Eidos Montreal's Thief

[The Squirrel]

The April cover of Game Informer has been revealed:



Coming to Next Gen consoles and PC in 2014.

VIDEO-CLick to Watch!:

[ProjectPat2280]

Kick ass.

[The Squirrel]

Unconfirmed leaked images:
http://imgur.com/a/ZxbVo

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

[ProjectPat2280]

Looking pretty damn cool

[Soapy]

About time.

[Solidus]

Thief: The Dark Project is still one of my favorite games of all time, the atmosphere/gameplay story. I sincerely had a jaw problem after playing that game because my jaw was clenched so tight because of the tension lol. Garrett is one of my favorite characters, I hope they bring the original voice actor back. I loved all the Thief games but I hope this one is more along the lines of Thief and Thief II: The Metal Age.

I hope like Deus Ex these guys keep true to the original gameplay and don't water it down.

EDIT: I also hope they have some of the cool funky music they had in the originals as well.

BTW might want a mod to correct the spelling mistake in the title

[The Squirrel]

Originally Posted by Solidus

BTW might want a mod to correct the spelling mistake in the title

Oops.

[socool]

This got me way too excited. I have been a huge Thief fan for well over a decade. I even like the third one, which all the hardcore thief fans look at in disgust, so you can imagine how pumped I am for this. Even more so since I thought it had been canned (back when it was still Thi4f...)

[cherokeesam]

Loved the first couple of Thief games. They were true innovators --- everything stealth-releated in sneakers like Splinter Cell, Assassin's Creed and others owe it all to Thief. Genuinely creepy-ass game, too --- I still have nightmares to this day about it. Not saying it was a horror title, because it wasn't....it was very unsettling, very weird, and very creepy. Not at all what you'd expect at first glance.

Not sure what they can bring that's new to the table, though. Is it just gonna be a prettier updated version of the old game, or are they genuinely going to push the envelope like the predecessors did?

[Solidus]

....it was a horror title. Well the first one was. Constantine's whole story was based around horror, it was the devil in their lore "The trickster" coming back. The undead Hamerites were scary as hell.

And it does not need to "push" the envelope. Some gameplay is fine the way it is, small updates here and there, but there is no need. To me Thief 3 tried to hard with that and though it did not suck, and most Thief fans don't look at it in "disgust" as someone tried to claim above but it was a step down. It did inspire a lot of games, but to me they all watered the concept of Thief down. I want this to continue it's hardcore stealth method. If you mess up....you will most likely die. There was no forgiveness to being caught. You might get lucky once in a while but most the time you were screwed.

This is the studio that did Deux Ex:HR and they kept true to the original's gameplay style. So I'm expecting the same here (since they said it in the video as well). Some gameplay is fine and "pushing the envelope" is not needed.

Make it as good as Thief/Thief 2 and we are in the clear in my eyes.

[jonathancrane]

I was thinking about Deadly Shadows the other day, and how I have been missing the gameplay. Alas, it is good to have some information to tide me over to the eventual release.

[LuisTX85]

I don't know anything about the series since I've never played any of them But t think this sounds like an interesting game already

[Soapy]

It's sort of a steampunkish Lovecraftian stealth game.

[The Squirrel]

I've only ever played the demos for I think both the first and second games.

[Solidus]

Gasp! The first two were the best. Just great moments. I'll never forget when I beat Karas at the end of The Metal Age. One of the few times you felt so satisfied from a gameplay and story standpoint.

[SentinelMind]

Awesome....

I just bought the Thief 1 on Steam few days ago...graphics eh, but gameplay is stellar...

[Soapy]

Information, courtesy of NeoGAF:

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Overview/opening sequence

- Garrett has been away from his hometown for a long time
- When he returns to City, he sees “a city of melting prosperity”
- Iron-fisted Baron now rules the city
- Baron crushes City’s citizens through militarized watch
- Good fortune only for the elite
- Garrett views the political chaos as a chance to get rich
- Not concerned with being the hero
- Garrett finds his way into the Stonemarket district in the back of a covered wagon
- Watches the bodies of plague victims piling up on street corners
- Guards quell small civil disputes with force
- Wealthy men stroll by with bodyguards
- “Would-be revolutionaries preach to deaf ears while men in stockades slowly waste away”
- Garrett becomes interested in a conversation between two guards talking about Eastwick, a wealthy man
- Theodore Eastwick: principle architest, richest man
- Baron commissioned Eastwick to build many of the City’s Gothic structures
- Guards say that Eastwick is visiting a pleasure house on the other side of the size
- Eastwick going to the House of Blossoms
- This is an underground cathouse serving the elite
- Gates close at midnight
- Garrett crouches behind crates, which results in a dark tint covering the screen to show that you’re hiding safely
- Bottle thrown to distract the guards, and then Garrett climbs up a pipe up the side of a building
- Garrett moves across roofs, bounds over merchant tables and under wagons, and dives through a nearby building window
- Eastwick passes through the secret entrance in the House of Blossoms
- All of the above is not a cut-scene

