 "Thief 4 will have extremely high emphasis on stealth, say developers")
There has been a ton of information popping up recently about Square Enix’s upcoming Thief game. When the screenshots were released, many said that the game looks very similar to Arkane’s stellar steampunk stealth game—Dishonored. According to GameInformer, the game’s Director Nicolas Cantin and Producer Stephane Roy have said that Thief is going to be “different” from what Dishonored was.
While they acknowledged the similarities, which were to be expected, considering the Dishonored developers cited the Thief games as having some of the biggest influences on the design of the game, Cantin and Roy were quick to point out that Thief is going to be very different from Dishonored. The major difference, according to Cantin, is that when “you jump in to [Dishonored], you realize it feels more like Deus Ex. A lot of choice, more action oriented.”
Cantin also levelled some criticisms against Dishonored. “[it] supports stealth but [they do] not [reward] it,” he said. Thief is going to have an extremely high emphasis on stealth, rather than making the action route viable.
Hopefully, the game won’t go full retard action like other game franchises have
Information on Thief 4 was revealed earlier this month. The game will be continuing the series’ tradition of first-person stealth and actively discouraging combat. It will also add a major new mechanic called Focus. It works like Detective Mode did in the Batman: Arkham games and highlights scalable walls, extinguishable lights and fingerprints that can be analysed. It also works as a sort of Bullet Time, as you can use it to slow down time while pickpocketing.
Gathering Focus lets you accumulate Attack Points, which basically work as emergency “oh crap!” buttons and let you pull off emergency escapes. This may be a lot like the VATS system Bethesda used in Fallout 3 and Obsidian used in Fallout: New Vegas, where you pause time and aim for specific body parts. For instance, you can use Attack Points on an enemy’s chest to shove him out of the way.
The enemy AI can make or break a stealth game, and the first few Thief games AI were revolutionary for their time. Apparently, this game is set to continue the tradition. “Garrett’s enemies understand the topography of the level and which areas could be useful for hiding. Different NPCs will look for Garrett in different ways,” noted AI programmer Eric Martel.
Eavesdropping will be playing an important part in the game too. You’ll be able to hear NPCs talk about the environment, which may give you new ways to go about your mission. GameInformer cited an example of some servers talking about a time when the level’s ventilation system was contaminated by opium. This, Garrett decides, would be a great way to calm down a panicked crowd and goes about doing just that. This also ends up being a double-edged sword, though, as Garrett now has to escape quickly while holding his breath so that he doesn’t get “calmed down” too.
The Thief games are set to be released for the PC, the PlayStation 3, the Xbox 360 and possibly the next-gen consoles in 2014.
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