You forgot to mention the real master thief in the game: Birds! Every single bird nest you find has a wallet inside.And no one even comments on those buggers stealing from them.Truly,they are the ghosts of the CIty.
I always found it funny how you can be in a building with 10 guards in close vicinity and who are all, you know, walking, *making noise*, and yet, when the player character walks, all of a sudden it's a big deal and everybody comes to investigate. Like what?! How is my walking different from that of the other 10 guards currently nearby? Why does the player character stand out this way?
I've noticed that in MGS 5 too: two guards are walking, one behind the other. You stun one (which makes a lot of noise that the guards can't hear for whatever reason), and then walk behind the first one. He will notice you as a enemy, not as his friend.
"PR firms dictate the history of how games are made" You'd be surprised how often this happens to artistic mediums. For example, the entire history of Jazz music, as it is taught in our schools, is constructed by critics and publishers who have a vested interest in shaping the narrative in a certain way.
I really liked the review, but I feel "looting" was just as kleptomaniac in Thief 1-2. The difference I feel is that there it was all done in a flash, no 1,5 second animation for everything. That way, it didn't seem as tedious after the first five times. In other FPS you had to aim and shoot and enemy, in Thief 1-2 you had to aim and "shoot" the loot. It was quick and smooth. But that is connected to the New Thief's idea of how it wants to make you aware of Garret's body, which I thought Thief 1-2 did so much more subtly. There, you could feel like a ghost in a cloak, an ominous gliding presence one moment, and be very very aware of yourself through environmental feedback the next, which again helped create the atmosphere you talk about. It did not need to show us Garret's hands and feet all the time, which to me made it even worse when you found out that the freedom of movement, scaling and approaches you had in Thief 1-2 were very absent from New Thief. With a character that has such obvious "presence" it just seemed jarring to face the restrictions in movement, climbing etc. that you faced in the game.
@Főfasírozó And that is the general direction Square Enix wants to go. I sincerely hope they don't work on yet another Thief project to tarnish the name even further. People of the future will only remember Thief as a cheap, poor and unfinished Dishonored knockoff instead of a pioneer of First Person Stealth.
Fantastic analysis. There are times when Thief comes close to being something really special. I hope the team and S.E. take a close look at what happened here and give it another shot.
The last bit about making development stories heard reminds me a lot of a conversation I had with a friend of mine, and the main issue is that he wanted to have them mentioned as part of reviews, which did not make sense to me, not to mention bordered to amoral; it's supposed to be a review of the product for the consumer, not a review of the company, nor a way to attach emotional baggage onto the product to guilt trip people into buying it. That said, all these development stories should be made public outside of that context, so that the market can be properly researched, and there can be actual answers instead of assumptions that cost the company, the business, the product and the consumers. I still hear stories about banal shit that publishers have said with no understanding as to how the craft works, and forcing decisions based on that. It's like telling an engineer he has to incorporate wheels into the design somehow, because wheels are cool and hip - when the thing he's designing a fucking submarine. That's just a waste of resources.
There once was a time when developers proudly accompanied their games with behind the scenes development videos (among many other interesting things)... The good times of transparent humble developers and companies that are long gone...
The last few minutes of this video are incredibly important for people who work in gamedev. We're still waiting for something like, "Life After Infinite", or any other game industry equivalent of the the "Life After Pi" documentary. You won't hear people talking about these kinds of problems at GDC, in the last 3 years I bothered going everyone was too busy patting themselves on the back while the rest were too afraid to say anything.
Unfortunately I don't think it would be possible to bring back the old Thief, mostly because that kind of creativity in writing and world building just isn't seen anymore, and no Thief game since Thief 2 has managed to have titanic levels with tons of alternate and optional paths and secrets. This game does feel like a Nolanification, even The City just looks wrong, what happened to all of the steampunk technology and magical street lamps. It was such a beautiful setting, even today the art direction in Thief 2 especially is gorgeous, Life of the party anyone? And why they decided to replace Steven Russel so that they could have their precious motion capture cutscenes, ughhh. The cutscenes in the old Thief games even today look gorgeous and are perfectly written and captivating. I don't think the new VA did a terrible job, but he isn't Steven Russel and they should have known that.
The city looks wrong cause the original had a medieval look whilst the new one tries to look victorian, this game couldn't even get the fucking era right
+Kolbe Howard Its more accurate to say the publishers(and shareholders?) make creating such a game like that again a distant dream. Since they rush devs and force them to make certain things dumbed down or insist on adding tropes because sales of games that contain these traits make big profits (supposedly). It's like they don't want to admit games sales are just as equally dependant on factors that take time and serious creativity.
Well, there is always The Dark Mod. An indie effort, sure, but if you want an up-to-date Thief game with creatively designed missions, it's more than sufficient.
I'm currently playing Life of the Party!! First time playing the Original Thief games (i have tried Thief 4 like in 2014-15). I'm playing without saving between levels and on max Difficulty, sooo enjoyable. The tension this way it's so heavy, the Horn of Quintus mission gave me goosebumps, every jump could kill me and be starting from the beginning. Previous try i gave to Life of the Party just fall off the buildings in some jump. Didn't get to Angelwatch yet, but the level is enormous, and the dialogues of some NPCs are hilarious.
It's true that you rarely hear about what causes games to go bad. Because of that I appreciate when someone actually comes out and says what's going on, like how Exploding Rabbit explained what's happened to Super Action Squad and why. You can't learn from your mistakes if you don't acknowledge them and you can't help others learn from them either if you don't tell them what went wrong and why.
As usually, you do the best and most pragmatic review. About Garret stealing every trinket he finds, this was always something that bothered me, in all games. The man robs banks, museums, mansions and still wastes time grabbing coins and has trouble paying his landlord.
It's funny. Elder Geek did a review of this game and really didn't like it. The review was well thought out and raised a bunch of points saying why they didn't like it. Yet SO many of the comments in that video were mostly angry people saying the game was great and EG didn't know what they were talking about. But here, while not really a review the overlook was much more mixed and I'm seeing mostly comments of people saying the game was bad. Why is that I wonder? I really can't figure out why the reaction to these 2 videos is so different. Maybe it's because people look up reviews for game they already played and like to hear people agree with them and when they don't they are vocally upset? It is because that review came out right when the game did and now people have played it more and changed their minds? I would think the audience for both of these channels would be around the same group of people too so I don't think that's it. Just an aside since I looked at the comments expecting to see a ton of people defending the game but didn't.
Will Ferrous makes a good point, that's why I like this channel so much! The actual quality he puts into the commentary makes it all worth while. Especially for someone like me who actually wants to wait and see if a game is worth my while. I definitely love the commentary on specific games and games in general this channel provides!
Is there though? I would think that'd be roughly the same age. I think will might be right though, people are most likely to speak up if the disagree. If you agree you have less to add.
It's clearly not obvious. I would think both site have roughly the same demo at the very least. What would you said the target of each site is if you think they are so different?
Excellent analysis of Thief. Probably the best I've seen yet. Have to say that I love the game, despite its faults. I hope it does well so Eidos Montreal can take another crack at it with a sequel, hopefully learning the right lessons from the mistakes they made the first time around.
you brought up some particularly interesting points near the end of this video. I've actually had the experience of creating a game that ended up being extremely messy and unfinished like Thief, and can tell you it's an interesting process. I'd be willing to answer any questions you have about it, but I should give fair warning and point out that I'm just a one-man hobbyist programmer, so my story probably wouldn't match up with Eidos' super well, but I figured I'd offer all the same.
no, it's not an insult, it's the truth. The game is messy. I spent way too much time working on it, and everybody that I showed it to had some kind of input or suggestions about the game. They usually suggested fairly simple things, and so I would shoehorn them in there instead of working on the big stuff that I was kind of nervous to screw up. Eventually the whole thing just kind of lost focus, like when you mix too many different color paints together and just end up with an ugly brown-ish blob. I slowly started coming to terms with how lousy it was and decided that the whole thing was beyond repair, so I stopped working on the project when it was only about 90% complete or so and released the last demo. If you've got any interest in seeing how things turned out, you can download it from thingo.plippi.com, it's called Vector Factions.
