6 minutes of explanations are available in Eidos Montreal’s new trailer for Thief, the upcoming stealth-game and the 4th installment in the franchise. Launching on the 25th of February in the US and the 28th in Europe on the Playstation 4, Playstation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and the PC, this newest game in the well-established franchise will aim to do for Thief games what Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider did for Lara’s franchise.
As the footage reveals, Thief looks rather good. The landscapes are dimply lit and set up an enigmatic atmosphere that practically begs exploration. The options of having both a stealthy approach and a violent one should appease both the fans of the series, as well as people coming in touch with it for the first time. Of course, in its essence, Thief was always about stealth and planning. There’s just more satisfaction in moving unnoticed and completing your objectives without bloodshed, and it’s good to see Eidos hasn’t compromised on this side. On the other hand, the AI of the new Thief game doesn’t seem to be extremely responsive or bright. Perhaps the trailer was filmed at a low difficulty setting. Regardless, guards don’t seem to notice you even when you’re 4 meters to their side, and for a game that focuses on hyper-realistic light effects, this becomes a concern.
In any case, there will be lots of things to do and plenty of things to steal in Thief. The only question unanswered is the aspect of actually being motivated to pull off heists outside of the main storyline. Decorating your own hide-out might not be extremely appealing to all players. Pick-pocketing seems pretty easy, and lock-picking looks rather dull. On the bright side of things, the architecture and artwork is stunning for the most part, and the dark and gritty city of Thief is ripe for nocturnal activities.
We’ll get to see how the game performs towards the end of the month, when we can get our hands on it. Until then, you can take a look at some more Theif gameplay videos in our related article.