Thief Preview

There’s an impressive level of physical interaction with the world, considering the first person view from which Thief is played. Much like Mirror’s Edge, Garrett’s hands will usually be in view, and not just when directly interacting with objects or holding weapons.

He could be leaning up against a pillar, and peaking out from cover to watch a guard’s patrol, his hands are pressed up against the stone, lending an assured level of confidence in what is going on. It’s a clever way of saying to the player that you’re in cover, that you’re less visible, and for a game so heavily reliant on stealth from the first person, it’s vital. Of course, when not directly in cover, Garrett can still hide in the shadows.

Thief is coming as more of a retelling of the original game’s story. It takes place in the City, a Victorian-styled place in decline, ruled by the Baron who is more than happy to see it burn around him, as it’s beset by a plague and social inequality.

Picking up a little way into the game, the task in the gameplay demo was to break into the Baron’s stately mansion and steal the Heart of the Lion. It’s an object which Garrett knowns practically nothing about, but a situation which provides a sandbox-like environment to work through.

The non-lethal approach is always preferable, and there are a lot of tools which make this possible. Extinguishing sources of light is the most obvious method of remaining invisible, and this can be done both directly, or from a distance using water-bomb laden arrows.

Of course, you need to be wary of the guards at all times, and distracting them or finding a way around them is key. Focus mode steps in here to tint the screen blue and highlight parts of the world that you need to be aware of. It might be the footsteps of a guard on the other side of a door, or a bottle which you can pick up and throw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctATmXbPJvk

However, for all the evasion and distraction, sometimes you just need to get your hands dirty, and Garrett shows an impressive aptitude for that too. You will naturally want to keep everything as quiet as possible, so picking your moment is key, but Focus forms an expendable array of abilities in the game. Here it can also allow you to coordinate attacks, such as throwing a brick at someone’s head and then slowing time to precisely shoot someone with an arrow, knocking them unconscious at the same time.

It’s not like you couldn’t go through the world killing everyone, but if you do, then the emphasis would still be on doing so silently, as you try and steal items undetected, or at least without being found by the guards.

But heading into the mansion presents Garrett with a different kind of challenge, twisting to a more puzzle-oriented experience. Not only does Garrett not know where the Heart of the Lion is, but he doesn’t even really know what he’s looking for.

Thankfully, by picking pockets on the way, and generally snooping around you can find plans and clues throughout the level. A blueprint for the house showed a mysterious gap, which is surely a telltale sign of a hidden room, if ever there was one.

Sneaking to that place, there was a rather cool way of gaining access, by manually feeling around the edge of a painting for a switch to open the secret door, before then being confronted by a handful of further excellently envisioned puzzles.

Again, using Focus can come into play for things like easier lock picking, but it’s important to note that this is not an essential part of play. For harder difficulty levels, and for the long term series fans, you can turn Focus off completely, should you so choose. It merely acts as a nice way of lowering the bar of entry to new players, so many years after the last entry.

There will be comparisons drawn to Dishonored in many regards, with a troubled city falling apart as a stealthy thief or assassin stalks through the world with some supernatural abilities.

At the same time, these comparisons really don’t matter in the slightest. Thief has a great atmosphere surrounding it, coming from the same team that developed Deus Ex: Human Revolution. They’re clearly well versed in returning to and updating classic games, and this one looks like it’s no different.