Square Enix's new Thief has had a somewhat strained relationship with fans of the series. Under normal circumstances, you'd think this announcement could alleviate some of the worry: it's a bank heist mission, advertised as a "true homage" to Thief II's very own bank-based escapades. That sounds like a significant and meaningful connection to the series' past. So of course it's pre-order DLC.
Typical. Eidos Montreal open their window just a crack so they can shout to the streets the release date of the upcoming Thief, and what happens? Their Gamescom trailer leaps out into the public eye, to be snatched up by interested eyes. It continues the studio's insistence on promoting the game with CGI movies, but this time focuses on the city and it's increasingly harrowing problems.
The general manager of Eidos Montreal, Stephane D'Astous, has announced that he resigned from the studio last Friday. In a statement made to Polygon, he criticised the developer's parent company, Square Enix Europe, over a "lack of leadership, lack of courage and the lack of communication".
You don't get to develop a gravelly voice or kleptomania through anything as quaint as a happy childhood, that's for sure. This new dev diary from Eidos Montreal reveals the backstory behind Thief's protagonist, Garrett—and as you may have guessed, his early years were disappointingly bereft of cuddles.
Like Garrett out of the shadows, details continue to emerge that give shape to Eidos Montreal's upcoming Thief reboot. From a new Shack News interview with lead level designer Daniel Windfeld Schmidt we hear about the "reinvention" of the stealthy, blackjack-swinging original.
Thief was appropriately - if surprisingly - quiet this E3. We caught the odd brief glimpse: most tangibly a bizarre CGI trailer that explained little besides Garrett's love of bows and pinching thing. Now OPM have caught sight of something slinking through the darkness. Hey, it's screenshots! Get 'em!
A director's cut version of Deus Ex: Human Revolution is coming soon to PC, according to a new report by Gamespot. Although it had previously been announced as a Nintendo Wii U release, the new multi-platform edition will integrate previously released DLC as well as offer updated boss fights, altered combat, and "enhanced visuals," according to the title's official website.
And... We're off. E3 may not be until next week, but the E3 trailers are already slipping out from the shadows, trying to pinch precious minutes of our attention. Square Enix are going retro with their CGI Thief trailer, all the way back to last year, when bows were the show's weapon de rigueur. Let us steal it from its unsecured YouTube box, and hide it away inside this post.
Here's a video whose length and content are inversely proportional to my excitement at what it's purportedly teasing. Here's what we've got: seven seconds, a few notes of ethereally bleepy soundtrack, yellow triangles, the words Deus Ex: The Fall, a date, and a voice saying "are we ready to begin?" Why yes, I rather think we are.
While we're anxiously awaiting Eidos Montreal's reboot of cornerstone PC gaming franchise Thief next year, you might've wondered why we've only just begun to hear hard details about it this year. Its announcement-of-existence in 2009 was followed by years of public silence—which, we're learning now, was allegedly filled with quiet turmoil, office politics, and assorted strife. Will Thief's rocky journey show in the final product?
Eidos Montreal would make terrible sneaks. Since the announcement of Thief, they've been revealing themselves all over the place, discussing, teasing, and more often than not reassuring people about their plans for the reboot. Garrett would be turning in his grave over all this attention. If he were dead. Which he's not. Because they're making a new game.
Their latest appearance is an interview with Strategy Informer, in which producer Stephane Roy talks about Eidos Montreal's plans for the PC version of the game.
Like a stealth master, I've been lurking in the shadows of Tyler's Thief preview, after having pilfered Playstation Access' behind-the-scenes interviews with the team at Eidos Montreal. Admittedly, I've now made a rookie error by exposing myself to the digital light and shouting "Hey! Look at this!" Here, I'll leave the video with you for safekeeping while I attempt to rustle up some gas arrows to cover my clumsy escape.
Since it's announcement, Eidos Montreal seem to be playing whack-a-mole with Thief fans - knocking down criticism to every change and feature with their blackjack made of reassurance and blog posts. The latest worry mole, popping up in response to the recent reveal trailer, centred around Garrett's voice, and how regular vocal artist Stephen Russell was no longer performing as the sneaky lead. Thief narrative director Steven Gallagher and audio director Jean-Christophe Verbert explained the move in a community interview.
The smoke of a freshly snuffed candle from a Thief teaser still lingers in the air, but time is trivial for master burglar Garrett. He's back on the creaky wooden stage already in the upcoming stealth reboot's full debut trailer to say, essentially: "I rule."
Eidos Montreal have released a staggeringly short teaser trailer for Thief. It shows a candle, an arm and the promise of more information on April 2nd. But what information could it be? Maybe the location of a box in a highly secured mansion that, when successfully pinched, will reveal a USB stick containing a video of Garrett's other arm. Isolate the audio from that video and run it through a spectrographic analyser and you'll get the co-ordinates to another mansion. Prowl through that, systematically knocking out all of its patrolling guards, and the combined snores will spell out the URL of a fuller trailer in morse code.
Or they might just post something to the internet. If they want to be boring.
Eidos Montreal have offered up some details on one of the new features of their upcoming Thief revival. Focus is an ability Garrett can access to speed up his reactions, giving him more time to perform combat or lockpicking. Game director Nick Cantin explains the ability in a community blog post. And, almost like he's anticipating a response from the series' most hardcore fans, he repeatedly assures that the ability is optional.
After that moderately alarming but ultimately blown-out-of-proportion business about Garrett being made more "mainstream" for the recently announced Thief reboot, you might be wondering if Thiefourfiaf will break the cardinal rule of the previous games: that you can complete them without harming a living soul. It's a justifiable fear, particularly after Deus Ex: Human Revolution's turrrrible boss battles, but thankfully it turns out to be unfounded, as this blog post on the Eidos Montreal site makes clear.
UPDATE: Thief Director Nicolas Cantin has a clarification on his earlier statement about a re-imagined, goth-less Garrett. On Eidos Montreal's community hub, Cantin says Garrett's new appearance arose from internal design changes rather than an effort to make the sneakster more "mainstream" compared to previous games in the series. Continue on for his full explanation.
ORIGINAL: Thief fans are going to want to read this from the comforting embrace of a dark room. Every sentence of this GameInformer interview with the developers of the upcoming Thief reboot (formerly, bafflingly, called THI4F) seems designed to make series advocates clench their teeth, slink into the shadows and clutch tightly to their blackjacks. The sweets, I mean. Not the big stick for hitting things.
In the video, Eidos Montreal describe the process of redesigning Garrett for the modern age. The word "console" is used.
Screenshots of what appears to be Eidos Montreal's upcoming Thief 4 have been tracked down by the vigilant Grath of NeoGAF. The shots come courtesy of Russian site GamesManiac, who refer to the game simply as Thief, noting the lack of a number at the end - or in the middle - of the title. In them we see Garrett cling to walls, hang from ropes, and perform other sneaky eyeball-avoiding moves. It all looks a bit Dishonored, which is apt, given that Dishonored looked a bit Thief.
Deus Ex: Human Defiance was trademarked by Square Enix recently, sparking speculation that a follow up to Human Revolution may be brewing deep in Eidos Montreal's fanciest limb clinics. Human Revolution was a faithful recreation of the original shot through a cool, edgy black and gold cyber-renaissance lens. It was a successful modernisation of a PC gaming classic that made our Tom Francis very happy indeed (find out why in our Deus Ex: Human Revolution review). But, like the man who's just received a pair of awesome bionic arms and can't help but complain, we're never entirely happy, so we got our heads together and formed a list of things we'd like to see from the next Deus Ex.
Will you agree? There's only one way to find out, and that's to hack our brains have a read and see.