At 12:40 where you complain about Erin suddenly hanging above the water is actually in my opinion a dramaturgical effect showing the contrast between the reality and the otherworldly elements of this game. It didn't make much sense to me but I always get much more details at the second run-through. Either way, I agree with most of your statements
great analysis, my thoughts exactly while playing this were "oh god, they are rebooting deadly shadows and not dark Project, why would they do that?" and also "this feels much more like dishonored than thief"
I've noticed this happening a lot at Square lately. It's my firm belief that the greater company as a whole is doing what movie studios now do. Stepping in with irrational edicts based on a slewed interpretation of what the consumer wants. Audiences like sassy women, let's do that. Mysterious, half explained powers are intriguing, let's do that. Twilight sold a bajillion copies, let's add vampires! That kind of thing. And it's pissing me the fuck off
Good work L. Have some ice cream. The game in some way reminds me of Mirror's Edge in the sense that developers visions conflicts with market expectations. But where Mirror's Edge conflicts was more to be found in the mechanics with shoehorned gunplay, Thiefs conflicts seems more to be in the narrative, and a Stealth game really needs a narrative in order to properly contextualize tension.
I disagree that it needs one per se. I'd say it's more that, when done right, it can greatly benefit from one. Splinter Cell, for example, worked far better the way it was made because of how strong the scripting (until recently) remained consistent to the way Sam acted on a purely technical level, as well as being well written. Whilst Mark of the Ninja was very barebones in terms of actual story, but still conveyed an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable experience by being an engaging and interesting set of in game mechanics. The key really is to pick one approach and stick with it, rather than trying to throw the two together in an unholy union that would make even Hitler x PeeWee Herman proponents shriek in terror
It's implied that this game takes place long after the original Thief games, since all that remains of the old factions are ruins. There's even a hidden reference to the old Garrett through his eye which can be looted in a museum. So at least this Garrett isn't the same guy; maybe a descendant.
I don't understand why everyone refers to the girl in the end of Deadly Shadows as "Garrett's apprentice". The scene is a recreation of the beginning of the Dark Project, with precisely the bits of dialogue left out that imply the recruitment of an apprentice. I thought that was intentional, to reflect how Garrett is different from the other keepers. He would not adopt an apprentice. Artemus gave Garrett the choice to join, because the regular keepers never choose to do anything. Garrett is someone who takes the liberty of choosing things for others. That's the whole point of his keeper status. That's why the other keepers have the insignia of a lock, and Garrett has the insignia of the key. And based on what kind of character Garrett is, he would probably choose to send the girl away. Though refusal is not the only option. It could be that the difference between the beginning and the end is meant to reflect the absence of a set future, caused by the destruction of the keeper prophecies. Garrett never saying anything about recruiting her is meant to signify the presence of a choice. One of the first real choices in a long time.
I liked it. I'll say why on your blog once you post it, so I don't get lost in youtube noise. As for the ending: The explosion you see destroys the wall, and it's suddenly sunny to show you've been unconscious for a while.
And it betrays what the series was all about. Let us not forget that. We don't have moss arrows, good story, sound as a means to sense guards and people, and then the addition of a stupid step detection thing sort of akin to Dishonored-ish.
Your right it's a shame, a shame they destroyed what made Thief great. It's a shame the artists/devs wasted their time, it's a shame whoever was responsible for this disaster didn't get fired.
I'm really glad you've managed to step up the release frequency of your videos. You've really made a name for yourself with these errant signals as the most intelligent, reasoned and articulate sources of game criticism. Please, keep up the excellent work.
He's still got competition from Matthewmatosis. I'm happy to have both, though. Ideally, I'd like them to have a conversation about something together, with booze involved, if only because I like the efficacy of a dialogue vs a monologue.
Wow, this has to be one of he best reviews of this game and its issues I've seen or read to date. And believe me, I've seen and read plenty of reviews concerning this installment, so that's not praise I give lightly. Well done ! You're right that it would be beneficial if we knew how things gradually went wrong while the game was in development. How many times it was awkwardly rewritten, how many times concepts were shaken up, again and again, etc. If nothing else, it would indeed be enlightening, for the sake of future developers. But I guess we'll never learn the whole truth of what went down. Or only a decade or two decades after the game's launch, at best. Though from the little I personally witnessed at Eidos' sites and forums back in 2009 and 2010, the game entered a development hell - or development limbo, if you will - already shortly after it was announced in 2009. Additionally, I don't think the leadership of Eidos Montreal's owners was all that interested in Thief. Definitely a lot less than in Deus Ex, and that just exacerbated the already existing internal issues of the other EM team that was assigned to Thief.
If you go into the game with the mindset that it really is a straight-up sequel (and treat Erin as the little girl from the ending of Deadly Shadows and acknowledge the leaked trailer with Stephen Russell doing his gravelly voiceover), the game makes a lot more sense. I get the feeling that the original concept of the game would have originally followed an older Garrett who is training Erin, but loses her (either to the Primal or something else) and is forced to deal with his guilt while pursuing her. The way the game stands now, you can still see a lot of continuity nods and references, but it feels like other moments and plotlines were shoehorned in, and there were competing design philosophies at play. It's like they took the skeleton of Deadly Shadows (the AI/combat, a vague sense of what the intended plot would be, the hub levels) and tried to kitbash an entirely different game in around it, which led to its schizophrenic and fragmented nature.
This is a comment for SWT: A 2014 List-y Retrospective-y Thing, since comments are blocked on that video. I think the format for that video would be a great way for Chris to do more shortform reviews and critiques, getting down to the nitty gritty of subjects that he doesn't have a lot to say about.
I disagree with alot of what you said, Thief 3 definitely has problems but comparing it to this is kinda ridiculous. Thief 3 still has the "feel" of a Thief game, especially in a gameplay sense. The new Thief destroys everything except the light gem. They made a horrible story, changed Garret as a character, took all freedom of movement away from the player, (the context sensitive control scheme) ruined the Thief fiction/world along with just about everything else. Even the missions end in forced alerts, or the buildings on fire, it's a lame attempt at copying blockbuster moments from other games, which clearly shows they didn't understand what Thief was about or didn't care. Anyway interesting video, thanks for sharing your opinion.
By the way, I completely agree that it'd be much better for the industry if we could learn more, whether good or bad, about the whole production and development process. But if the point would partly be to "contextualize a game as a critic", I'd have to disagree. In the end, the product must stand or fall (or plummet) on its own. Same with movies, which often have rumors of harrowing production issues, but which shouldn't affect a critic's opinion of the movie itself. There is no "A for effort" to give out.
I was getting pretty sick of order vs chaos storylines in video game, but if they are just switching to "Asshole 1%" vs "riotous 99%" type of conflict I don't consider that an improvement
It's like they've gotten all they can out of The Dark Knight, so they're going to move on to stealing from The Dark Knight Rises. Dear Lord, I fear for the next few years in gaming if that's true...
I'm more just tired of order vs chaos storylines being so poorly done. "Chaos" is always framed as nothing more than destruction, rather than a tradeoff in a brave struggle for freedom, while "order" is framed as the path towards protecting others, without considering the fact that an established order is more often than not sustained through violence and destruction so feared by its adherents
@@dontchewglass Warframe kind of portrays it in the way you described it, though the only example I can give is with the Simaris syndicate, Simaris being something that is an all knowing kind of AI that tries to establish order everywhere but in order to do that has to perpetually torment every single living beings, very alive, very real duplicates of the original that is studied in order to be able to know how exactly to act towards this group of people to establish order.
The speculations at the end are very interesting. Is it possible that after a safe period has gone by, marketing departments might let debs off the leash to do interviews? It seems that they are too scared to let this happen while there is a fear of sales being damaged, but surely after a year or so any publicity ultimately becomes good publicity?
The constant looting of smaller items really killed it for me. It maybe could have worked if Garret didn't have to physically open every drawer and pick up every fork but that would have messed with the spacial awareness so better to not have them at all I say. Maybe they were put in to be a sort of constant gratification while exploring the levels to make up for the fact the fighting guards isn't a good idea and because people don't know how to make non-assassination stealth games.
Nothing is stopping you from roleplaying so that you just ignore stuff you don't deem worthy of your time. There are certainly enough difficulty settings to adjust it to work for you that way.
wtfronsson I see your point but I don't much respect games that require me to outright ignore big chunks of their design and form to enjoy them. And it is a big chunk. I could open a fancy restaurant with all this spare cutlery.
