Thief

[radiofloyd]

Eidos Montreal has been working for years to reboot the classic stealth series Thief, and the fruits of its labor will finally be revealed in issue 240 of Game Informer Magazine.

Our April cover story is a world-exclusive look at this next-generation stealth title. Series hero Garrett returns to the Gothic, industrial metropolis known simply as the City to steal any and everything that will make him richer. Unfortunately, the City is broiling with social tension as it is ravaged by a plague and lorded over by a political tyrant known as the Baron. In order to survive his adventures, Garrett will have to pay attention to his environment and make use of the may possible paths through each of the game's levels.

Square Enix plans to release Thief for PS4 and PC sometime in 2014, but the game is also planned for other next-gen consoles. Check out our coverage trailer for a taste of all the content you can look forward to absorbing over the next month.

http://youtu.be/HpRsOQ4MS_8

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/03/05/april-cover-revealed-thief.aspx

[Uncle Dokuro]

Awesome news!!! Can't wait for my issue to hit my box.

Also, the game is just Theif with no 4 at the end.

[wholehole]

That bow they made looks fucking cool. Special Edition bonus maybe??

[radiofloyd]

Awesome news!!! Can't wait for my issue to hit my box.

Also, the game is just Theif with no 4 at the end.

Haha you're right, I realised that after I posted it!

[spatular]

i be looking forward to this too. played thief 2 loads but never managed to finish it

[Uncle Dokuro]

Screen shots

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/03/06/exclusive-thief-screenshots.aspx

http://www.edge-online.com/gallery/see-the-next-generation-thief-in-our-screenshot-and-artwork-gallery/

Awesome news!!! Can't wait for my issue to hit my box.

Also, the game is just Theif with no 4 at the end.

Haha you're right, I realised that after I posted it!

[radiofloyd]

All is not well in Montreal.

The reboot of the medieval stealth franchise Thief has been in production at Eidos Montreal for five years. According to anonymous sources familiar with the studio, corporate politics, creative confusion and a lack of publisher oversight have inflated production costs, impeded the game's creation and led to the departures of numerous senior and junior team members. Now, after half a decade, publisher Square Enix is hoping to releaseThief on the next generation of consoles and PCs.

The Thief reboot began in 2008, first as a series of conceptual meetings, then as a vertical slice from a team within Eidos Montreal. "Vertical slice" is industry terminology for a condensed demonstration of a game's potential art, design, gameplay and tone. A vertical slice is made by small team and helps the publisher decide whether a project should enter full production.

Around the same time and in the same building, a different Eidos Montreal team began production on Deus Ex: Human Revolution, which would go on to be a critical and financial success. In early 2009, Square Enix acquired Eidos Interactive and its numerous brands, including Thief and Deus Ex. Ensuring the completion and promotion ofDeus Ex: Human Revolution demanded much of Square Enix's attention, so the Thief team created its vertical slice relatively free of supervision. After nine months, the project was finished. Happy with the result, Square Enix greenlit Thief.

Backed by a large AAA budget, the Thief team expanded rapidly. While the project attracted a few designers, programmers and artists from across the globe, many came from other Montreal studios. A number of senior team members previously worked together at Ubisoft Montreal, and were quick to recruit local colleagues. According to one source, collegial favoritism began to divide the office.

The lead and senior design roles were fluid, with some team members departing after less than two years. According to one source, each new lead and senior designer would come with a new vision for the game. Old ideas — including stages and mechanics — would be rebuilt or scrapped. In March of this year, the same month as the game's publicity push on the cover of Game Informer magazine, Lead Game Designer Dominic Fleury left the studio.

Sources emphasized the high level of talent and enthusiasm of team members, many of whom came to work on Thiefbecause of their love of the franchise. Those same sources cited team politics and conflicting visions as cause for many departures and setbacks.

Due to a need to hit promotional deadlines, the latter part of 2012 and early 2013 was focused on creating press demos, the first of which was shown for the Game Informer cover and also at last month's Game Developers Conference. According to a source, the demo took nearly 10 months of development time, roughly six of which required the participation of nearly every content creator on the team. The level, which takes place in part inside a brothel, apparently featured "Cinemax-level" sex sequences at one point that some animators were uncomfortable creating.

Over the past few years, Square Enix has become increasingly concerned with the status of the game, now half a decade into development. A source says Eidos Montreal turned to a German investment firm for additional funds, something superiors within the studio claimed to be a common strategy in the industry and not cause for concern.

The current version of Thief barely resembles the initial concept, says a source. The vertical slice doesn't load insideThief's current heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3. Many programming tricks were necessary to run the current demonstration, like turning off non-playable character AI — the engine has trouble when too many characters are on screen.

Thief's development troubles come at a difficult time for Square Enix. This year, the company shipped 3.4 million copies of its Tomb Raider reboot, but failed to meet the company's expectations of 5 million to 6 million copies. Last year, the company's stealth-action game Hitman: Absolution and open-world crime game Sleeping Dogs also underperformed, despite selling millions of copies. For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, Square Enix originally predicted a net profit of ¥3.5 billion ($37 million), but recently expected to report a net loss of ¥13 billion ($138 million). In reaction to what the company called an "extraordinary loss," company president Yoichi Wada has stepped down and will be replaced by CFO Yosuke Matsuda in June.

We were shown the long-in-development Thief demo at the Game Developers Conference last month, and noted both the game's impressive technology and curious design choices. Footage from the demo was originally intended to be shared with the public, but a source says those plans were recently scrapped due to internal unhappiness with the quality of the captured footage.

We've heard that Eidos will show the game publicly for the first time at this year's E3 in June.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/4/26/4269912/thief-reboot-impeded-by-office-politics-high-level-departures

I guess it's too early to say "Aliens: Colonial Marines" but...

[radiofloyd]

http://youtu.be/U0KS2Hm6_oM

[radiofloyd]

Reviews:

CVG - 8

Game Informer - 8

Destructoid - 7.5

Edge - 7

IGN - 6.8

Nowgamer - 6.5

Eurogamer - 6

Gamestm - 6

Gamespot - 6

Polygon - 6

[DANGERMAN]

well at the very least it's not terrible, that's good to know

[Craymen Edge]

After the stories that came out the other year about internal politics, staff turnover and new leads coming in and scrapping work that had been done before, I was half expecting it to be a complete disaster.

[AndyKurosaki]

Rental only for me, I've never played the series before, and mixed reviews like that mean spunking £40 ain't gonna happen.

[shinymcshine]

I'll resurrect this old thread to highlight an interesting article about Terry Pratchett and his engagement with the Thief series and it's online community:

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/dec/09/terry-pratchett-thief-video-game-forum