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First, a bit of background on the early games. They came out in the late 90's and pretty much pioneered modern stealth. They were a very hardcore type of game. You were dropped into a massive, maze-like map and basically left to figure out things on your own. You had no abilities that allowed you to see through walls and no objective markers either. You had to search the entire map for valuables, often not leaving until you got most of the loot, and if you were spotted by a guard, that was pretty much it. You had very little chance of killing him and if you were playing on Expert, killing him would fail the mission anyway. It was a pure stealth game through and through and everything in the game was designed around that.
And so we come to NuThief. It's become the Sonic Forces of the Thief series. A game people LOVE to hate. It's a very different kind of game to the originals. It's very "modern" and "casualized". There are objective markers highlighting where you need to go, a "detective vision" from Batman that allows you to highlight enemies and interactable objects. The levels are fairly linear. If you get spotted by a guard, you can actually fight him this time and you have a good chance of winning. There are cutscenes that interrupt gameplay in the middle of missions and even a few "action" sequences. Even knocking a guard out from behind has been turned into a "cutscene".
The climbing has been simplified. You can only climb on certain stuff now. Rope arrows have been downplayed and are only useful when the game allows it. The soundtrack has an almost dubstep vibe to it which probably sounds weird for a medieval setting but actually does a good job ratcheting up the tension when you get spotted, and well, the originals had some industrial shit in it so it's not THAT out of place. The story is not related at all to the previous games and none of the lore has been carried over. Overall, it's a very different game to the originals and people shat on it to no end on release.
But now, playing it years later and basically purging my mind of the idea of it being anything like the originals, I find myself actually enjoying it. It's a very competent stealth game. It has a shadow system that works really well and you always know how exposed you are at any given moment ( looking at you Dishonored). The graphics are pretty good and the game has a nice atmosphere, complimented by a well done soundtrack, reminiscent of the other games. There's a lot of "collectible" loot to find and it will take you a while to get everything in The City. You can replay missions in three different styles. "Ghost", which is sneaking through trying not to touch anything except loot. "Opportunist", which involves using distractions to bypass guards, putting out lights with water arrows and so on, and "Predator", which involves either killing or knocking out every single guard in the level. You can even finish the game without knocking a single guard out, something you couldn't even DO in the original games.
The levels tend to be pretty linear, but I don't really think that's a bad thing. In the original games, the levels could be TOO big at times, to the point that it hampered the pacing. And after all, Deadly Shadows didn't exactly have large levels either. Chaos Theory is one of my favourite stealth games and it's about as linear as this. I mean, Deus Ex Human Revolution (made by the same devs) casualized a lot of stuff from the original and yet it's generally regarded as a great successor to it, but this game isn't for some reason. So the point I'm trying to make is that size isn't everything.
The levels could be bigger, sure, but if ever a sequel comes out I'm sure they can rectify those problems. There are a few "action" sequences, but it's never a case of you being forced into combat. You can always avoid guards and as I mentioned before, you don't have to knock a single one out if you don't want to. I've even heard people claim this isn't a stealth game, which is just BS. The game even offers custom difficulty with stuff like "never get spotted", "never knock anyone out", "never use certain gear" etc. so anyone who wants a hardcore experience can get exactly that. The fact that they even designed the game allowing these parameters should speak for itself that the developers put a lot of effort into this. They didn't half-ass it and make it so you had to knock someone out for instance.
In between levels, you can take on side missions in the hub world, and they actually aren't terrible. Each one feels different from the other and you always end up with a unique piece of loot. It's a nice change of pace to roam The City and see what kinds of places you can break into.
There are a few flaws. The story isn't great (whatever), and there are loading screens breaking up the hub world which can get annoying. There's no fast travel and if you want to replay missions you have to go back to where you originally started it. Why they didn't just include a mission select feature I don't know. But other than that there aren't too many flaws unless you want it to be exactly like the original games, then you will just have a miserable time.