It's true about Garrett feeling less like a master thief and more like a kleptomaniac just grabbing anything shiny he sees. You're even presented with gold scissors and desk bells lying around for you to steal when you're supposed to be running for your life. The bad sound mixing and glitches are just embarrassing, and ruin what clearly had the potential to be a beautiful looking game, but one thing that I was surprisingly impressed by was Romano Orzari as Garrett. If they'd kept Garrett's character completely as it was in the original series, his performance wouldn't have matched up at all, but he suits this new rebooted version of Garrett (though I do still prefer the original version.) However, his performance isn't strong enough to make up for the fact that the plot is AWFUL. I hated the character of Erin (which sucks, seeing as the game is pretty much all about her,) the war between the two factions doesn't feel important at all (mostly because the focus is kept on freaking Erin,) the thing about the Gloom didn't go anywhere, I still have no idea what the Primal even was, and the ending....Fuck that ending. That wasn't a cliff-hanger, that was just a straight up "We have no idea how to end this."
What happened behind the scenes and development of this game should be covered by a journalist like how the Legacy of Kain series, its cancelled games, and the company interactions were.
This video perfectly expresses my mixed feelings about the game - I can see the potential there and I hope it has done well enough to warrant a sequel so they can iterate on the formula hopefully removing the Erin plotline will improve it. One thing which I have found really annoying is how it makes it impossible to actually stealth some sections. I hope one of the improvements is to make it less kleptomaniac - give you less but more valuable loot.
This is a minor gripe, but you don't 'advocate *for*' something, you just advocate it. For example, "I don't advocate violence", not "I don't advocate *for* violence". If you use advocate as a noun, it can be followed by 'for'. For example, "I am an advocate for violence". Pretty much everyone I have heard use this word used it wrong. Just in case you ever use the word in a job interview or something, that is the correct way.
There's so many great looking locations in this video, it's a real shame the story didn't make sense, that Garrett wasn't likeable or humorous, that the game didn't really come to life.
yeah they at least could have salvaged some of the overall game if they released modding support. so the game could have been fixed by it's most discriminating critics that mod games.
Some people do essays on here, some do hype up reviews, but I really like when you use games as springboards to talk about larger issues or features in the industry. Too much of this gets unsaid and unexpressed and we are more defenseless against hype, propaganda, etc
now I understand why people like yahtzee and others disliked this game so much. thank you. a good level headed look at both sides of an argument is much proffered to the the angry ranting of a lot of critics.
I actually really liked this game, mostly because it's a pure stealth game in a sea of games that seem to be designed purely so the player can mow down the bad guys. Even Dishonored was more of an action game with stealth elements mixed in - you could try to ghost it, but the combat is much more varied and fun and interesting if you play as a predator. It was far from perfect, and it felt unfinished at times, but let's be honest - it's highly, highly unlikely that a game like the original Thief games could be made today. This is as close as we're ever going to get. Oh, and there's a reason why the City seems different. Apparently in the Thief universe, time is cyclical, and each cycle has elements that happened before carry over onto the next cycle. For example, the Garrett in the new Thief is NOT the same Garrett from the old games. In fact, you even find Garrett's old mechanical eye in one of the later missions, along with Keeper and Hammerite artifacts. I guess when Garrett activated the final Glyph in T:DS, it ended his age and eventually a new one came along. There is precedent for this in the old games: many times, it's mentioned that the City is built on top of the ruins of an older version of itself, and its past is murky and shrouded in shadow.
You can ghost Dishonered I did it, it's alot more fun than the new Thief, especially if you don't use magic, KO, upgrades etc. If you want a real stealth game try "The Dark Mod" if you haven't. It's the real spiritual successor to Thief anyway. Also I don't see any reason why a game like Thief couldn't be made today. Everbody thought Dark Souls was to niche to appeal to most people and look at that game, their on number 3 or 4 now.
It's funny. I pretty much completely agree with the points you've made but our 'final verdicts' seem to be polar opposite. I guess emphasis on different things as well as maybe different expectations.
Interesting. So where most games strive by having a better binary system of mechanics, like simplicity of movement and detection, stealth games like Thief almost entirely depend on the ambiguity of grayscale mechanics to be a worthwhile game in order to raise intrigue and immersion. Neat.
While the sneaking and exploration were enjoyable, I had major issues with the story. Erin was annoying from the start so I never cared for her, the Baron/Orion thing was never as epic as the game implied it would be, and the ending was nonsensical. Seriously wtf even happened? Erin falls and dies? Or did she survive? Her claw was back so is she alive? What happened to the Primal? What happened to Garrett in the year that he slept? Did the Primal create the Gloom? There were so many things that they brought up but never answered and it left a very unsatisfied ending that probably won't get a sequel because of this.
Great episode. I imagined game development as some mystical ritual until those "inside looks," like the Polygon editorials, started appearing. A bit more transparency would be insightful, especially for games like these. Rhianna Pratchett (writer of Overlord, Tomb Raider, assistant writer of Bioshock Infinite and Thief) had to clear things up on the Escapist forums when confused fans asked what went wrong with Thief, since they immediately assumed she was the one to blame for the messy story - like a scriptwriter would be in Hollywood. She couldn't point fingers even if she wanted to - Thief had been rewritten and committee-redesigned so many times that even its staff was in the dark as to what exactly went wrong. Also, it's a bit weird that that so many people immediately recommend Dark Souls for an Errant Signal, but I get it. So much of gaming consists on first impressions, reviews and LPs that we're starved of in-depth critique. The Dark Souls games are strange enough that I don't feel I even have the vocabulary to express why I like them.
I can only imagine how much better theif would have been if eidos montreal would have had it for the whole of its development. Hopefully it at least does well enough to warrent a sequel. Given a full/complete dev cycle I bet they could make a pretty bomb ass theif.
Best thing about this game? Huge variety of difficulty settings. Perhaps the best list of them, anywhere ever. This is something they came up with, as the pre-hype concerned people that the game would end up too casual. It was my biggest worry too. But I think they did a fine job with seeing to that problem. But it is true, the game is incomplete, and the whole of the plot/story/dialogue is pretty wack. What saves it is, it's still a pretty engaging stealth game. People who wanted this to be a real Thief 1 reboot, well, get real. That's not going to happen. I don't like it either, but I don't expect impossibilities.
Yeah, the difficulty settings pleasantly surprised me. It's not something I expected to see from AAA games these days. If you're able to get past the problems mentioned here, then at least there is a lot of replay value if you're the sort of person who likes achievements. I really wish they had gone with the character study route on the story. I think it would have been much more fulfilling.
I wasn't expecting Thief 1. But I was expecting something better than Thief Deadly Shadows. What makes or breaks the "gameplay" is the environments. The AI intelligence and the sound design and how that factors into the gameplay. On both counts they screwed the pooch. The environments are even more linear than Deadly Shadows, and that seems to only hurt the gameplay. Awareness of your environments takes a backseat, because it honestly doesn't matter how you tackle each "obstacle", the obstacles being the guard paths & lights. Because theres no alternate routes to take to the next level so the element of choice is also thrown out the window, the guard paths are so incredibly short, the guards get distracted by every statue, its just far to easy to sneak past or play it blackjack style because all of that makes them incredibly predictable. Theres even more contextual buttons prompts than Deadly Shadows, for every single thing you do theres those mini-cutscenes that makes everything look stiff & awkward. Making the environments more linear than ever before and not putting any emphasis on the AI or the writing (all the humor/wit is gone) does not make for a fun game or a intelligent one. They put to much focus on the graphics and what we got is a poor attempt at trying to appeal to a wider audience while losing mostly of what Thief is about. What do we get really? The focus on non-combat, the 3 light stages, and the noise being a factor to moving are aspects of the core Thief gameplay (allowing us to modify difficulty certainly allows for more immersion). But that ain't enough. I was expecting a middle ground between Thief 2 and Thief Deadly Shadows. Not something worse than Deadly Shadows.
The difficulty settings are broken though. Choosing "no damage" where you fail means it is impossible to complete the game 100%. In the burning Keep smoke causes you to choke and take damage meaning you can't get anywhere near the loot littering the area. This is supremely frustrating especially when the game is so boring and unrewarding on easier settings. The animations are totally ballsed too. At the beginning where you are at a jewelers, in the basement there is some unique loot in a safe being guarded. Getting around the guard is easy enough, staying in shadows and popping out to turn a dial, getting back into the shadows, popping back out, etc. Then finally once you get the loot he starts examining it in great detail, locked in a standing position, rhyming off some crap about how nice it is only for the guard to turn around and see you. I mean jesus christ in a game about stealth and for the time it takes to work out that plan, it fucks me over like that? Good luck iron-manning this game once you get to the trial and error bullshit of escaping from the Architect's house moving at reduced speed.
"People who wanted this to be a real Thief 1 reboot, well, get real. That's not going to happen. I don't like it either, but I don't expect impossibilities." Who says it has to be Thief 1 reboot? Deus Ex Human Revolution doesn't try to re-make (the superior) original game but it's still miles and miles better than this new Thief reboot. So it certainly can be done.