Next sequence

- Garrett enters the House of Blossoms undetected
- Area has rich patrons, scantily clad women who saunter by and flirt with men
- Xiao Xiao, a transvestite, greets guests
- Garrett loses Eastwick in a crowd
- Xiao Xaio notes that there is more security than usual and that anyone with something valuable can store it in his office strongbox
- Use Xiao Xiao’s logbook to determine where Eastwick has gone
- Garrett wants to get his hands on whatever is in the storngbox, so he heads to Xiao Xiao’s room
- Logbook shows Garrett which bedroom Eastwick is in
- Garrett then decides to lighten Xiao Xiao’s strongbox
- This results in a lockpicking mini-game
- Align the tumblers of a lock until it opens
- Before Garrett can crack the lock, Xiao Xiao enters

Another sequence

- Xiao Xiao enters, but Garrett rolls into a darkened corner
- Xiao Xiao doesn’t detect Garrett
- Xiao Xiao leaves to deal with a situation with one of his girls
- Garrett opens the chest and takes out a jewel-encrusted heirloom
- Garrett can’t leave the room since Xiao Xiao is just outside the door talking with the girl
- Secret button slides the wall to slide open and reveals a hidden passageway
- Garrett comes across Eastwick’s room by using the House of Blossoms’ network of backdoors
- Garrett enters the room and takes a medallion
- He then uses Focus to look at the wall Eastwick is examining
- Focus shows a mysterious symbol written on the wall in blue energy
- Symbol corresponds to one of the runes written on the medallion
- Garrett turns a band of the medallion to line up that rune with an arrow, but the medallion then begins to glow with a similar blue energy
- Four adjacent rooms show four more symbols to line up
- After the last symbol is in place, the medallion whirls and spins
- Soon after, Eastwick notices that he has been robbed and calls for help
- Garrett hears through the wall that Xiao Xiao is ordering guards to search everywhere

Last sequence

- Guards are scattered everywhere
- Garrett heads to one of the House of Blossoms’ back rooms
- He had heard two serving girls talking about a catastrophe that followed after the ventilation system was accidentally overfilled with opium
- Garrett dumps the house’s stock of opium into vents and cracks open the flue
- Everyone is sent into a deep sleep as the vapors flood the House of Blossoms
- Garrett has to hold his breath and move quick or he’ll see the same fate
- Guards circle Garrett, who retreats into the opium fog and uses his bow to fire an arrow at a statue hanging above a doorframe
- Statue falls and crushes two guards
- Another guard pins Garrett against a wall
- To buy time, Garrett enters Focus mode
- Garrett grabs the guard’s arm, jerks it back behind his soldier, eventually falls against the stone floor
- Garrett breaks free from the final guards, grapples onto a nearby vent, and rapples down into the depths of City’s sewers

AI

- Garrett isn’t a fighter
- Fighting against four or more guards in combat won’t go well
- Guards and other NPCs are aware of the level design, so they know where a person might try to hide
- Guards understand the topography of the level and which areas could be useful for hiding
- Different NPCs will look for Garrett in different ways

Gameplay mechanics

- Navigation beacon shows players where to go
- Dev. team wants players to explore environments as they see fit
- Multiple entrances and exists in each room
- Multiple options available for stealth approach
- “Focus” mechanic: has many uses, including being able to aid Garrett’s vision as he navigates through open levels
- Focus lights up the screen and highlights pipes you can climb + candles you can put out to make the room darker
- Can upgrade Focus
- Doing so will give you a bigger radius of things to see
- Fingerpints system: gives you hints on which drawers are best to look in
- Every drawer is accessible
- Can pickpocket
- Use Focus while pickpocketing to slow time and swipe up to three times as many items from others
- Can spend money to upgrade supplies and equipment at the end of each mission
- Various artifacts are scattered throughout the game’s levels
- Can use these to decorate Garrett’s hideout
- Garrett is motivated by the thrill of stealing something that others can’t take
- Focus will show a number of attack points on enemies
- Can select a point (like the chest) to do a quick push that will buy him more time to dash off into the shadows
- Can also string together a number of points to perform a more debilitating attack
- Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want
- Major mechanics are in place

