Thief gets new Uprising trailer and February 28 release date

Square Enix has released a new trailer for its upcoming stealth title Thief. The video, dubbed the Uprising trailer, shows a bit of the game’s setting. Despite having the familiar steampunk Victorian setting of earlier games, the new Thief game looks decidedly different. The video shows a typical dystopian world where the rich have taken over the city and ignore the cries for help of the poor. While the poor amass and try to overthrow the rich, Garrett sneaks into some of the rich peoples’ homes and offices to steal some valuable items. Check out the trailer:

The company has also announced that the game will be hitting store shelves on February 28. On the day, it will be available for PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. North American gamers will get it three days earlier, with a release on all platforms slated for February 25. Along with this, Square Enix has also revealed the box art for the game.

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A ton of information about the game—earlier referred to as Thief 4—was revealed earlier this year. The game will continue the series’ tradition of first-person stealth and will actively discourage combat, just like the previous games in the series.

Thief 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.

Garrett’s gonna steal all of your shinies!

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.

Overall, the game sounds very similar to Dishonored, which is unsurprising as the earlier Thief games are cited as some of the biggest inspirations for Dishonored. Thief 4 is being developed by Eidos Montreal, which is the same studio that worked on the stellar Deus Ex: Human Revolution.