Hirnlego999 Sure. It's just a lot of the critique seems to be targeted solely at things that are not exactly like they were in the original game. Similar views were popular with the new Hitman game. Even if it was a solid game in itself, it wasn't really a pure sequel, so many people just overlooked everything good it would have had to offer. I'm not accusing everyone of such intellectual dishonesty, of course. Hence "people who wanted..." I do agree on the new Thief being a pretty big disappointment in many areas, but I can still honestly call it an entertaining game anyway.
Excellent analysis as usual! But honestly, I found it almost generous. Yes, the mechanics "work" but even they are unfinished. You're bound to peek around a desk, when you actually wanted to open a drawer; swoop into something you're already up against and wanted to jump onto... I've never played the original games, so I'm not making any comparisons, but if the mechanics are _also_ "dumbed down", well... Add to that an unholy mess of a story, terrible characters, technology issues, incredibly repetitive gameplay, loading screens, loading screens concealed as quick time events, points of no return everywhere in levels, the audio (oh, god, the audio!), and just outright bugs... ugh. I was forcing myself to play through to the end, just so I could say I'd done it. Once I was done, I went and played Dishonored again, just to rinse the Thief off, and it's just so much better it's not even funny.
The trickster and Karrass, two great crooks. The first one is more horror orientated but the second one isn't. Both have amazing soundtracks and sound-design and can really crawl under your skin.
Hey Errant, Great video as always. I'm very happy you managed to look at this game with a perspective that wasn't shrouded in hype or bitterness for 'tarnishing the franchise!', however some gamers put it. I was curious if you ever had future plans to take a look at the Hitman franchise. The Hitman games are some of my favorites, and I've noticed that with each game the mechanics and level design seem to become better and better... Until at least with Absolution. In fact, the reaction to Absolution is very similar, in my eyes, to the reaction of this Thief. You have reviewers like Giant Bomb giving it high praise, and then PC gamer giving with quite the mediocre score. Keep doing a great job.
MrRudiMentary I would like more games like deadly premonition and less The Last of Us, DmC or Cod... it's stupid, sure, but it was something interesting... a game about investigating a murder in a free roaming area? with some paranormal? it's "stupidity" came from how they implemented all the assets in the game, but belive me, if they would put a decent driving engine and a better map the game would have became a fucking hit...
MrRudiMentary the reason it got ported it's because of the cult aura around it. it's not because it's proper value... it's also the more similar thing to a twin peaks game (something I unrelentingly want)
What irked me the most was that most of all the apartments that I could enter in the city didn't have any guards in them or anyone to provide a challenge to the game except of course in the story missions. Why did they make these apartments if they are just a 5 second thing ? It's quite stupid to waste effort on such minimal shit that offers nothing to the game except boredom. I think this design decision is like this because of bad game designers who didn't realize this part of the game is quite boring and needed to be improved or cut. And why would you make an apartment that has the door be a giant gate that is just made by metal bars and you open it by shooting an arrow inside the apartment. How is the person living there opening his apartment ? Is he also shooting arrows as there's no locking mechanism outside to even give the illusion that someone was so ridiculous to have gate for a wall, a gate which will eventually be his demise as he'll freeze to death in his sleep. It's like the game designers weren't even trying to think about what they were implementing as gameplay in regards to the game world and common sense, it just screams incompetence to me.
the first assassins creed had some good parts in a shit bathing... the other games just added more good parts and more shit to the mix... but the first assassins creed was just booring and repetitive. this is boring, broken and insulting cash grab
latpasko a not well developed or designed game that uses a old more important and better title to be have instant recognition and free advertisement is a cash grab. if they failed their production schedule, starting with a sequel Thi4f and ending with a reboot, it's squareenix/eidos problem, the reason it exist is to have a already known game that kids will buy for try to "fill the gap"...
latpasko mmm, you mean the not finished and not polished Thief deadly shadow? and hardly, in any case, as Hammerite, it's sect mechanist, the baron and the pagans are completely absent or wrongly portrayed... you can say that the lightning system is similar (yet incredibly simplified) but both vision and hearing are terribly lacking to be "similar" to a thief... and while not horrible Thief deadly shadow was not much well received by fan of the original 2 game...
i really enjoyed this game, had its flaws but it could be a modern cult classic. I actually liked this game very much and bought it full price on my ps4, highly recommend at least giving it a try if you have the chance.
If they ever get a chance to make another Thief, it should go back to its roots whilst embracing the better qualities of the newer titles. Perhaps set it in the time between Thief 2014 and Deadly Shadows, when there were still Hammerites and Pagans, and the Keeper order was still reeling from the actions of The Hag and classic Garrett's activation of the Final Glyph. Perhaps with the balance destabilised with the weakened Keepers, we see the Pagans and Hammers clash more openly, with a sect of Hammerites trying to build a "Tabernacle Robot" to be the avatar of The Builder, and the Pagans working to revive the Trickster. And all the while that girl we saw at the end of Deadly Shadows becomes the apprentice of the Master Thief, being what Erin should have been without 2014 Erin becoming the "woman in the fridge". Oh, and the sound engine would require some retooling to work properly a'la the old Thief games.
Carry the torch of the franchise forward? Ha! It failed because it's anything but a Thief game. If the pretentious developers would have put aside their ego for one minute, it could have been a good game. The community told them the problems during the entire development but they did it anyways. They totally missed what made the original Thief games are good, that's why it failed.
Nice video, though I thought your rant on the reasons behind the failure was a little hyperbole. These things gets around to the people that matters - while us the general public may never know what went wrong, there are no doubt people who knows within the game industry as a whole. Developers know each other between companies, word will get around. They'll just never do it in a way that can compromise their image to the public.
You forgot to mention the real master thief in the game: Birds!
Every single bird nest you find has a wallet inside.And no one even comments on those buggers stealing from them.Truly,they are the ghosts of the CIty.
Man, i was thinking the same thing. The gamedesign is just lame.
People don't say taffer 0/10
I always found it funny how you can be in a building with 10 guards in close vicinity and who are all, you know, walking, *making noise*, and yet, when the player character walks, all of a sudden it's a big deal and everybody comes to investigate. Like what?!
How is my walking different from that of the other 10 guards currently nearby? Why does the player character stand out this way?
hmm intresting fact. and very accurate opinion.
I've noticed that in MGS 5 too: two guards are walking, one behind the other. You stun one (which makes a lot of noise that the guards can't hear for whatever reason), and then walk behind the first one. He will notice you as a enemy, not as his friend.
people's footsteps do sound different
"PR firms dictate the history of how games are made"
You'd be surprised how often this happens to artistic mediums. For example, the entire history of Jazz music, as it is taught in our schools, is constructed by critics and publishers who have a vested interest in shaping the narrative in a certain way.
I really liked the review, but I feel "looting" was just as kleptomaniac in Thief 1-2. The difference I feel is that there it was all done in a flash, no 1,5 second animation for everything. That way, it didn't seem as tedious after the first five times. In other FPS you had to aim and shoot and enemy, in Thief 1-2 you had to aim and "shoot" the loot. It was quick and smooth.
But that is connected to the New Thief's idea of how it wants to make you aware of Garret's body, which I thought Thief 1-2 did so much more subtly. There, you could feel like a ghost in a cloak, an ominous gliding presence one moment, and be very very aware of yourself through environmental feedback the next, which again helped create the atmosphere you talk about.
It did not need to show us Garret's hands and feet all the time, which to me made it even worse when you found out that the freedom of movement, scaling and approaches you had in Thief 1-2 were very absent from New Thief. With a character that has such obvious "presence" it just seemed jarring to face the restrictions in movement, climbing etc. that you faced in the game.
@Főfasírozó And that is the general direction Square Enix wants to go. I sincerely hope they don't work on yet another Thief project to tarnish the name even further. People of the future will only remember Thief as a cheap, poor and unfinished Dishonored knockoff instead of a pioneer of First Person Stealth.
Fantastic analysis. There are times when Thief comes close to being something really special. I hope the team and S.E. take a close look at what happened here and give it another shot.
The last bit about making development stories heard reminds me a lot of a conversation I had with a friend of mine, and the main issue is that he wanted to have them mentioned as part of reviews, which did not make sense to me, not to mention bordered to amoral; it's supposed to be a review of the product for the consumer, not a review of the company, nor a way to attach emotional baggage onto the product to guilt trip people into buying it.
