Thief - Game Informer Details

http://gamingeverything.com/42090/thief-tons-of-details-from-game-informer/

Game Informer has a massive article about the newest Thief game in its latest issue. The next-gen title was revealed for the PlayStation 4, PC, and other next-gen platforms today.

Details cover some of the games sequences, mechanics, tools, and more. Weve rounded up a bunch of content from the preview below.

[spoiler]

Overview/opening sequence

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

Next sequence

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

Another sequence

- Xiao Xiao enters, but Garrett rolls into a darkened corner
- Xiao Xiao doesnt detect Garrett
- Xiao Xiao leaves to deal with a situation with one of his girls
- Garrett opens the chest and takes out a jewel-encrusted heirloom
- Garrett cant leave the room since Xiao Xiao is just outside the door talking with the girl
- Secret button slides the wall to slide open and reveals a hidden passageway
- Garrett comes across Eastwicks room by using the House of Blossoms network of backdoors
- Garrett enters the room and takes a medallion
- He then uses Focus to look at the wall Eastwick is examining
- Focus shows a mysterious symbol written on the wall in blue energy
- Symbol corresponds to one of the runes written on the medallion
- Garrett turns a band of the medallion to line up that rune with an arrow, but the medallion then begins to glow with a similar blue energy
- Four adjacent rooms show four more symbols to line up
- After the last symbol is in place, the medallion whirls and spins
- Soon after, Eastwick notices that he has been robbed and calls for help
- Garrett hears through the wall that Xiao Xiao is ordering guards to search everywhere

Last sequence

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

AI

- Garrett isnt a fighter
- Fighting against four or more guards in combat wont go well
- Guards and other NPCs are aware of the level design, so they know where a person might try to hide
- Guards understand the topography of the level and which areas could be useful for hiding
- Different NPCs will look for Garrett in different ways

Gameplay mechanics

- Navigation beacon shows players where to go
- Dev. team wants players to explore environments as they see fit
- Multiple entrances and exists in each room
- Multiple options available for stealth approach
- Focus mechanic: has many uses, including being able to aid Garretts vision as he navigates through open levels
- Focus lights up the screen and highlights pipes you can climb + candles you can put out to make the room darker
- Can upgrade Focus
- Doing so will give you a bigger radius of things to see
- Fingerpints system: gives you hints on which drawers are best to look in
- Every drawer is accessible
- Can pickpocket
- Use Focus while pickpocketing to slow time and swipe up to three times as many items from others
- Can spend money to upgrade supplies and equipment at the end of each mission
- Various artifacts are scattered throughout the games levels
- Can use these to decorate Garretts hideout
- Garrett is motivated by the thrill of stealing something that others cant take
- Focus will show a number of attack points on enemies
- Can select a point (like the chest) to do a quick push that will buy him more time to dash off into the shadows
- Can also string together a number of points to perform a more debilitating attack
- Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want
- Major mechanics are in place

Tools

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

General

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

Too bad they felt like they had to add the "focus" mechanic.

It reeks of Dishonoured...

This thing with the number of guards worries me a bit ...

It reeks of Dishonoured...

dommeus

I be very interested then.:D

[QUOTE="PannicAtack"]Dry ice arrow instead of water arrow? That's... different. But still, this is great news. I love Thief and this is easily one of my most anticipated games.BrunoBRS

[QUOTE="BrunoBRS"][QUOTE="PannicAtack"]Dry ice arrow instead of water arrow? That's... different. But still, this is great news. I love Thief and this is easily one of my most anticipated games.Nintendo_Ownes7

It reeks of Dishonoured...

dommeus

Sounds good to me, as long as someone remembers to make the story not suck.

Also

- Garrett isnt a fighter
- Fighting against four or more guards in combat wont go well

That part doesn't sound like Dishonored at all.

- Garrett isnt a fighter - Can also string together a number of points to perform a more debilitating attack - Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want :/ that (and apparent over-reliance on focus mode) aside, it sounds really promising. glad to see you can actually climb stuff now.BrunoBRS

hopefully difficulty levels fix it up.

Sounds good to me, as long as someone remembers to make the story not suck.

Cherokee_Jack

[QUOTE="BrunoBRS"]- Garrett isnt a fighter - Can also string together a number of points to perform a more debilitating attack - Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want :/ that (and apparent over-reliance on focus mode) aside, it sounds really promising. glad to see you can actually climb stuff now.ReadingRainbow4

hopefully difficulty levels fix it up.

