After reading the disappointing reviews of Thief 4 I spent three weeks wrestling with the idea of gambling forty five hard earned pounds on a game that had been almost universally chastised by the gaming press. I love stealth games so maybe, just maybe, the scathing reviews were from the perspective of adrenalin junkie FPS fans – a trait not uncommon amongst pro reviewers – and not stealth appreciators. As is nearly always the case in these situations, curiosity overwhelmed common sense and I rolled the dice.
I hoped it wouldn’t go the same way as that other stealth stalwart Splinter Cell; a victim of what I call “mainstream-alization” (I lie, I just made that up). This is a symptom that modern incarnations of old game franchises nearly all seem to suffer; namely the loss of their idiosyncrasies, learning curves and ultimately their identity in the name of making them more universally accessible. Less pompous people would simply call this “dumbing down.” But not I!
The Good
So after a few hours playing Thief 4 I can report good news in that respect. Thief 4 is still very much a Thief game, thus remaining true to its stealth roots. There are a number of UI helpers for the hard-of-thinking but most can be turned off in the in-game menu. Your time in the game is spent shadow hopping and engaging in various clandestine and nefarious activities. So that’s a tick. Well done Eidos.
The atmosphere the game creates, with its dimly-lit smoky streets threading through the moonlight-soaked medieval buildings of the city is worthy of mention too. The blood thirsty guards and their angry, slightly psychotic mutterings combine with the suitably Gothic sound track / effects to create an atmosphere somewhat reminiscent of the early levels of Manhunt, believe it or not, which is definitely a good thing and creates an air of oppression and tension. Two ticks.
The Bad
Unfortunately that’s pretty much where the good stuff ends. First impressions are always important in gaming and Thief makes a less than impressive start. The first thing noted of any game is the quality of its visuals. Thief already looks dated. The character models are circa 2008, the animations wooden and stiff. Buildings look repetitive and there is no opportunity, as in Dishonored or Assassin’s Creed, to get up high on a rooftop and survey your surroundings and get a feel for the size and scale of the city, as well as any positional sense of where you are. Frame rate drops are common place, even in cut scenes. After Crysis 3, GTA V and Bioshock Infinite, this sloppiness is completely inexcusable. In-ex-cusable.
The next thing to become immediately apparent is the extent of just how linear the gameplay is. Such linearity in a game of this ilk can be acceptable if the player has the illusion they do have freedom. Unfortunately this isn’t the case with Thief. Time and time again you encounter parts of the environment that you should be able to interact with, climb or use, but you can’t, made all the more galling in that many of these obstacles look identical to ones you previously were allowed to interact with. Because of this the game has an artificial quality to it; and you feel as though you’re just being funnelled down a pre-determined path and your choices and actions in game count for nothing.
Aspects like these break the suspension of disbelief – and therefore the level of immersion – that is required to make a game like this work. Annoyances such as being regularly interrupted by cut scenes / loading screens, the clunky and cumbersome controls which make quick interactions tricky and Garrett feel a sluggish, not nimble, thief and the weird audio glitches in which overheard conversations one minute sound as clear as day but then vanish into complete silence after moving a step or two in the opposite direction, may seem insignificant on their own but combined together form a huge ball of WTFs.
See a gap behind a pillar that is easily large enough to conceal you from guards? Nope can’t go in there. Need to vault over a staircase to escape detection? Nope can’t do that either. Discover something that can be sabotaged, stolen or a tunnel to help you bypass a tricky part of the level? Well you’ll need a specific tool to do that, one that you should have bought before the level began. And these tools aren't advertised as being important as they're hidden away in a menu option you get when perusing the wares of an illicit item dealer, who himself is hidden away on the map.
It could be argued a master thief would always have these type of gadgets on his person, through experience. Also, because more tools when thieving = more fun. It’s rather deflating when you have the excitement of discovering a secret area in the game only to then be informed you can’t make use of it because you didn’t anticipate needing this specific tool before the level began. Not that these kind of locations / scenarios are in abundance anyway – in fact exploration is usually both pointless and fruitless, not only because there isn’t much to explore, but the rewards for doing so are are limited to say the least. Spend time picking locks to receive… an ink well! Or maybe a pen! Don’t spend that money all at once Garrett!
Which leads on nicely to the actual level design. Levels should be fun to navigate, should reveal increasingly sophisticated and intoxicating locales and – in games of this nature – should be designed intricately and with thought to creating multiple entrances / exists, suitable to support all kinds of in game scenarios. Thief 4 is level design by numbers. There’s no real creativity or inventiveness; you’ll find yourself traversing from one small area, with a handful of vents or passages which often go nowhere useful, to the next, after the inevitable loading screen of course. The potential for complexity is wasted – this is unimaginative level design at it's finest.
In fact one simple word adequately describes Thief 4… dull. Ironically the city Garrett roams is suffering from an outbreak of a disease aptly titled “The Gloom.” How fitting. So don’t expect any exciting, heart-in-the-mouth type moments. There aren’t any. Don’t expect any memorable sequences – at least not memorable for the right reasons – and certainly don’t expect any passages of play that will feature clever, incisive game design. And it’s at this point I’ll stop. I think it’s fair to assume you get the gist. It’s not so much that Thief 4 is a particularly bad game – it’s not – but it’s most certainly not a good game either.
^ And it’s certainly not worth spending £45 on, even for the most die-hard stealth fan. I’d like to end with a razor sharp and biting metaphor but instead I’ll apply the same amount of effort the game designers exercised when making the game and instead just mutter something under my breath about Eidos being the only thieves here. 5.5/10