That said, all these development stories should be made public outside of that context, so that the market can be properly researched, and there can be actual answers instead of assumptions that cost the company, the business, the product and the consumers. I still hear stories about banal shit that publishers have said with no understanding as to how the craft works, and forcing decisions based on that. It's like telling an engineer he has to incorporate wheels into the design somehow, because wheels are cool and hip - when the thing he's designing a fucking submarine.
That's just a waste of resources.
There once was a time when developers proudly accompanied their games with behind the scenes development videos (among many other interesting things)... The good times of transparent humble developers and companies that are long gone...
The last few minutes of this video are incredibly important for people who work in gamedev. We're still waiting for something like, "Life After Infinite", or any other game industry equivalent of the the "Life After Pi" documentary. You won't hear people talking about these kinds of problems at GDC, in the last 3 years I bothered going everyone was too busy patting themselves on the back while the rest were too afraid to say anything.
Unfortunately I don't think it would be possible to bring back the old Thief, mostly because that kind of creativity in writing and world building just isn't seen anymore, and no Thief game since Thief 2 has managed to have titanic levels with tons of alternate and optional paths and secrets.
This game does feel like a Nolanification, even The City just looks wrong, what happened to all of the steampunk technology and magical street lamps. It was such a beautiful setting, even today the art direction in Thief 2 especially is gorgeous, Life of the party anyone?
And why they decided to replace Steven Russel so that they could have their precious motion capture cutscenes, ughhh. The cutscenes in the old Thief games even today look gorgeous and are perfectly written and captivating. I don't think the new VA did a terrible job, but he isn't Steven Russel and they should have known that.
***** four words actually
The city looks wrong cause the original had a medieval look whilst the new one tries to look victorian, this game couldn't even get the fucking era right
+Kolbe Howard Its more accurate to say the publishers(and shareholders?) make creating such a game like that again a distant dream. Since they rush devs and force them to make certain things dumbed down or insist on adding tropes because sales of games that contain these traits make big profits (supposedly). It's like they don't want to admit games sales are just as equally dependant on factors that take time and serious creativity.
Well, there is always The Dark Mod. An indie effort, sure, but if you want an up-to-date Thief game with creatively designed missions, it's more than sufficient.
I'm currently playing Life of the Party!!
First time playing the Original Thief games (i have tried Thief 4 like in 2014-15).
I'm playing without saving between levels and on max Difficulty, sooo enjoyable.
The tension this way it's so heavy, the Horn of Quintus mission gave me goosebumps, every jump could kill me and be starting from the beginning.
Previous try i gave to Life of the Party just fall off the buildings in some jump.
Didn't get to Angelwatch yet, but the level is enormous, and the dialogues of some NPCs are hilarious.
It's true that you rarely hear about what causes games to go bad. Because of that I appreciate when someone actually comes out and says what's going on, like how Exploding Rabbit explained what's happened to Super Action Squad and why. You can't learn from your mistakes if you don't acknowledge them and you can't help others learn from them either if you don't tell them what went wrong and why.
"ehehehehe, I'm hunting Gawwets."
I lost it. I'm used to these videos being so serious, it just caught me off guard.
I was very glad that you mention that last bit about developing behind the scenes I wish to lot more people talk about this sort of thing more often
As usually, you do the best and most pragmatic review.
About Garret stealing every trinket he finds, this was always something that bothered me, in all games. The man robs banks, museums, mansions and still wastes time grabbing coins and has trouble paying his landlord.
It's funny. Elder Geek did a review of this game and really didn't like it. The review was well thought out and raised a bunch of points saying why they didn't like it. Yet SO many of the comments in that video were mostly angry people saying the game was great and EG didn't know what they were talking about. But here, while not really a review the overlook was much more mixed and I'm seeing mostly comments of people saying the game was bad.
Why is that I wonder? I really can't figure out why the reaction to these 2 videos is so different. Maybe it's because people look up reviews for game they already played and like to hear people agree with them and when they don't they are vocally upset? It is because that review came out right when the game did and now people have played it more and changed their minds? I would think the audience for both of these channels would be around the same group of people too so I don't think that's it.
Just an aside since I looked at the comments expecting to see a ton of people defending the game but didn't.
disagreement is the stronger force when it comes to compulsive TH-cam comments.
Will Ferrous makes a good point, that's why I like this channel so much! The actual quality he puts into the commentary makes it all worth while. Especially for someone like me who actually wants to wait and see if a game is worth my while. I definitely love the commentary on specific games and games in general this channel provides!
Is there though? I would think that'd be roughly the same age.
I think will might be right though, people are most likely to speak up if the disagree. If you agree you have less to add.
I'd think this to be obvious, but Elder Geek and Errant Signal hardly have the same target audience. That's pretty much it.
It's clearly not obvious. I would think both site have roughly the same demo at the very least. What would you said the target of each site is if you think they are so different?
Excellent analysis of Thief. Probably the best I've seen yet. Have to say that I love the game, despite its faults. I hope it does well so Eidos Montreal can take another crack at it with a sequel, hopefully learning the right lessons from the mistakes they made the first time around.
I love the "Errant Signal". Nice job !
you brought up some particularly interesting points near the end of this video. I've actually had the experience of creating a game that ended up being extremely messy and unfinished like Thief, and can tell you it's an interesting process. I'd be willing to answer any questions you have about it, but I should give fair warning and point out that I'm just a one-man hobbyist programmer, so my story probably wouldn't match up with Eidos' super well, but I figured I'd offer all the same.
I don't mean this as an insult, but how did the game get so messy and unfinished in the first place? What went wrong?
no, it's not an insult, it's the truth. The game is messy. I spent way too much time working on it, and everybody that I showed it to had some kind of input or suggestions about the game. They usually suggested fairly simple things, and so I would shoehorn them in there instead of working on the big stuff that I was kind of nervous to screw up.
Eventually the whole thing just kind of lost focus, like when you mix too many different color paints together and just end up with an ugly brown-ish blob. I slowly started coming to terms with how lousy it was and decided that the whole thing was beyond repair, so I stopped working on the project when it was only about 90% complete or so and released the last demo.
If you've got any interest in seeing how things turned out, you can download it from thingo.plippi.com, it's called Vector Factions.
This is like a nice, collected version of the Zero Ponctuation review of this game.
At 12:40 where you complain about Erin suddenly hanging above the water is actually in my opinion a dramaturgical effect showing the contrast between the reality and the otherworldly elements of this game.
It didn't make much sense to me but I always get much more details at the second run-through. Either way, I agree with most of your statements
some of this is true but Deadly Shadows *was* a traditional true, proper sequel to the Thief games before it. The swoop is also extremely overpowered.
Swooping is good? Bioware lied to me.
great analysis, my thoughts exactly while playing this were "oh god, they are rebooting deadly shadows and not dark Project, why would they do that?"
and also "this feels much more like dishonored than thief"
Five years later and you still can smell the river from here
I've noticed this happening a lot at Square lately. It's my firm belief that the greater company as a whole is doing what movie studios now do. Stepping in with irrational edicts based on a slewed interpretation of what the consumer wants.
Audiences like sassy women, let's do that.
Mysterious, half explained powers are intriguing, let's do that.
Twilight sold a bajillion copies, let's add vampires!
That kind of thing. And it's pissing me the fuck off
Good work L. Have some ice cream.
The game in some way reminds me of Mirror's Edge in the sense that developers visions conflicts with market expectations. But where Mirror's Edge conflicts was more to be found in the mechanics with shoehorned gunplay, Thiefs conflicts seems more to be in the narrative, and a Stealth game really needs a narrative in order to properly contextualize tension.
I disagree that it needs one per se. I'd say it's more that, when done right, it can greatly benefit from one. Splinter Cell, for example, worked far better the way it was made because of how strong the scripting (until recently) remained consistent to the way Sam acted on a purely technical level, as well as being well written.
Whilst Mark of the Ninja was very barebones in terms of actual story, but still conveyed an interesting and thoroughly enjoyable experience by being an engaging and interesting set of in game mechanics.
The key really is to pick one approach and stick with it, rather than trying to throw the two together in an unholy union that would make even Hitler x PeeWee Herman proponents shriek in terror
Hello 2014 Bobfish...
It's implied that this game takes place long after the original Thief games, since all that remains of the old factions are ruins. There's even a hidden reference to the old Garrett through his eye which can be looted in a museum. So at least this Garrett isn't the same guy; maybe a descendant.
