I’ve to confess that I used to be stunned to see the hooded determine of Garrett, Grasp Thief, reaching covetously for me from the free sport part of the Epic Video games Retailer, not least as a result of Epic’s giveaways are inclined to deal with comparatively latest video games (barring bona fide classics), but in addition usually well-liked ones. And scouring by means of the web discourse within the years since its launch, folks actually do not appear to love the 2014 reboot of Thief.
The unique Thief and Thief 2 had been masterpieces of lo-fi stealth and stage design, boldly imposing a gradual tempo, lack of fight, and rigorous stealth techniques at a time when the first-person perspective was largely reserved for blindingly quick and brutal shooters. Lethal Shadows, launched in 2004, was much more disjointed, however had its deserves too, together with one of many best videogame ranges. Thief (2014), in the meantime, melded the classic class of Thief with a number of the dangerous habits of early 2010s sport design. It definitely is an odd duckling.
For each satisfying swipe of a gold watch, slick intrusion right into a gorgeously designed mansion or financial institution, or sprint into the darkness simply as a guard relights an extinguished torch, there have been QTE set-pieces, restrictive traversal controls confined to particular grappling, climbing, and leaping factors, flow-breaking cinematics, or pointless villain appearances to drag you out of the thieving fantasy. The story—from the second Garrett condemns his protégé to loss of life by stealing a grappling hook gizmo off her as a result of it was too loud, earlier than muttering to himself “Huh, truly that is fairly helpful, I feel I am going to preserve it”—is so dangerous it is laborious to get extra out of it than only a chuckle at its expense. Even that could be troublesome for long-time followers prone to be offended by it completely binning the intriguing lore of the sooner video games.
To many, Thief (2014) is a sport finest forgotten, squeezed out of reminiscence by its legendary lineage on the one hand, and Arkane’s Dishonored collection on the opposite, which had much more success in modernising Wanting Glass Studios’ design philosophy. However assuming you’ve got performed the unique Thiefs (Thieves? Thiefses?) and Dishonored to loss of life, there’s one thing price going again to right here, now that its launch-day bugs and efficiency points are lengthy gone and, nicely, it is accessible without spending a dime (till April 11). Because of a formidable variety of problem and HUD choices, it is even doable to tweak it to be extra in step with the traditional Thief expertise.
See, by default, Thief (2014) is responsible of the type of patronising hand-holding that plagued triple-A video games of the late 2000s to early 2010s. Interactable surfaces glow blue, directing you to doable pathways, grappling factors, and routes from a distance; that is often layered over with goal markers that, in some instances, hover instantly over stated luminous factors, simply in case the screamingly apparent visible cues weren’t apparent sufficient (even with out all of the overlays, you continue to have white paint splatters to point grappling factors).
Then there’s the main focus button, basically an x-ray mode that eradicates your remaining autonomy by quickly highlighting each single interactable factor in sight. With focus upgrades, you possibly can additional dumb the expertise down by unlocking ghostly handprint trails resulting in treasure, turning common arrows silent, visually seeing footstep sounds by means of partitions, and one-shotting alerted enemies together with your blackjack, amongst different powers. All of this nonsense is dishonest you out of what’s, at its core, a extremely stable stealth expertise.
It makes the sport really feel extra linear than it truly is, too, undermining a lot of Eidos-Montreal’s advantageous stage design and artwork route. The diploma to which you may wish to trim the HUD fats will fluctuate, nevertheless it actually speaks to the bizarre pressure on the coronary heart of Thief (2014)—that need to retain the spirit of the originals whereas making an attempt to appease some legendary mainstream viewers that was presumably recognized by the publishers—that the sport allows you to flip these further layers off, and is significantly better when you do.
There are some incredible ranges within the sport’s marketing campaign—chief amongst them a brothel, a few ornate mansions, and a financial institution heist—that for respectable chunks of time immerse you within the easy act of sneaking by means of shadows and getting your dainty, superbly animated arms on no matter loot you could find. Every of those ranges has a number of factors of entry, secrets and techniques to uncover by eavesdropping or notes mendacity round, and neat little puzzles. It is price stressing additionally that the gloomy, damp world—a tasteful mix of Tudor England and steampunk Victoriana—nonetheless seems to be attractive right now, bolstered by the convenience with which a contemporary machine can run the sport in 4K decision.