[QUOTE="ReadingRainbow4"]

[QUOTE="BrunoBRS"]- Garrett isnt a fighter - Can also string together a number of points to perform a more debilitating attack - Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want :/ that (and apparent over-reliance on focus mode) aside, it sounds really promising. glad to see you can actually climb stuff now.BrunoBRS

hopefully difficulty levels fix it up.

We havent even seen what the PS4 looks like and its already getting games left and right.. always epic news!

I like what I'm reading. Let's hope they deliver what they promise.

On Focus: Don't like the slow-mo and combat aspects of it (Going pure stealth if/when I play it), but highlighting objects sounds like it'd speed up collection and perhaps help spot a few things you might miss. Sure wish I had it in Thief 2. Couldn't even finish the first level on Hard because I couldn't find all the f***ing gems. >:\

[QUOTE="BrunoBRS"][QUOTE="ReadingRainbow4"]

hopefully difficulty levels fix it up.

PannicAtack

exactly the thief series is one of the few games that does difficulty settings right.

These worry me:
- Fighting against four or more guards in combat wont go well - So you need an army for the game to become difficult. It should be two guards and you're dead.
- Navigation beacon shows players where to go. - Yeah, go where we want you to, while pretending you're exploring.
- Focus mechanic: has many uses, including being able to aid Garretts vision as he navigates through open levels
- Focus lights up the screen and highlights pipes you can climb + candles you can put out to make the room darker
- Can upgrade Focus - Anything with fokus sounds like an appeal to grab idiot dudebro gamers with flashy gimmicks that will make the game feel "cooler".
- Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want. - Yeah, combat needs to be enjoyable in a game where combat should be pretty much suicide.

Other than that, a new Thief game is very welcome and I hope they can live up to a fraction of the awesomeness of the first two games. 

Four or more guards?
I wouldn't mind if that was 2 or more guards instead.

If they are struggling with making the stealth mechanics work for idiots without having a combat mode in which you can kill anyone easily, here is how they can take away most concern:
full mod support.

Give us as much mod support as possible. Make the game for idiots or new generation gamers if you like to play it so safely, and we will turn the game into a proper Thief game where you actually have to sneak around. I imagine the game must be so far in development by now that it's unlikely that commenting or communicating to them will influence design (and most of what we hear is sounding promising!) I still wanted to say it.

It sounds like it is getting the Human Revolution treatment. (ie it's casualizing some aspects from the originals)

One thing is for sure though, it is not going to top Thief 2. 

If it's like Dishnonered, I'm in.

F*ck yes. Welcome back Garret. Hope to see you when I see you.

Sounds liek they butchered a lot of areas, Focus mode won't go down well witht eh community and I don't like how they said there are beacons showing you where to go yet you can freely explore how you see fit. Sounds contradictory almost.

I will wait and see but I am a bit apprehensive about it reading that. Hopefully it's still great, other areas sound really good

"Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want" 

The hell? Its called Thief for a reason. Don't include combat. Yeah it sounds silly today but thats the series. There's no fighting.

Well this is ****  

"Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want" 

The hell? Its called Thief for a reason. Don't include combat. Yeah it sounds silly today but thats the series. There's no fighting.

Well this is ****  

biggest_loser

Combat was always apart of the Theif series. Garret just...sucked at it was all.

and I don't like how they said there are beacons showing you where to go yet you can freely explore how you see fit. Sounds contradictory almost.

seanmcloughlin

It sounds like it just shows you where the objective is. It's not like it draws you a GPS route to get there, you still presumably have to find where you want to go, which constitutes exploration. Level design alone will dictate if that hurts the experience. (except for angry stealth grognards who are guaranteed to hate this game anyway)

Sounds liek they butchered a lot of areas, Focus mode won't go down well witht eh community and I don't like how they said there are beacons showing you where to go yet you can freely explore how you see fit. Sounds contradictory almost.

I will wait and see but I am a bit apprehensive about it reading that. Hopefully it's still great, other areas sound really good

seanmcloughlin

How is that contradictory? The beacons don't stop you from freely exploring the level; they probably show you where to go in terms of your objectives and straightforward thinking while you could explore and find multiple different paths to take to complete the objective.

[QUOTE="biggest_loser"]

"Team is trying to find a balance between making combat enjoyable and allowing players to enter combat if they want" 

The hell? Its called Thief for a reason. Don't include combat. Yeah it sounds silly today but thats the series. There's no fighting.

Well this is ****  

Goyoshi12

Combat was always apart of the Theif series. Garret just...sucked at it was all.

This is not Dishonored and anyone who engaged in combat in the original titles was playing it wrong. There's one way to play that game and its not through combat.