I don't understand why everyone refers to the girl in the end of Deadly Shadows as "Garrett's apprentice". The scene is a recreation of the beginning of the Dark Project, with precisely the bits of dialogue left out that imply the recruitment of an apprentice. I thought that was intentional, to reflect how Garrett is different from the other keepers. He would not adopt an apprentice.
Artemus gave Garrett the choice to join, because the regular keepers never choose to do anything. Garrett is someone who takes the liberty of choosing things for others. That's the whole point of his keeper status. That's why the other keepers have the insignia of a lock, and Garrett has the insignia of the key. And based on what kind of character Garrett is, he would probably choose to send the girl away.
Though refusal is not the only option. It could be that the difference between the beginning and the end is meant to reflect the absence of a set future, caused by the destruction of the keeper prophecies. Garrett never saying anything about recruiting her is meant to signify the presence of a choice. One of the first real choices in a long time.
I liked it. I'll say why on your blog once you post it, so I don't get lost in youtube noise.
As for the ending: The explosion you see destroys the wall, and it's suddenly sunny to show you've been unconscious for a while.
And it betrays what the series was all about. Let us not forget that. We don't have moss arrows, good story, sound as a means to sense guards and people, and then the addition of a stupid step detection thing sort of akin to Dishonored-ish.
Not all of it is weighed equally. I dislike the lack of moss arrows. It's not what consumes my everyday, it's just a shame.
Your right it's a shame, a shame they destroyed what made Thief great. It's a shame the artists/devs wasted their time, it's a shame whoever was responsible for this disaster didn't get fired.
It's weird... The structure of this game is designed to draw focus to the story and yet the story is so unpolished and cliche...
I'm really glad you've managed to step up the release frequency of your videos. You've really made a name for yourself with these errant signals as the most intelligent, reasoned and articulate sources of game criticism.
Please, keep up the excellent work.
He's still got competition from Matthewmatosis. I'm happy to have both, though. Ideally, I'd like them to have a conversation about something together, with booze involved, if only because I like the efficacy of a dialogue vs a monologue.
I think the ship was for spreading the Graven's Dawn beyond the city... or something.
Wow, this has to be one of he best reviews of this game and its issues I've seen or read to date. And believe me, I've seen and read plenty of reviews concerning this installment, so that's not praise I give lightly. Well done !
You're right that it would be beneficial if we knew how things gradually went wrong while the game was in development. How many times it was awkwardly rewritten, how many times concepts were shaken up, again and again, etc. If nothing else, it would indeed be enlightening, for the sake of future developers. But I guess we'll never learn the whole truth of what went down. Or only a decade or two decades after the game's launch, at best.
Though from the little I personally witnessed at Eidos' sites and forums back in 2009 and 2010, the game entered a development hell - or development limbo, if you will - already shortly after it was announced in 2009. Additionally, I don't think the leadership of Eidos Montreal's owners was all that interested in Thief. Definitely a lot less than in Deus Ex, and that just exacerbated the already existing internal issues of the other EM team that was assigned to Thief.
Wait wait wait. He wants to escape from the city? Do you think he was ever chased by a large produce cart as he ran really fast down a hill?
I'm always happy when I see one of your videos in my sub box :D
I remember enjoying this game a lot back in the day.
Need to get around to passing all of them.
Can anyone tell me were the wanted posters are I got 206 out of 215 documents?
If you go into the game with the mindset that it really is a straight-up sequel (and treat Erin as the little girl from the ending of Deadly Shadows and acknowledge the leaked trailer with Stephen Russell doing his gravelly voiceover), the game makes a lot more sense.
I get the feeling that the original concept of the game would have originally followed an older Garrett who is training Erin, but loses her (either to the Primal or something else) and is forced to deal with his guilt while pursuing her. The way the game stands now, you can still see a lot of continuity nods and references, but it feels like other moments and plotlines were shoehorned in, and there were competing design philosophies at play.
It's like they took the skeleton of Deadly Shadows (the AI/combat, a vague sense of what the intended plot would be, the hub levels) and tried to kitbash an entirely different game in around it, which led to its schizophrenic and fragmented nature.
7:57
She did, in fact, see Red Jenny.
This is a comment for SWT: A 2014 List-y Retrospective-y Thing, since comments are blocked on that video.
I think the format for that video would be a great way for Chris to do more shortform reviews and critiques, getting down to the nitty gritty of subjects that he doesn't have a lot to say about.
I disagree with alot of what you said, Thief 3 definitely has problems but comparing it to this is kinda ridiculous. Thief 3 still has the "feel" of a Thief game, especially in a gameplay sense. The new Thief destroys everything except the light gem. They made a horrible story, changed Garret as a character, took all freedom of movement away from the player, (the context sensitive control scheme) ruined the Thief fiction/world along with just about everything else. Even the missions end in forced alerts, or the buildings on fire, it's a lame attempt at copying blockbuster moments from other games, which clearly shows they didn't understand what Thief was about or didn't care. Anyway interesting video, thanks for sharing your opinion.
Absolutely.
That was an excellent video, lots of insight, very well done sir!
By the way, I completely agree that it'd be much better for the industry if we could learn more, whether good or bad, about the whole production and development process. But if the point would partly be to "contextualize a game as a critic", I'd have to disagree. In the end, the product must stand or fall (or plummet) on its own. Same with movies, which often have rumors of harrowing production issues, but which shouldn't affect a critic's opinion of the movie itself. There is no "A for effort" to give out.
I was getting pretty sick of order vs chaos storylines in video game, but if they are just switching to "Asshole 1%" vs "riotous 99%" type of conflict I don't consider that an improvement
It's like they've gotten all they can out of The Dark Knight, so they're going to move on to stealing from The Dark Knight Rises. Dear Lord, I fear for the next few years in gaming if that's true...
Grant Colvin They got it from the real world. Where a radical statement is more responded to. Trolling, Fox News, Anita Sarkesian... you name it.
I'm more just tired of order vs chaos storylines being so poorly done. "Chaos" is always framed as nothing more than destruction, rather than a tradeoff in a brave struggle for freedom, while "order" is framed as the path towards protecting others, without considering the fact that an established order is more often than not sustained through violence and destruction so feared by its adherents
@@dontchewglass Warframe kind of portrays it in the way you described it, though the only example I can give is with the Simaris syndicate, Simaris being something that is an all knowing kind of AI that tries to establish order everywhere but in order to do that has to perpetually torment every single living beings, very alive, very real duplicates of the original that is studied in order to be able to know how exactly to act towards this group of people to establish order.
The speculations at the end are very interesting. Is it possible that after a safe period has gone by, marketing departments might let debs off the leash to do interviews? It seems that they are too scared to let this happen while there is a fear of sales being damaged, but surely after a year or so any publicity ultimately becomes good publicity?
The constant looting of smaller items really killed it for me. It maybe could have worked if Garret didn't have to physically open every drawer and pick up every fork but that would have messed with the spacial awareness so better to not have them at all I say. Maybe they were put in to be a sort of constant gratification while exploring the levels to make up for the fact the fighting guards isn't a good idea and because people don't know how to make non-assassination stealth games.
Nothing is stopping you from roleplaying so that you just ignore stuff you don't deem worthy of your time. There are certainly enough difficulty settings to adjust it to work for you that way.
wtfronsson I see your point but I don't much respect games that require me to outright ignore big chunks of their design and form to enjoy them. And it is a big chunk. I could open a fancy restaurant with all this spare cutlery.
I'm willing to bet we see a wrap up of all the storylines in DLC.
It's true about Garrett feeling less like a master thief and more like a kleptomaniac just grabbing anything shiny he sees. You're even presented with gold scissors and desk bells lying around for you to steal when you're supposed to be running for your life.
The bad sound mixing and glitches are just embarrassing, and ruin what clearly had the potential to be a beautiful looking game, but one thing that I was surprisingly impressed by was Romano Orzari as Garrett. If they'd kept Garrett's character completely as it was in the original series, his performance wouldn't have matched up at all, but he suits this new rebooted version of Garrett (though I do still prefer the original version.)
However, his performance isn't strong enough to make up for the fact that the plot is AWFUL. I hated the character of Erin (which sucks, seeing as the game is pretty much all about her,) the war between the two factions doesn't feel important at all (mostly because the focus is kept on freaking Erin,) the thing about the Gloom didn't go anywhere, I still have no idea what the Primal even was, and the ending....Fuck that ending. That wasn't a cliff-hanger, that was just a straight up "We have no idea how to end this."
The makers need to be strung up by the testicles for putting out this total utter garbage and for daring to call it Thief 4.
this Garrett seems less Master Thief and more Mr. Stealy
Dishonored was a better "new" Thief. While some of the mechanics were a bit shallower it feels a helluva lot tighter.
