Thief 4 to bring new things to the franchise

hopefully eidos montreal can pull it off like they did with human revolution

cvg

Originally announced in May 2009, development of the much-anticipated sequel to 2004's Deadly Shadows is being approached in the same way as Deus Ex, another cult property recently revived by Eidos, meaning it'll offer a mixture of new features and classic ones.

"We have more international staff working on Thief, which brings a great flavour to the game," D'Astous told the site. "There are a lot of challenges to bringing back a great cult IP, but we consider it like a new IP and we are going to respect the spirit of the franchise like we did with Deus Ex.

"Deus Ex was the kick-start of this new series of great games, and Thief will be part of that, and Thief will be part of that. We don't want to deliver the same each time. Our mandate is to bring new stuff to the table; games that we'll be talking about for years." Listings on developer CVs spotted in January suggested Thief 4 will feature some sort of online component and utilise Unreal Engine 3.

I wasn't very happy with Thief 3, let's hope they can bring the series back to their former glory.

Just be a halfway decent stealth game and it already brought something new to this gen. Then again Deus Ex was not a very tough stealth game and they are doing it.CanYouDiglt

This.

The stealth genre seems non existent this generation. If Theif is still a stealth game then it definitely has already brought something new & fresh to this gen.

Deus Ex was a breath of fresh air. Im sick of every game being an action game these days. Splinter Cell Conviction was a joke.

BTW does anybody know if Theif 4 will be on consoles as well?

BTW does anybody know if Theif 4 will be on consoles as well?brucecambell

I wasn't very happy with Thief 3, let's hope they can bring the series back to their former glory.

KiZZo1

I liked the fact that Thief Deadly Shadows was open world outside of missions.

I enjoyed the Deus Ex revival they did. It wasn't perfect, but it was failry close.

If they emphasize the stealth aspect a bit more, offer some more option to "stay in the shadows", this could be pretty amazing.

Perks, killstreaks, online multiplayer, online ranking system, unlocks, weapon attachments, and prestige all confirmed.

Perks, killstreaks, online multiplayer, online ranking system, unlocks, weapon attachments, and prestige all confirmed.

Wasdie

.

Why haven't we seen anything from this game, wasn't it announced 3 years ago ?

oh yeah it was

I have Thief Deadly Shadows for the PS2 and it has one of the most scary levels I have ever experienced in my life. It's called the Cradle and it is one of the few games that I have actuallly been afraid of, and I mean like sh!t your pants, hair rising on the back of your neck scary.

The story didn't make much sense to me but it was a pretty solid stealth game, I'm looking forward to it.

Really want this game to come out. I just played through Deus Ex Human Revolution and loved it. It was so nice actually having options on your style of play instead of being forced down a linear shooting gallery the entire game. I mainly played the game stealthly so I definitely want to play another stealth like game

Perks, killstreaks, online multiplayer, online ranking system, unlocks, weapon attachments, and prestige all confirmed.

Wasdie

While cynical and pessimistic, I fear you're not far off; at least in terms of perspective.

Edit:

I.E. Pulling a Splinter Cell: Conviction, just like Hitman seems to be doing.

No boss battles this time Eidos, okay.

Just give me the Rope Arrow from Thief I & II. That's all I want.AcidSoldner

Absolutely. That rope arrow saved me a few times back in the day.

But it's not all I want. I'd really love a return to the stealth, style and dark humour of the original Thief game, but the wording of this article gives me qualms. I guess we'll have to wait and see what kind of changes they are hinting at. On the one hand, I understand that they have to move forward and be more creative with the franchise, but on the other hand I want them to nail the core mechanics and setting so that it feels like a proper Thief game.

And 'Killer Bears' is still one of the most memorable eaves-dropped conversations in video games. :D

You Taffer!!

I have Thief Deadly Shadows for the PS2 and it has one of the most scary levels I have ever experienced in my life. It's called the Cradle and it is one of the few games that I have actuallly been afraid of, and I mean like sh!t your pants, hair rising on the back of your neck scary.

The story didn't make much sense to me but it was a pretty solid stealth game, I'm looking forward to it.

ShadowMoses900

:D I loved Thief.
However! I fear they may not know the things that were so great about a Thief game to make a good sequel.

The belief that Sonic was all about speed cost Sonic a lot of quality and they are still having a hard time understanding just why Sonic 1/2 were so great. It wasn't primarily the speed. The speed was important for the time, but the games were enjoyed way after the times in which those games were fast. And the speed was only present in small pieces. Large portions of the games were slow even. You were held up by all kinds of stuff (underwater, elevating platforms, platforms you had to ride out, things that had to collapse before being able to progress).
Being able to get through levels fluidly and so fast that you can't anticipate anything was introduced later on in the series, and it only helped ruin the gameplay that made Sonic 1/2 so nice. (Well, aside from looking awesome I suppose.) What you gained was trial and error, what you lost was control and decent level design because designing a level for high speed traverse meant a lot of sacrifices in the platform department. It's like the Sonic series went backwards in time in terms of design choices instead of forwards.

