The Thief-Reboot is getting a lot of criticism on the internet and elsewhere, and this article will explore the manifold reasons. The general issue is (spoiler alert!): Thief is not in any way true to its remarkably entertaining and demanding predecessors. It clings to all the bad things AAA Gaming (that is, top-selling "blockbuster" games) stands for, most prominently mass compability at the cost of originality.
The first problem of the game is that its designers refused to let Garrett be Garrett - an antisocial, sarcastic, clever outlaw. Instead, they came up with the following: Our hero is kind-of selfish and anti-social, hence the motto "What's yours is mine", but then he gets a young, obnoxious teenage girl he has to care for and rescue - of course. Why not have the girl be the hero instead of damsel in distress? Because they were scared to alienate the hardcore fans. But you know what's alienating? Turning the protagonist into a generic shell with superpowers that we can level.
The first problem of the game is that its designers refused to let Garrett be Garrett - an antisocial, sarcastic, clever outlaw. Instead, they came up with the following: Our hero is kind-of selfish and anti-social, hence the motto "What's yours is mine", but then he gets a young, obnoxious teenage girl he has to care for and rescue - of course. Why not have the girl be the hero instead of damsel in distress? Because they were scared to alienate the hardcore fans. But you know what's alienating? Turning the protagonist into a generic shell with superpowers that we can level.
Thief wants to be as interesting as Dishonored or Assassin's Creed, but lacks any depth. What we get instead is a game where we play a thief who may or may not go on a murderous rampage without any consequences at all. From the same school of thought, apparently, derives the idea that the player needs flashy quick time events where we run over rooftops and have to mindlessly press
buttons and spend the rest of the time watching boring videos, the illusion of player control once again taken away. The game has so little confidence in itself that it would rather be a movie.
Lots of Magic, but far from Magical
Storywise, Thief tries to make up for its misguided action gimmicks by rejecting the steampunk madness/silliness of its predecessors, but doubling down on the sinister tone does not work if you have nothing to offer apart from a generic story about magic that apparently can do everything that the plot demands. The antagonist oozes with clichés from Doctor Frankenstein to Joseph Goebbels, but he feels like a comic villain in his obsession with Garrett. The hammerites, pagans, keepers - anything that made the Thief series stand out - gone.
As if this was not enough, the game manages to fail even at its most basic aspects. The one thing I found most annoying was that Garrett cannot even grab a chandelier without having a fancy animation that takes up several seconds. In the original Thief games it was hard enough to steal something, you did not need to go through this tedious routine. But now, you have to endure slow-mo Garrett rifling through each drawer individually, grabbing anything shiny - if it has a reflection in the moonlight, it's worth a grab, even if it's a plain pair of scissors.
Storywise, Thief tries to make up for its misguided action gimmicks by rejecting the steampunk madness/silliness of its predecessors, but doubling down on the sinister tone does not work if you have nothing to offer apart from a generic story about magic that apparently can do everything that the plot demands. The antagonist oozes with clichés from Doctor Frankenstein to Joseph Goebbels, but he feels like a comic villain in his obsession with Garrett. The hammerites, pagans, keepers - anything that made the Thief series stand out - gone.
As if this was not enough, the game manages to fail even at its most basic aspects. The one thing I found most annoying was that Garrett cannot even grab a chandelier without having a fancy animation that takes up several seconds. In the original Thief games it was hard enough to steal something, you did not need to go through this tedious routine. But now, you have to endure slow-mo Garrett rifling through each drawer individually, grabbing anything shiny - if it has a reflection in the moonlight, it's worth a grab, even if it's a plain pair of scissors.
As may be deduced from the previous, salt-induced paragraphs, I consider Thief a huge step backwards. Thief 1 and 2 were great; Thief 3 already had somewhat of an AAA smell to it; but Thief (Reboot) comes with the stench of a franchises' death. Thief tries to be everything and to appeal to everyone but ends up being nothing.
Further watching:
Zero Punctuation about Thi4f
Further watching:
Zero Punctuation about Thi4f
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