There’s an actual class to Garrett’s actions as he peels again curtains, locations his arms on corners and parapets, searches for secret switches behind work, or picks locks. Motion feels easy and deliberate. It is a disgrace, although, how ceaselessly the sport pulls you out of this expertise to throw you into some Murderer’s Creed-style third-person ledge-shimmying, or decides that you could solely clamber sure surfaces and solely leap onto sure obstacles, or places Garrett in entrance of the digicam when the poor man is clearly a lot extra comfy behind it.
Even the perfect missions invariably finish with a chase sequence or explosive set-piece. It is like the sport follows a type of bizarre action-movie guidelines about ‘one thing large must occur each [x] minutes’ regardless that Thief (2014) is neither film nor an motion sport. One of many sport’s finest designed ranges, Baron Northcrest’s mansion, ends with a barely interactive sequence of you escaping for 10 minutes as the entire constructing collapses round you, earlier than watching all of it burn to the bottom. It is an ideal illustration of how the sport retains constructing itself up, solely to tear itself down once more.
That is why the side-jobs are such a pleasure. These condensed little missions assign you to steal doodads for numerous purchasers, and in some instances take you to new ranges—nicely structured little outlets, dens, small properties—you’d in any other case miss. With no detours into cutscenes or contrived chase sequences, you possibly can go in regards to the easy, satisfying enterprise of thieving, and expertise the sport’s glorious core mechanics and light-and-sound techniques at their finest. You too can simply run across the metropolis between missions, parkouring (fairly restrictively) over rooftops and breaking-and-entering the place you see match. Once more, remoted from the story, Thief (2014) thrives.
There are many nice touches right here. Educated on video games the place enemies’ traces of sight are myopic imaginative and prescient cones that lower off after 15 metres, I used to be stunned that guards might spot me all the best way throughout a big well-lit room, however in fact that is rather more reasonable. They’re going to discover open doorways, chests, and looted safes, and can even lean by means of home windows or peer over ledges when in search of you, a intelligent contact you hardly ever see even in trendy stealth video games. These guys are perceptive. As a Hunt: Showdown fan, I additionally admire the little particulars, like caged birds, canine, and damaged glass as additional obstacles to be conscious of, in addition to how physics objects on the planet like brooms, cups, and glasses can provide you away in the event you bump them over. I had a very good couple of moments the place I fumbled a superbly executed stealth manoeuvre on the final second by kicking a cup on the ground, or knocking a vase off a desk, creating emergent, tense eventualities the place I needed to assume quick to remain hidden.
There’s one second that most likely finest sums up my bittersweet feeling in direction of Thief (2014). At one level, a grumbling guard refers to somebody as a taffer—a fantastic little curse-word invented for the Thief universe again within the unique video games, and one thing of a calling card for the collection. 10 seconds later, that very same guard drops an F-bomb, as if instantly remembering that he is in a sport that has to enchantment to the (imagined) edgy children enjoying the sport in 2014, as if the splendidly evocative ‘taffer’ simply wasn’t sufficient. It is indicative of how Eidos-Montreal lacked confidence to comply with by means of with an unadulterated Thief sport, reaching for the low-hanging fruit of what ‘modernity’ meant in video games a decade in the past.
I do not doubt that the studio was nicely versed within the spirit of the collection, however needed to stability that in opposition to what writer Sq.-Enix—which all the time appeared uncomfortable with managing immersive sim IPs like this, Hitman, and Deus Ex—thought would make the sport promote (and in equity, the sport did truly promote fairly nicely). There is a good motive Sq.-Enix relinquished the Thief and Deus Ex IPs for a cut price value to Embracer Group in 2022, whereas Hitman broke away from the writer sooner and has loved loads of success since. Immersive sims had been by no means a snug match with a predominantly JRPG writer.
Sadly, Embracer looks like to a lot of a trainwreck proper now to do proper by the collection both, however there are sufficient glints within the darkness of Thief (2014) to persuade me that, with the precise writer, Eidos-Montreal might nonetheless ship us a fantastic Thief sport in the future.
