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• Thief reboot will be tough, not fiddly

  Eidos is reviving the hugely popular stealth series Thief, but in bringing the PC cult classic to consoles it's aware that the difficulty must come from game design rather than complicated controls.

  The earlier games were somewhat notorious for their extravagant keyboard maps, with multiple keys just for peering around corners in different ways. That won't be the case in the new game, Eidos Montreal's Daniel Windfeld Schmidt has told CVG.

  "Today's gamers are a lot less patient," he explains. "They expect a lot more from the developers in terms of features and so on. Even for menus that are easy to use. For a lot of things that weren't as extensively developed back in the day. For example: control inputs."

  "They had all these things that were very complex and it worked for the hardcore gamers, but a lot of people backed off early on because it was very difficult. So our focus has been to say, ‘we want the same amount of challenge, but within the game and not within the inputs.' I don't personally have the patience to learn the super, super old games and all their fidelities and hard-learned lessons. I want it to be more streamlined."

  Thief is being developed for PC and next generation consoles, and will be released in 2014.

  Published: 05/04/2013

• The goth look is out for Thief

  Goth is out, kids. All that black make-up and sulking. Like, it's so 1998, you know? That's the message from Eidos Montreal where a long awaited new entry in the Thief series is in development. Just don't expect to see hero Garrett looking like he's off to a Sisters of Mercy concert this time.

  "In the beginning, in the conception, we had carte blanche to completely restart a new design of Garrett," game director Nicolas Cantin told Game Informer. "We wanted to keep the main DNA of who Garrett was. We didn't want to change that much because it was kind of working already."

  "We wanted to bring him more for the modern audience of today's console market," added narrative designer Steve Gallanger. "He's now in the game doing more action moves and that's how we wanted the costume and the suit to reflect that. In the beginning he was kind of more gothic; we turned down all the things that feel more gothic. For example: black nails and things like that - we don't have that any more. We want to make him a little bit more mainstream on that."

  While this news may send old school Thief fans stamping to their bedrooms to write angry poetry on their school bag in purple marker pen, it definitely shows that Eidos is willing to tweak and twist the critically acclaimed title in order to make it work for a modern audience.

  Thief is currently slated for a 2014 release on PC and next generation consoles.

  Published: 14/03/2013

• Thief returns in 2014

  Having successfully revived seminal stealth game Deus Ex in 2011, Eidos has confirmed it will be bringing back one of the most influential titles in the genre next year when it reboots the Thief franchise.

  First seen in 1998, the Thief saga casts the player as Garrett, a light-fingered sneaky fellow who creeps about in gloomy medieval-meets-industrial locations on the look out for things to swipe. The series has long been held up as one of the only true stealth games, with design that insists on absolute secrecy rather than constant neck-breaking ninja moves. The last game was Thief: Deadly Shadows, released in 2004.

  That approach will be retained for the new game, which will simply be titled Thief despite being the fourth official game in the series. That's an approach that has paid off well for other revived gaming properties. XCOM, Tomb Raider and SimCity have all started afresh with their titles in recent months.

  We're promised a new sneaking system, which uses a "focus" ability to highlight useful environmental features, while focus also earns you "attack points" which serve to channel your combat options. One attack point will allow you to shove an enemy away from you, but to inflict serious damage you'll need to accrue many more. NPCs will also be much smarter than we're used to, programmed with specific knowledge of the areas they patrol, enabling them to work out the hiding places you're likely to use.

  Some of the original 1998 Thief team went on to form Arkane Studios, which developed the similar BAFTA-winning Dishonored last year. Nicolas Cantin, director of the new game, has told Game Informer magazine that the new Thief will be less "action-oriented" than Dishonored.

  Thief will be out in 2014 for PC and PlayStation 4.
  

  Published: 06/03/2013

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