Have you played Tactical stealth games? like Commandos, Desperados, and the recent Shadow Tactics?
What happened behind the scenes and development of this game should be covered by a journalist like how the Legacy of Kain series, its cancelled games, and the company interactions were.
I agree. :-D If nothing else, at least it would be entertaining.
This video perfectly expresses my mixed feelings about the game - I can see the potential there and I hope it has done well enough to warrant a sequel so they can iterate on the formula hopefully removing the Erin plotline will improve it.
One thing which I have found really annoying is how it makes it impossible to actually stealth some sections.
I hope one of the improvements is to make it less kleptomaniac - give you less but more valuable loot.
This is a minor gripe, but you don't 'advocate *for*' something, you just advocate it.
For example, "I don't advocate violence", not "I don't advocate *for* violence".
If you use advocate as a noun, it can be followed by 'for'. For example, "I am an advocate for violence".
Pretty much everyone I have heard use this word used it wrong. Just in case you ever use the word in a job interview or something, that is the correct way.
Lol that's embarrassing; whenever I tell people that I'm an advocate for violence they give me weird looks, now I now why, improper grammar.
Counter-gripe of similar scale: English is a living language, and what's popular *is* what's correct, at least on some level.
14:00 and on is soooo true!!!
There's so many great looking locations in this video, it's a real shame the story didn't make sense, that Garrett wasn't likeable or humorous, that the game didn't really come to life.
yeah they at least could have salvaged some of the overall game if they released modding support. so the game could have been fixed by it's most discriminating critics that mod games.
A fair review of a game I enjoyed playing.
Some people do essays on here, some do hype up reviews, but I really like when you use games as springboards to talk about larger issues or features in the industry. Too much of this gets unsaid and unexpressed and we are more defenseless against hype, propaganda, etc
now I understand why people like yahtzee and others disliked this game so much. thank you. a good level headed look at both sides of an argument is much proffered to the the angry ranting of a lot of critics.
I actually really liked this game, mostly because it's a pure stealth game in a sea of games that seem to be designed purely so the player can mow down the bad guys. Even Dishonored was more of an action game with stealth elements mixed in - you could try to ghost it, but the combat is much more varied and fun and interesting if you play as a predator. It was far from perfect, and it felt unfinished at times, but let's be honest - it's highly, highly unlikely that a game like the original Thief games could be made today. This is as close as we're ever going to get.
Oh, and there's a reason why the City seems different. Apparently in the Thief universe, time is cyclical, and each cycle has elements that happened before carry over onto the next cycle. For example, the Garrett in the new Thief is NOT the same Garrett from the old games. In fact, you even find Garrett's old mechanical eye in one of the later missions, along with Keeper and Hammerite artifacts. I guess when Garrett activated the final Glyph in T:DS, it ended his age and eventually a new one came along. There is precedent for this in the old games: many times, it's mentioned that the City is built on top of the ruins of an older version of itself, and its past is murky and shrouded in shadow.
You can ghost Dishonered I did it, it's alot more fun than the new Thief, especially if you don't use magic, KO, upgrades etc. If you want a real stealth game try "The Dark Mod" if you haven't. It's the real spiritual successor to Thief anyway. Also I don't see any reason why a game like Thief couldn't be made today. Everbody thought Dark Souls was to niche to appeal to most people and look at that game, their on number 3 or 4 now.
This game was abysmal. I was shattered because I expected quality similar to Human Revolution. And it seems criticising Nolan is a hip thing of sorts.
It's funny. I pretty much completely agree with the points you've made but our 'final verdicts' seem to be polar opposite. I guess emphasis on different things as well as maybe different expectations.
Interesting. So where most games strive by having a better binary system of mechanics, like simplicity of movement and detection, stealth games like Thief almost entirely depend on the ambiguity of grayscale mechanics to be a worthwhile game in order to raise intrigue and immersion. Neat.
While the sneaking and exploration were enjoyable, I had major issues with the story. Erin was annoying from the start so I never cared for her, the Baron/Orion thing was never as epic as the game implied it would be, and the ending was nonsensical. Seriously wtf even happened? Erin falls and dies? Or did she survive? Her claw was back so is she alive? What happened to the Primal? What happened to Garrett in the year that he slept? Did the Primal create the Gloom? There were so many things that they brought up but never answered and it left a very unsatisfied ending that probably won't get a sequel because of this.
In the two hours i've played i've only gotten a few sound bugs.
7:58 Reminds me of the Mass Effect version of "MY BRAND!!!"
Great episode. I imagined game development as some mystical ritual until those "inside looks," like the Polygon editorials, started appearing. A bit more transparency would be insightful, especially for games like these.
Rhianna Pratchett (writer of Overlord, Tomb Raider, assistant writer of Bioshock Infinite and Thief) had to clear things up on the Escapist forums when confused fans asked what went wrong with Thief, since they immediately assumed she was the one to blame for the messy story - like a scriptwriter would be in Hollywood. She couldn't point fingers even if she wanted to - Thief had been rewritten and committee-redesigned so many times that even its staff was in the dark as to what exactly went wrong.
Also, it's a bit weird that that so many people immediately recommend Dark Souls for an Errant Signal, but I get it. So much of gaming consists on first impressions, reviews and LPs that we're starved of in-depth critique. The Dark Souls games are strange enough that I don't feel I even have the vocabulary to express why I like them.
"The Dark Mod" the real succesor to Thief.
You want Thief but played too much of the first and second pick up Dark Mod.
some of those FM’s are ass.
I can only imagine how much better theif would have been if eidos montreal would have had it for the whole of its development. Hopefully it at least does well enough to warrent a sequel. Given a full/complete dev cycle I bet they could make a pretty bomb ass theif.
Best thing about this game? Huge variety of difficulty settings. Perhaps the best list of them, anywhere ever. This is something they came up with, as the pre-hype concerned people that the game would end up too casual. It was my biggest worry too. But I think they did a fine job with seeing to that problem. But it is true, the game is incomplete, and the whole of the plot/story/dialogue is pretty wack. What saves it is, it's still a pretty engaging stealth game.
People who wanted this to be a real Thief 1 reboot, well, get real. That's not going to happen. I don't like it either, but I don't expect impossibilities.
Yeah, the difficulty settings pleasantly surprised me. It's not something I expected to see from AAA games these days. If you're able to get past the problems mentioned here, then at least there is a lot of replay value if you're the sort of person who likes achievements.
I really wish they had gone with the character study route on the story. I think it would have been much more fulfilling.
I wasn't expecting Thief 1. But I was expecting something better than Thief Deadly Shadows. What makes or breaks the "gameplay" is the environments. The AI intelligence and the sound design and how that factors into the gameplay. On both counts they screwed the pooch. The environments are even more linear than Deadly Shadows, and that seems to only hurt the gameplay. Awareness of your environments takes a backseat, because it honestly doesn't matter how you tackle each "obstacle", the obstacles being the guard paths & lights. Because theres no alternate routes to take to the next level so the element of choice is also thrown out the window, the guard paths are so incredibly short, the guards get distracted by every statue, its just far to easy to sneak past or play it blackjack style because all of that makes them incredibly predictable.
Theres even more contextual buttons prompts than Deadly Shadows, for every single thing you do theres those mini-cutscenes that makes everything look stiff & awkward.
Making the environments more linear than ever before and not putting any emphasis on the AI or the writing (all the humor/wit is gone) does not make for a fun game or a intelligent one. They put to much focus on the graphics and what we got is a poor attempt at trying to appeal to a wider audience while losing mostly of what Thief is about. What do we get really? The focus on non-combat, the 3 light stages, and the noise being a factor to moving are aspects of the core Thief gameplay (allowing us to modify difficulty certainly allows for more immersion). But that ain't enough. I was expecting a middle ground between Thief 2 and Thief Deadly Shadows. Not something worse than Deadly Shadows.
The difficulty settings are broken though. Choosing "no damage" where you fail means it is impossible to complete the game 100%. In the burning Keep smoke causes you to choke and take damage meaning you can't get anywhere near the loot littering the area. This is supremely frustrating especially when the game is so boring and unrewarding on easier settings.
The animations are totally ballsed too. At the beginning where you are at a jewelers, in the basement there is some unique loot in a safe being guarded. Getting around the guard is easy enough, staying in shadows and popping out to turn a dial, getting back into the shadows, popping back out, etc. Then finally once you get the loot he starts examining it in great detail, locked in a standing position, rhyming off some crap about how nice it is only for the guard to turn around and see you. I mean jesus christ in a game about stealth and for the time it takes to work out that plan, it fucks me over like that?
