In one of the rarest phrases ever uttered, it's a pretty good time to be a Thief fan right now. Earlier this month, Thief: The Dark Project Remastered was announced at The PC Gaming Show, with the remaster maestros at Nightdive Studios lending their skills to Looking Glass' revolutionary stealth game. Last month also brought a new stealth game from many of Thief's original creators, with Thick as Thieves proving a surprisingly fun sneaking romp—even if it feels significantly cut down from its original PvPvE premise.
Now, it's been announced that Thief is getting an officially licensed graphic novel. Thief: Pulse of Promise is a project created by Bit Bot Media in collaboration with Eidos-Montreal, developers of the not great, not terrible 2014 Thief reboot.
If you're concerned this means the story is set in the rebooted Thief universe, that doesn't seem to be the case. Pulse of Promise is apparently set between the events of Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age, so logic follows that it stars the original Garrett rather than his 2014 doppelganger. The cover art for the graphic novel also heavily channels the vibe of the first two games.
Pulse of Promise is being crowdfunded via BackerKit, and it isn't the only thing being funded by the collaboration with Eidos. The campaign will also include a statue, replicas, clothing, a plush, and an original soundtrack by Celldweller, which will feature a new performance by Stephen Russell. I just had the terrifying image of Garrett rapping, but fortunately that doesn't seem to be Celldweller's vibe.
I'm not convinced by all this other stuff, frankly. But I can certainly see a Thief graphic novel working. Garrett's laconic voiceover is essentially a series of comic captions running in real-time, so the transition to that format should be relatively smooth.
There's no word on when Pulse of Promise will release, but given the campaign hasn't started yet, I'll hazard a guess that it will arrive sometime after the Thief remaster. Which would be appropriate, considering the story is set after the events of The Dark Project.
As for what's coming in the remaster, well, the answer is everything you'd expect from Nightdive. Upgraded visuals, support for 4k and 120 FPS, a vault of behind-the-scenes stuff. For me, though, the most exciting features are a level-select mode, which means I can jump right into The Sword whenever I want, plus support for custom campaigns, letting players access Thief's incredible array of fan missions such as the superb campaign The Black Parade.
