“Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun.” – Charles Dickens, Bleak House. Okay maybe that was too much. Plus Dickens is describing London and not Thief’s fictitious city but the comparisons are numerable and blatant. And if there’s a better way to describe the mood of Thief I don’t know what it is.
It’s been 10 years since we last saw Garrett, the man who robs from the rich and forgets about the second part because it’s boring, and I for one think he deserves an appropriately brooding introduction. And so does Thief. Wasting no time at all you slip into Garrett’s sneaking shoes and take to the rooftops. After a few pacy gameplay sections and a handful of cutscenes you’re free to explore and/or progress at your will.
Almost immediately you will have the option to go out and complete various side quests or ignore them as you desire. There’s plenty to do and explore in Thief’s city and considering the objectives are usually based around breaking into somewhere and stealing something there is an impressive amount of variation.
In a very early side quest I found myself breaking into a house directly into a bedroom containing a sleeping woman. I left her be and went to work opening drawers, cabinets and picking the lock on her bedside table. Whilst picking the lock it became apparent we weren’t alone. I could see nothing except the cabinet I was attempting to relieve of its contents but so clear where the footsteps that I had no doubt I was about to be rumbled. At which point you must decide to either be quick and run or hide. I hid. And then bludgeoned what later turned out to be the girl’s father unconscious. After the coast was clear I turned to the combination wall safe. To find the combination I needed to find a document and then search the area. I escaped with my objective completed and the woman still deep in slumber.
For a side mission that probably took me about 20 minutes I was so happy. I’d had my fair share of lock picking and earned a decent ‘wage’. I experienced that tenseness only possible in a stealth game. And then I completed a simple puzzle, but one that I figured out myself. The combination wasn’t highlighted in bright colours nor did the safe magically open once my character had ‘read’ the answer. It was brilliant, and in the long run made up such a small part of Thief.
But ironically it’s the side missions that kept me coming back for more. My only real gripe with Thief is that a good portion of the main missions end up with the endless looting of many, many small boxes, cabinets and drawers whereas the side missions tend to break the pace and allow for a little more freedom between looting sessions. Also if you’re not paying close attention it’s very easy to lose the plot. I certainly enjoyed the main missions but they could have done with just a bit more freedom, like the rest of the game.
In-between completing objectives you will need to traverse Thief’s city as an open world. There are tons of small allies, vents to crawl through, gaps to squeeze between and walkways to skulk from. And while all these things make for a fantastically intricate city to navigate they can be very confusing initially. After some time exploring you soon learn where everything is and it’s nice to be rewarded for learning a map’s intricacies but early on it can be a nightmare.
Luckily there is a very able control scheme that hasn’t let me down at all yet. There’s no frustrating repeatedly climbing the same wall crap – I’m looking at you Assassin’s Creed. If I want to climb somewhere I’m confident Garrett will do it as I instruct on my first try. If I don’t want to he won’t go jumping to his death after 10 minutes of gameplay. The combat takes a bit of getting used to but it’s a last resort and Garrett feels intentionally underpowered when all-out fighting. He’s a thief not a brawler after all. Which I’ve no doubt fans of the franchise will be happy to hear.
Any returning Thief fan should also be pleased with the difficulty settings available. Above the standard easy, normal and hard settings Thief offers even more customization if you want a real challenge. Things like not allowing any knockouts or alerts (at all) amongst many others, allow you to customize your experience. Eidos have clearly realised what this franchise means to its hardcore following and catered for those players too rather than excluding them to allow new players in. All are welcome in Thief and there is undoubtedly a difficulty to suit all. And if your done there’s always the challenge mode to keep you busy. So many games are unsuccessful because they’re either too difficult or too easy. It’s simple really, let me decide. And that’s just what Thief does.
Beyond getting the difficulty settings right I imagine Thief also posed a great challenge to create interesting visuals. We all like vibrant colours and lush landscapes but to create an atmosphere as impressive as Thief’s that’s just not possible. A clever use of what little colour there is and an obvious penchant for lighting effects are what keep Thief’s melancholy colour palette from sucking the life out of the game.
At one point I was deftly sneaking around an alleyway waiting to lift a guard’s purse from his belt when I found myself stopping to admire someone’s work. It wasn’t a multi-headed death beast from the Mogadon Cluster (if you got that reference you’re as sad as me). There where no antiheroes interrogating a bloody suspect. It was just a wet stone.
Many of which make up the Victorian style buildings. I could almost feel the cold and smell the damp concrete. Turning around a slither of moonlight had fought its way through rickety wooden beams and caught the particles in the air. The ever-present clock tower and the moon hung like dual Suns in the night sky. And then I return to playing the game stealing from the guard before sliding away down one of the countless dark alleys littered with beggars reaching out to me.
And that’s how Thief plays. It feels like your in a developer diary. You want to slowly pan the camera around and walk rather than run. And if you do and let yourself become engrossed in Thief’s world you will be greatly rewarded. It’s let down on occasion by rigid level design and repeated objectives but overall Thief is an absolutely brilliant experience.