The great things for me about Thief were:
1. Level design. (Lots of optional paths, lots of optional loot, lots of optional conversations and backstory that made the world feel alive.)
2. Setting + Being a masterthief and nothing more than a thief. (Being a medieval thief with improvised tools (not always realistic but whatever) is freaking awesome. You're not some kind of hero or magic wielding god. No you steal shiny stuff without people knowing what hit them, that is what you do. You couldn't easily fight your way through a level. The action came primarily from the level design and the enemy, not the player character.)
3. Mystery. I think mystery is one of the most overlooked aspects to gaming these days. Geralt was coolest when he didn't have much of a face, didn't have much of a personality. He was mostly a shadow and you had to fill in the gaps. All you knew were the cool bits. The cults were mysterious as well.

I'm worried they'll flesh out the main character too much and give you too much power, and that they will spend too much time on creating a story that is epic. While story is important, I think the level design, the thief aspect, and the mystery factor are way more important to preserve.

So stoked about Thief 4 :D. But Eidos, Don't you DARE screw it up!:evil:

"Online component". All hope, what tiny amount there was, disappeared after reading that. Going to be nothing more than a watered down CoD copycat posing as a stealth game.

"Online component". All hope, what tiny amount there was, disappeared after reading that. Going to be nothing more than a watered down CoD copycat posing as a stealth game.

MirkoS77

If anything, history has shown us that stealth games can provide really fun and unique multiplayer experiences like SC: Pandora Tomorrow and AC: Brotherhood for example.

Eidos Montreal have demonstrated that they are very serious about providing a quality experience (boss fight outsourcing aside), so they aren't likely to let a potential multiplayer mode harm the single player experience. As already mentioned, Thievery did a great job of adapting the series concepts to a multiplayer environment.

I hope this won't be the case, Thief4 with:

-regen health (you know it'll be in there, can't have little timmy die on level 1)

-cover system (how many enemies will have bows?, and this is basically god mode for stealth games)

-3rd person only (again, this makes the hardest stealth games easymode)

-mostly action with "Stealth elements" (little timmy doesn't like stealth, even with his easymode 3rd person view)

-1 button QTEs instead of DarkMessiah/Dishonered melee combat. (My main gripe with DX3)

I've been meaning to give this series a try. Is there any place I can buy the games relatively cheaply?

Sounds good, I trust them.

And Eidos, I'll still be talking about Deus Ex: Human Revolution in ten years. I hope other people will too!

I hope this won't be the case, Thief4 with:

-regen health (you know it'll be in there, can't have little timmy die on level 1)

-cover system (how many enemies will have bows?, and this is basically god mode for stealth games)

-3rd person only (again, this makes the hardest stealth games easymode)

-mostly action with "Stealth elements" (little timmy doesn't like stealth, even with his easymode 3rd person view)

-1 button QTEs instead of DarkMessiah/Dishonered melee combat. (My main gripe with DX3)

Jankarcop

I have Thief Deadly Shadows for the PS2 and it has one of the most scary levels I have ever experienced in my life. It's called the Cradle and it is one of the few games that I have actuallly been afraid of, and I mean like sh!t your pants, hair rising on the back of your neck scary.

The story didn't make much sense to me but it was a pretty solid stealth game, I'm looking forward to it.

ShadowMoses900

Deadly Shadows was only for PC and Xbox ...so you must've played it on one of those and yes,Shalebridge Cradle was a very creepy level with amazing atmosphere.

Anyways, I'm cautiously optimistic towards Thief 4 considering Eidos Montreal did a good job with DX:HR.

hopefully the game doesnt have lame hand-holding sh*t like Garrett being able to see through walls with his mechanical eye :roll:

Whatever some of my problems with HR, I still enjoyed it quite a bit. I'll give them the benifit of the doubt. Let's hope they deliver.

Glad to see that some folks mentioned the Thievery mod as a way to do Thief multiplayer right. That's why the notion of multiplayer doesn't totally put me off. However, one of those "new things" better not be FMOD Ex. The existing three Thief games not only have the best sound design I've found in all of video gaming, but great positional audio to go with it, being from the time when DirectSound3D was still the norm (until Microsoft had to go and utterly screw that up with Vista's new sound stack). I demand OpenAL with Rapture3D included as a good software-rendered solution. A game with a heavy vertical element and general emphasis on sound deserves proper 3D audio, not limited to two-dimensional 7.1 mixing with no means of distinguishing height. Yeah, I know, wishful thinking (just about every new PC release uses FMOD Ex these days)...NamelessPlayer