Tools

- Blackjack: use when sneaking up behind guards to knock them unconscious
- Bow: powerful, can be used outside of combat (ex: fire at a bottle in another room to lure a guard away, trigger a switch to lock the guard inside)
- Specialty Arrows: different uses; dry-ice arrow can be used to snuff flames from far away; smoke-starter arrow: cover and a distraction
- Claw: grapple attaches to certain points

General

- Garrett design made by game director Nicolas Cantin
- Garrett’s scar represents that his past has left long-lasting effects on his life
- Eidos being vague about how faithful the team is remaining to the original Thief lore
- Many of the series’ magical elements will be toned down
- “Eidos-Montreal compares game development to a high-speed train collision between art and technology.”
- Team was kept small and “stayed within the concept phase of development for a longer period of time.”
- The staff experimented with featuring a new character, making it a third-person game involving either tactical gameplay or environmental clambering (like Assassin’s Creed)
- “At one point in development, the game had so many third-to-first-person transitions that the constant camera shifting was making people sick.”
- Many experiments during first three years of development

[Solidus]

Sounds amazing, the only part that made me a little worried was that you could go into combat if you wanted to. Though in the other description it says going against a guard is a bad idea. I hope that is balanced well. Because I liked how fighting was hardly ever an option. It was about stealth and running away if something happened.

[ProjectPat2280]

Im glad some fighting is in this. Much rather have that be an option than not.

[Solidus]

Originally Posted by ProjectPat2280

Im glad some fighting is in this. Much rather have that be an option than not.

Yes because let's make it like all the other games out there. There was minimal fighting in Thief and it worked. And if you killed one guard you felt like it was an accomplishment but you felt bad because of the resources you wasted to kill one. That's what I'm hoping they mean by this. We don't need AC types of antics. This is a stealth game and that is what it's core is. Fighting should have massive consequences. It sounds like that's what their going for, and I hope so.

[ProjectPat2280]

Originally Posted by Solidus

Yes because let's make it like all the other games out there. There was minimal fighting in Thief and it worked. And if you killed one guard you felt like it was an accomplishment but you felt bad because of the resources you wasted to kill one. That's what I'm hoping they mean by this. We don't need AC types of antics. This is a stealth game and that is what it's core is. Fighting should have massive consequences. It sounds like that's what their going for, and I hope so.

Yea I don't think he should take on a legion of guards Ezio style, but having the ability to use combat won't hurt anything. Don't want to fight? Then don't. Problem solved.

[Solidus]

Want a game with action? Play something else. Thief is stealth based. And it takes away the whole point of the game and waters it down if it gets too lenient on action. So from the sounds of it more than one guard will be near impossible to take down all of them. If it means killing one or so that's fine. But the consequences should be harsh. It should force people to play the game the way it's meant to be played and not just blow through it with easier types of gameplay. Simple.

[Soapy]

Originally Posted by ProjectPat2280

Yea I don't think he should take on a legion of guards Ezio style, but having the ability to use combat won't hurt anything. Don't want to fight? Then don't. Problem solved.

Well no, that doesn't really solve anything. If the game was developed with combat in mind, then you would just be gimping the experience by ignoring it. Solving the problem would be developers making actual stealth games and not pandering to people who don't like stealth games anyway, but whatever.

[Solidus]

Originally Posted by Soapy

Well no, that doesn't really solve anything. If the game was developed with combat in mind, then you would just be gimping the experience by ignoring it. Solving the problem would be developers making actual stealth games and not pandering to people who don't like stealth games anyway, but whatever.

This.

The homogenization of gaming is just getting ridiculous. But I do have faith reading that article really does not worry me and what they did with Deus Ex has me feeling they will stay true to what Thief is.

[ProjectPat2280]

Originally Posted by Solidus

Want a game with action? Play something else. Thief is stealth based. And it takes away the whole point of the game and waters it down if it gets too lenient on action. So from the sounds of it more than one guard will be near impossible to take down all of them. If it means killing one or so that's fine. But the consequences should be harsh. It should force people to play the game the way it's meant to be played and not just blow through it with easier types of gameplay. Simple.

No, not at all. You shouldn't forgo one type of gameplay "just because". The player should always have options. It should be designed in a way that combat isn't the best option but still is an option in certain situations(eg a guard or two) Looking at how this generation has taken old games and "updated" them I can almost guarantee you, there will be more combat in this game than previous Thief games and that's a good thing rather you can realize it or not. You won't be getting nearly as 'pure' a stealth title as you did last generation.