Good luck iron-manning this game once you get to the trial and error bullshit of escaping from the Architect's house moving at reduced speed.
"People who wanted this to be a real Thief 1 reboot, well, get real. That's not going to happen. I don't like it either, but I don't expect impossibilities."
Who says it has to be Thief 1 reboot? Deus Ex Human Revolution doesn't try to re-make (the superior) original game but it's still miles and miles better than this new Thief reboot. So it certainly can be done.
Hirnlego999 Sure. It's just a lot of the critique seems to be targeted solely at things that are not exactly like they were in the original game. Similar views were popular with the new Hitman game. Even if it was a solid game in itself, it wasn't really a pure sequel, so many people just overlooked everything good it would have had to offer. I'm not accusing everyone of such intellectual dishonesty, of course. Hence "people who wanted..." I do agree on the new Thief being a pretty big disappointment in many areas, but I can still honestly call it an entertaining game anyway.
Excellent analysis as usual! But honestly, I found it almost generous. Yes, the mechanics "work" but even they are unfinished. You're bound to peek around a desk, when you actually wanted to open a drawer; swoop into something you're already up against and wanted to jump onto... I've never played the original games, so I'm not making any comparisons, but if the mechanics are _also_ "dumbed down", well... Add to that an unholy mess of a story, terrible characters, technology issues, incredibly repetitive gameplay, loading screens, loading screens concealed as quick time events, points of no return everywhere in levels, the audio (oh, god, the audio!), and just outright bugs... ugh. I was forcing myself to play through to the end, just so I could say I'd done it. Once I was done, I went and played Dishonored again, just to rinse the Thief off, and it's just so much better it's not even funny.
So never got to play the first two thiefs but I did play Deadly Shadows and I really enjoyed it. What did I miss with the first two?
Less focus on combat,much bigger levels,less resources,and in the case of thief 1,hordes of annoying zombies.
The trickster and Karrass, two great crooks. The first one is more horror orientated but the second one isn't. Both have amazing soundtracks and sound-design and can really crawl under your skin.
Hey Errant,
Great video as always. I'm very happy you managed to look at this game with a perspective that wasn't shrouded in hype or bitterness for 'tarnishing the franchise!', however some gamers put it.
I was curious if you ever had future plans to take a look at the Hitman franchise. The Hitman games are some of my favorites, and I've noticed that with each game the mechanics and level design seem to become better and better... Until at least with Absolution. In fact, the reaction to Absolution is very similar, in my eyes, to the reaction of this Thief. You have reviewers like Giant Bomb giving it high praise, and then PC gamer giving with quite the mediocre score.
Keep doing a great job.
Love these even though I don't really play games
Great video!
very well spoken as always.
God this is a good video. It shows how games have been streamlined.
It's not a bad thing but a lot of games take it TOO far.
An excellent piece. Keep it up ^_^
Wait,
I thought John Walker was the CEO/Founder of autodesk...
Campster thinks mixed reviews heralds an interesting game? I'd love for him to do a video on Deadly Premonition.
Grim The Person Oh no, I love the game to bits. I unironically love it's stupidity.
MrRudiMentary
I would like more games like deadly premonition and less The Last of Us, DmC or Cod...
it's stupid, sure, but it was something interesting... a game about investigating a murder in a free roaming area? with some paranormal?
it's "stupidity" came from how they implemented all the assets in the game, but belive me, if they would put a decent driving engine and a better map the game would have became a fucking hit...
1r0zz Probably not, but the game was such a cult hit that it got ported onto two additional platforms a few years after release.
MrRudiMentary the reason it got ported it's because of the cult aura around it. it's not because it's proper value... it's also the more similar thing to a twin peaks game (something I unrelentingly want)
1r0zz It literally rips Twin Peaks off in a lot of places, yet SWERY promises he's never heard of it.
Thief enough for me. But I'm still mostly playing Gold & T2 missions.
What irked me the most was that most of all the apartments that I could enter in the city didn't have any guards in them or anyone to provide a challenge to the game except of course in the story missions.
Why did they make these apartments if they are just a 5 second thing ? It's quite stupid to waste effort on such minimal shit that offers nothing to the game except boredom.
I think this design decision is like this because of bad game designers who didn't realize this part of the game is quite boring and needed to be improved or cut.
And why would you make an apartment that has the door be a giant gate that is just made by metal bars and you open it by shooting an arrow inside the apartment.
How is the person living there opening his apartment ? Is he also shooting arrows as there's no locking mechanism outside to even give the illusion that someone was so ridiculous to have gate for a wall, a gate which will eventually be his demise as he'll freeze to death in his sleep.
It's like the game designers weren't even trying to think about what they were implementing as gameplay in regards to the game world and common sense, it just screams incompetence to me.
Have you played dark souls? It would be interesting to hear your perspective on such a game. These in-depth analysis videos are brilliant
if you're interested, check out super bunny hop's critical close up of dark souls
This reminds me of the first Assassin's Creed. You either despised it, or you loved it.
the first assassins creed had some good parts in a shit bathing... the other games just added more good parts and more shit to the mix...
but the first assassins creed was just booring and repetitive. this is boring, broken and insulting cash grab
How is this a cash grab? They've been working on it for years.
latpasko
a not well developed or designed game that uses a old more important and better title to be have instant recognition and free advertisement is a cash grab.
if they failed their production schedule, starting with a sequel Thi4f and ending with a reboot, it's squareenix/eidos problem, the reason it exist is to have a already known game that kids will buy for try to "fill the gap"...
Thief (2014) is very similar to the Thief games. Not to the first two, true, but it is very much a sequel to Thief: Deadly Shadows.
latpasko
mmm, you mean the not finished and not polished Thief deadly shadow?
and hardly, in any case, as Hammerite, it's sect mechanist, the baron and the pagans are completely absent or wrongly portrayed...
you can say that the lightning system is similar (yet incredibly simplified) but both vision and hearing are terribly lacking to be "similar" to a thief...
and while not horrible Thief deadly shadow was not much well received by fan of the original 2 game...
Goddamnit I love this channel. :D
i really enjoyed this game, had its flaws but it could be a modern cult classic. I actually liked this game very much and bought it full price on my ps4, highly recommend at least giving it a try if you have the chance.
Around 8:22 - Is that footage from the Giant Bomb Quick Look? If so (and pardon if I'm being nosy), but do you have permission to use said footage?
The best Thief games today are The Dark Mod and Shadows of the Metal Age.
11:53 so this game is an ogre?
Oh you did NOT just compare the original Thief games to Adam West's Batman.
best reviewer
If they ever get a chance to make another Thief, it should go back to its roots whilst embracing the better qualities of the newer titles. Perhaps set it in the time between Thief 2014 and Deadly Shadows, when there were still Hammerites and Pagans, and the Keeper order was still reeling from the actions of The Hag and classic Garrett's activation of the Final Glyph.
Perhaps with the balance destabilised with the weakened Keepers, we see the Pagans and Hammers clash more openly, with a sect of Hammerites trying to build a "Tabernacle Robot" to be the avatar of The Builder, and the Pagans working to revive the Trickster. And all the while that girl we saw at the end of Deadly Shadows becomes the apprentice of the Master Thief, being what Erin should have been without 2014 Erin becoming the "woman in the fridge".
Oh, and the sound engine would require some retooling to work properly a'la the old Thief games.
I gotta ask: how many takes did you need to correctly say "crass cash-in"?
THERE A FCKING QUESTMARKER. JESUS CHRIST, DOESNT HE SEE THAT.!???"!"!"!
Carry the torch of the franchise forward? Ha! It failed because it's anything but a Thief game. If the pretentious developers would have put aside their ego for one minute, it could have been a good game. The community told them the problems during the entire development but they did it anyways. They totally missed what made the original Thief games are good, that's why it failed.
Great video thanks.
Man, after Chapter 4 I stopped playing it. Fuck this shit, I'll just play Thief 2 again.
I thought this guy was going to rip this game apart.
Yes please do dark souls and / or Dark Souls 2! :O
Why so low viewer count.
Nice video, though I thought your rant on the reasons behind the failure was a little hyperbole. These things gets around to the people that matters - while us the general public may never know what went wrong, there are no doubt people who knows within the game industry as a whole. Developers know each other between companies, word will get around.
They'll just never do it in a way that can compromise their image to the public.
"...ported to consoles..."
There's something you don't hear nowadays.