So, if you've ever heard anyone talk shit about this game, calling it "garbage", or "a poor man's Dishonored" then take it with a grain of salt. This is a better game than people give it credit for, and well worth the five dollars or so you can get it for nowadays. TotalBiscuit (RIP) even enjoyed the game, and I recommend you go watch his review if you'd like a positive impression of it. Just don't go in expecting it to be exactly like the originals or you will have a bad time.
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Eh, I think its an OK stealth game, even if you don't compare it to the originals. Everything's pretty dull, the story is actually bad, not just "not great," and its just not fun tbh.
Would agree. I have not played the original Thief games and tried the 2014 game once. Was really unimpressed by the look, the controls, the environment, the story, etc. I would also say it is okay, but I decided I could also play something which is great or even better.
Eh, okay.
You don't make it sound too good...lol
I'll stick with hunting through T2 fan missions, thanks.
Honestly, I hard disagree.
If you don't compare it to the originals, it's still a mediocre stealth game.
The stealthing itself is okay, but there are some pretty glaring issues:
the obnoxious pre-animated takedowns that completely ruin the tone
the poor sound engineering which makes it difficult to tell where guards are, because sometimes it'll sound like they're right next to you and they're not even in the same room
the utterly pointless hub world that only exists to waste your time
poor level design that does little to reward exploration. the restrictive use of the rope arrows is a symptom of this
an unwillingness to commit to any sort of preferred playstyle makes the game feel too easy and the player too powerful, because they didn't want to upset the players who wanted to knock out every single guard and play it like an action game. Action games don't feel the need to let you play stealthily, and stealth games shouldn't feel the need to include an action-heavy option. It just makes it impossible to design the levels properly. The guards are so predictable and easy to take out, and the levels are filled with arbitrary points where you can just pass through a narrow passage or whatever and leave all the guards behind no matter how badly you fucked up.
It's not even letting you play your way, you could totally play the original games in all the styles you mentioned, it's just that the game didn't feel the need to specifically reward you for that. You can ghost through the levels if you want (I know because I've done it) but the game isn't going to make it easy for you. Thief 2014 feels like you're given a selection of playstyles to pick from rather than organically coming up with your own.
the story and characters and dialogue are all garbage, which is a big flaw for a game that really relies on building an atmosphere. Hiding in a corner doing nothing but waiting is fun if you're really engaged with the world and immersed in the atmosphere. When you're not, it's just boring.
It all feels noncommital, like the devs didn't really know what to do with it so instead it's trying to be 5 games at once.
If it wasn't called 'Thief' it would've been forgotten about within a year
Honestly I disagree with most of what you wrote. Stealth takedowns were pre-animated but it wasn't a big deal to me. I still enjoyed knocking guards out. I felt that the hub world was pretty fun to explore and had some nice hidden areas. The level design was fine IMO. It wasn't the huge sprawling levels from the originals but I still felt it allowed for some degree of freedom. I actually appreciated that you could play the game in different "styles" so the fact that it didn't commit 100% to a stealth playstyle didn't bother me. I mean, Dishonored does the same thing and it's one of favourite games of all time.
I'd dispute your claim that you could play the originals in the same way however. They really were not meant to be played as action games. Maybe if you were really good at the combat and knew how to exploit the animations you could get away with it, but the game really discouraged you from taking guards head on. And if you played on Expert mode, you simply had to play it stealthily because even if you tried taking on a guard head on with a blackjack it would still kill him.
The story is not great I agree, but "garbage" is a bit of a stretch to me. It's a pretty standard video game story. It did it's job at least and kept me engaged. And let's be honest, Thief never really had a great story in the first place. It was the gameplay, atmosphere and setting that carried the game, and I felt they did a decent job continuing it here.
Yeah, and that's a good thing. There are other playstyles, but you have to actually work for them. The reboot just lets you do whatever, and it suffers for that because it means the level design is completely unfocused.
Exactly. Garbage.
Nah the first three games had a pretty well written story with good, memorable characters. The new one did not.
