Thief, Eidos Montreal’s carefully balanced bid to revive a genre originator

January 31st, 2014, 22:59 Posted By: wraggster

Publisher: Square Enix Developer: Eidos Montreal Formats: 360, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox One Release: February

Pity any developer that admits its desire to make a cherished series more accessible. FromSoftware fell foul of this loaded term, and now Eidos Montreal’s Thief reboot has snagged on the furrowed brows of series fans. Thief, like Dark Souls, is synonymous with challenge, but Eidos stresses it has no intention of dumbing down Garrett’s world. It just wants to give those in it more options.“We want players to be able to choose their strategy situation by situation,” lead game designer Alexandre Breault tells us. “Even within a single level, it will be easy to switch between aggressive and stealthy tactics [and] easy to run away, hide and wait for the situation to cool down.”Fret not: Garrett hasn’t been recast as a brawler. While you may be able to solve some problems with violence, the shadows will always be your greatest ally. “No matter what strategy you’re using, you’ll need to think about the situation,” Breault says. “It’s really a game about anticipation. Even though we support more aggressive playstyles, if you just run into a situation without thinking, without even a little hesitation, you’ll very quickly find yourself in trouble.”We experience this firsthand during our playthrough of a level that sees Garrett making his way across the city towards a clock tower, pillaging a jewellery shop along the way. A guard patrols an upstairs room containing drawers, cabinets and a locked safe stocked with valuables. We attempt to knock him unconscious with our blackjack after sneaking around a cabinet to get behind him, but miss the swing. Carefully timing our dodges and lunges proves successful and we quickly gain the upper hand, but only until his colleague runs in and knocks us to the floor.

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