they’ll see the same innovation at work but not much on offer in the demo at E3 suggested as much.
Check out the E3 trailer:
Essentially the demo puts you back in the shoes of Garrett as he prepares to enter the mansion of The Baron and rip off a precious heirloom called the ‘heart of the lion’. The Baron is the unlikeable autocratic ruler of the city and the citizens are rioting outside the mansion gates. The Baron’s guards are on high alert and apparently this seems like the perfect time to stage a break in. Now I’m no master thief myself but trying to rob someone blind while their entire staff is on watch dog duty seems like the very definition of a bad idea but I digress.
Garrett enters the courtyard and we get to see all of his little tricks at work. Skulking in the shadows and navigating from cover to cover with Garrett’s new swoop ability the stealth aspect of the game was highlighted. While it’s essentially the meat and potatoes of the Thief experience some of the new gameplay elements shown make it look all too easy to do. Garrett has a new focus ability that he can activate which is a metered ability that drains as he uses it. It allows him to swiftly move between cover and not be seen which makes sense in a stealth driven title but some of the examples we were shown seemed as if Garrett was moving right in front of a guard’s cold stare. The focus ability also allowed Garrett to enter a heightened state of awareness where he could see potential attacker’s footsteps, easily pick pocket a mark and lock pick with ease. While all of these perks certainly make things easier at least there’s some difficulty being added in that focus doesn’t automatically regenerate. Players will have to hunt down poppy flowers in order to replenish their stocks and according to Stephen Gallagher from Eidos they aren’t overly plentiful. Knowing when to use the focus ability and when not to will undoubtedly become an essential strategy. One more thing of note, Gallagher did mention that the focus ability could be turned off in the menu section so those truly looking for that hard core stealth experience aren’t left completely in the cold.
At Garrett’s disposal we saw him navigate his way into the mansion avoiding any real confrontation. Using items such as blunt arrows to shoot at bottles and distract guards or water arrows to shoot out flaming braziers to create shadows he steals a map of the facility, finds the secret room containing the heart of the lion and after some fairly simple puzzle solving prepares to make off with the goodie in his clutches. At this point all of what we’ve seen seems like fairly standard Thief style gameplay. Admittedly it comes across as a bit easy but nonetheless the stealth styling of previous titles seems to be mostly intact.
Cue the escape. Here is the point where Thief lost me. A non-linear, figure it out in your own way experience gives way to a rather long and completely scripted escape through the halls and on the rooftops of the Baron’s burning mansion. The transition just didn’t seem to work and quite honestly didn’t fit at all with everything we’d seen up to that point. In some sections the viewpoint switched from first person to third person as Garrett had to climb walls (think Assassin’s Creed) in order to make his hasty retreat.
Undoubtedly you can tell that this new reboot of Thief borrows heavily from a lot of current trends in the gaming market. Focus is basically a take on Batman’s detective ability in the Arkham series or Corvo’s dark vision in Dishonored. Throw in stuff like single button takedowns and slow motion, bullet time inspired aiming abilities and without getting specific you could probably name any number of other games on the market to compare it to. I suppose it’s not a bad thing that the developers want to use some tried and true methods of gameplay but again, the innovation that a lot of Thief fans might have hoped for isn’t yet evident.
One absolute positive is that the demo looked unbelievably beautiful. Obviously that is to be expected from a next gen title but it’s still something to note. I particularly enjoyed the smoky shadow effect that appeared on the fringes of the screen to help indicate that Garrett was safely hidden away from prying eyes. Notably the sound was spot on too and really helped to immerse you into the gameplay. In fact sound played an important part in strategy as things like walking through water would alert the guards to your presence. Luckily I was afforded the luxury of a set of headphones so the outside cacophony of E3 didn’t get in the way of me taking everything in.
Overall it looks like Thief is gearing to be a great game if you’re new to the series. Long-time fans may feel betrayed a little as their beloved series clearly moves in a bit of a different direction. Thankfully some of the things that gear the gameplay towards the ‘in-crowd’ of current mechanics can be turned off so that might placate the loyal followers. There’s still lots of time in the development cycle of the game so we’ve certainly yet to see everything that Eidos Montreal and Square Enix have to offer us. Keeping that in mind I’m optimistic that the development team could give us something great. Thief is slated to release sometime in 2014 on PC, Xbox One and PS4.
Knowing what we know now are you confident this game is going to blow minds? Are you a long-time Thief fan? What do you think of the direction so far? We want to know so leave us some comments in the section below. As always keep it locked to Canadian Online Gamers for more information as we get our hands on it!