What other playstyles are there? There was only really the stealth approach. Like I said you can theoretically play it killing everyone with the sword but it's not exactly viable unless you exploit the combat animations, and it completely goes out the window on Expert mode. The developers clearly intended it to be a stealth only game since most of your gadgets are geared towards it, and the combat feels terrible anyway. I'd also dispute your claim that the reboot allows you to play however you want. You can take on maybe two guards head on if you're good at the combat, but the game does everything to discourage you from doing it. You can even set it so you can't get spotted or you will fail the mission.
Just curious, what games do you enjoy that would be considered to have garbage storylines?
Fair enough, characters were memorable but I'd dispute your claim that the story was well-written. The story in the first game was pretty simple and highly predictable. I knew what the twist would be miles before it happened. I don't really remember much of what happened in the second game. I don't really play these games for the story anyway. Dishonored has a pretty bad story but it's still one of my favourite games.
This is incredibly true of so many other games that are often defended with "just not a good [franchise] game" or "it's just not as good as the rest of the series".
The reality is, more often than not, that being a part of that IP gives these games relevance and merit they otherwise would not have had. Dark Souls 2 and DmC come to mind immediately and it's no different for Thief 2013.
Nah Dark Souls 2 is a game that did things differently because it was trying to explore interesting new ideas. Thief is the exact opposite, it was different to the classic games because it was trying to be more like every other AAA game.
It being "different" is not important to the fact that DS2 is not a well-made game. If it was not called Dark Souls 2 people would have torn the game apart for its dysfunctional hitboxes and AI, the incoherent world design and the inflated amount of lazily designed bosses before forgetting that the game has ever existed about one week after the obligatory end-of-year "top 10 worst games of the year" youtube videos were released to kick it further into the dirt one last time.
I gave up on it. Its totally my fault too. I was a huge fan of the originals and had literally just finished both Dishonored games before starting Thief 2014. There was no way it would measure up.
No, it's not. I tried replaying it earlier this year and it's absolutely terrible. Besides the absolutely horrible level design, useless clutter loot (90% of loot is stuff like forks and knives ffs, what a master thief we are!) and tedious mechanics (Button mashing every time you open a window etc, just ridiculously bad game design), the story was terrible and full cliché and turned Garrett into Emo wannabe Batman. It's laughably bad and deserves all the hate it got.
It's objectively terrible then? And wow look at the manchildren of Reddit downvoting me. "I don't like this game you like! Have a downvote!"
I can see where you're coming from, but this is a problem you'll always have with a legacy such as the first 2 Thief games. Not gonna talk about 3 since I didn't play it yet.
I've completed them recently and to an extent you're right: the levels can be damn huge (mainly talking about Thief 2). But that ain't necessarily a bad thing. I don't know if it helps, but a lot of times I felt like if they selected the entire level (kinda like in Adobe Illustrator lol) and just resized it a bit it would have been absolutely perfect.
What you get with a more sandbox kind of approach like the first 2 had is that you get the experience of scoping out a place and figuring out a way in, which is one of the many thrills of the original, not to mention you can sort of get lost (expected to happen even with a map). This gets lost when translated to a linear design and was one of my main concerns when trying it out. I felt... very restricted, even more so than Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and its predecessors, which at least felt like they allowed me some more room to maneuver. Not allowing me to drop wherever I pleased, keeping my path way too damn linear... I'm sorry but that's not what I'm looking for in a Thief game, that's something I'm looking for in Splinter Cell for example.
Regarding your point with Deus Ex Human Revolution: I've completed the original and was halfway through with HR but my main complaint (which later got fixed in a certain way in Director's Cut), were the extremely forced boss fights, punishing anybody who decided to go pacifist. This is super counter-productive, as HR rewards you more for being stealthy, while the original Deus Ex rewarded everything equally, so whether you were going for an absolute killing machine or a ghost build you could still make it work, as long as you sticked with your game plan. The same couldn't be said of HR from my experience, although it is still a pretty damn good game which I'd consider on par with the original minus said problems I've mentioned. That's why HR doesn't get that much flak: although made by a different team, it still feels like a Deus Ex game. Not the case with my short experience with Thief 2014, which felt like a linear spin-off. I might still buy it so that I can fully address everything in the game, but as I am told what I experienced in the first few missions are pretty much representative of the whole game. It has a neat lockpicking system though.
Thank you for actually adding something intelligent to the discussion rather than just saying the game is garbage and downvoting me. I appreciate it.
You're right, the huge levels weren't a problem in the originals and I never meant to imply that they were. I was just stating that I don't necessarily think being linear is bad for a stealth game. Maybe for Thief it is, but I still enjoyed the game for what it was.
The boss fights absolutely were HR's biggest flaw. I remember the first time I played it, I was focusing on a stealth build and as a result I spent about half an hour filling the guy with bullets from my weak ass weapons lol. It was such a jarring moment.
I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy the new Thief. Maybe one day we will get a sequel that feels more in line with the originals, but I guess it'll be a long time before that day comes.
No worries. Also it was a controversial opinion that felt respectful to the originals, so I don't see a reason to downvote.
I also don't think a linear design is necessarily bad for a stealth game. Hell, Stealth Bastard is super linear but is still pretty damn fun. Deadbolt, albeit fun, is still pretty damn linear compared to Mark of the Ninja or other stealth-based games. But it's still pretty fun. Thing is you gotta make the stealth fun. I'm not saying Thief 2014 is necessarily unfun, but again the legacy of that name will always follow: people think of a sandbox kind of stealth game, instead of linear.
As I said I haven't fully played it and may end up enjoying more than what I'm expecting. I can't, however, hide that I do feel letdown by how they handled the game after playing the first 2 recently. Those games basically let you roam free and do whatever you damn well pleased, as long as the objectives were completed and you didn't die or screw up the completion conditions. Getting shoved into a linear design almost feels like getting shoved inside a cage.
I'd say there's no harm trying the game again since you can get it for peanuts nowadays. But like I said before you basically have to know going into it that it's a different kind of game to the originals. When I first played it years back I actually did hate it. I didn't like how linear and "cinematic" it was compared to the originals, how none of the lore was carried over and how casualized it felt. But now that I've come to terms with what the game is, I've come to enjoy it.
Didn't TotalBiscuit also compare this game to Invisible War, too?
I've been meaning to give this game a try for a few months now, I think it might be right up my alley. I'm a fan of the Dishonored games (particularly the first one), but I play them very much like the supernatural assassin that your characters are - emphasis on assassin - and while stealth is an important element of it, I usually keep a nice 50/50 balance between stealth and action/combat. Maybe 60/40 in favor of stealth actually, but my playthroughs usually have plenty of fighting, sometimes in huge battles against a couple dozen enemies.
I think playing Thief would give me a pretty different experience in that regard. And since I never played the originals, I don't have much to compare it to. Granted, I'm keeping my expectations very low. Maybe I'll be pleasant
I wouldn't go into it expecting a Dishonored-like experience. There are no superpowers and your character is pretty weak. You can try taking on guards head on, but unless you're really good at the combat, stealth is generally the favoured way to go. The game has multiple playstyles but it's more along the lines of either knocking out the guards or slipping past them entirely without touching them.
Since you never played the originals, you may end up enjoying it more than most. I'd recommend you try them after if you enjoy it though. They're really good.
The structure of it it's similar to Thief 3, tho 3 still better.
And 3 is generally viewed as a lesser game than the predecessors.
4 not faring that much better than the lesser game of the series says a lot loll
No way was Thief 3 a lesser game. The levels were smaller but it was still a good entry in the series.
Compared to the first two games
Alright, we have a different definition of lesser then. It was different to the first two, not necessarily worse.
It is generally considered below the first two games. Wasn't trashed by critics, but it wasn't held in high regard as much as the first two games.
The fact it was conceived as a game that tried to please both the console and PC crowds divided opinions.
It really bothered me how you don’t “succeed” in any mission in this game. You infiltrate or whatever and then a cinematic plays to show you getting caught so the plot can advance.
Yeah, that was weird. But I was glad the game never forced me into combat.
Wow these comments must’ve been cursed