Thief 4 - Announced

[Dhruin]

Eidos Interactive has officially announced Thief 4, in development at Eidos Montreal alongside Deus Ex 3:
Eidos-Montréal is excited to unveil its previously secret second title in development at the studio, Thief™ 4, the next instalment in the legendary series.
The original Thief game, Thief: The Dark Project redefined first person gaming and established an entirely new genre of stealth based game play. The critically and commercially acclaimed Thief series has won numerous awards and accolades including GameSpy Hall of Fame, GameSpot Greatest Games of All Time and The Academy of Interactive Arts And Sciences Outstanding Achievement in Character and Story Development.
Eidos-Montréal, which is also currently producing the much anticipated Deus Ex™ 3, has recruited the very best core team for the development of Thief 4. The team is comprised of industry veterans who have worked on an incredible collection of AAA titles and who each bring personal expertise in their respective fields.
“We’re in the early development stages for Thief 4, but this is an incredibly ambitious and exciting project for Eidos,” said Stéphane D’Astous, General Manager at Eidos-Montréal. “While it’s too early for us to offer any specific game details, right now we are focused on recruiting the very best talent to join the core team at the studio and help us make what we believe will be one of the most exciting games on the market.”
Development is under way and the team is looking to recruit the very best talent as production ramps up. If you are a world-class developer looking to join the talented Thief 4 team, visit www.eidosmontreal.com (http://www.eidosmontreal.com) to submit your résumé or www.thief4.com (http://www.thief4.com) to join the community discussion.
Not, it's not an RPG but we've historically covered the Thief series.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=11979)

[screeg]

That press release, while optimistic, doesn't read like PR-speak garbage, maybe because the Thief games really were AAA in the best sense.

Too bad they're only looking for world-class developers and not cut-rate hacks. Why not mix it up a bit like the competition?
:(

[JDR13]

Oooooh I told you so!

Anyways, I hope they can recapture the atmosphere of the first 2 games.

[txa1265]

I am cautiously hopeful ... but anticipating that at best we'll get a FO3 style experience, decent game but mired in flaws and completely irrelevant to the originals ... maybe even with a total non-stealth gameplay style and nuclear arrows ...

... with those thoughts I am hopeful there is only upside ;)

[Foss]

Only played Thief Deadly Shadows. Only bought it to experience the Shalebridge Cradle mission but the whole game was better than I expected.
Thief 4 could be worth keeping a tab on.

[KasperFauerby]

Damn, I work for the wrong Eidos studio it seems ;) Those are two of the coolest franchises ever!

[DArtagnan]

Damn, I work for the wrong Eidos studio it seems ;) Those are two of the coolest franchises ever!

With your name, I take it you work for IOI? ;)

[KasperFauerby]

With your name, I take it you work for IOI? ;)

Thats right :)

[DArtagnan]

Thats right :)

Oooooh, I'm so clever :)

[Benedict]

Fantastic! Fond memories of the thief games, I'm thoroughly looking forward to a new release.

[Michael Dean]

I spent a good part of my life working on Thief 3.

I thought we did a pretty good job, but we could have done better in many ways.

In any case, I hope this studio keeps Eidos happy with their Thief product. More importantly, I hope it ends up being a quality title and a big hit with old and new fans of the franchise.

[DArtagnan]

I spent a good part of my life working on Thief 3.

I thought we did a pretty good job, but we could have done better in many ways.

In any case, I hope this studio keeps Eidos happy with their Thief product. More importantly, I hope it ends up being a quality title and a big hit with old and new fans of the franchise.

I have to agree, you did pretty good.

It was hardly your fault that you had to restrict yourselves to Xbox hardware, and that's really the only issue I had with it. The memory restriction meant small levels, and considering that - I think you handled the game a LOT better than they did with Deus Ex: IW.

The idea of a main town (hub structure) was great - but unfortunately it felt somewhat off because of the tiny areas - but even so, it worked OK, which I really didn't expect after IW.

Anyway, respect from this person and let's hope Thief 4 will suffer no such issues.

[Benedict]

I remember thoroughly enjoying thief 3, of all the games the only one I found frustrating was the first one because of all those stupid zombies.

[titus]

Thief 4? very interesting, I only played the first one but it was a great game.

I don't know to be happy or to fear the fact that creators of AAA title are working on it. I think everyone here knows why.

[Tiptoe]

My heart actually skipped a beat when I read this news. Thief: Deadly Shadows is quite probably the best game I've ever played in my life.

I just pray and pray they implement the third person option from Deadly Shadows into this new game.

Because I've never been able to play the first two games in the series because the first person view makes me seasick.

[guenthar]

I liked all 3 games and they are some of the few non-rpgs I will play and I hope they expand some of the elements they introduced in 3. The open city stucture was good but I would have liked much more freedom and independant thievery. Normally putting in more inpepndant thievery wouldn't work so well since you don't have anything to use the extra money on so they could add in rpg elements like paying to train you thieving skills up. I think this would work in this game since there is a good chance there will be a new main character which could be a novice thief so needs training to become a better thief through the game.

[titus]

Wouldn't it become too much like Assins Creed then? athough AC is based on thief :p

[Sergius64]

Yey! I hope they get it right, Thief series always managed to combine Great Story with Great Gameplay, get either of those wrong and it won't be in the same league as the first 3 (some would say 2) games. Keeping the mission introduction format is key I think. Great quotes highlighed by great suspenseful sound effects, followed by art shots rolling across the screen as Garrett describes the goal and the setting of next mission.

"Before death came... the liars were made to feast upon the hands of the thieves, and the thieves were made to ingest the tongues of their liar brothers, and we praised the Master Builder for his judgements." -The Hammer Book of Tenets.

[guenthar]

Assassin's Creed isn't really the same as thief in gameplay and if Assassin's Creed was inspired by the Thief series then it is a drastically dumbed down system with little resemblance to Thief.

The thief games are closer to being a realistic thieving system and you can't just go out and kill people through normal melee combat like you can in Assassin's Creed. (you would most likely die even against one enemy)

[titus]

true, but how many other thieving games do you know except those 2?
and I didn't say the same, but based on ;)

[guenthar]

When it comes to stealth based games (which is what Assassin's Creed is even if it isn't just a stealth based game) there are several that I know of and even more with stealth based gameplay in them. The Splinter Cell series are all stealth based games and most D&D games have stealth based gameplay and the Elderscrolls series has stealth based gameplay also. There are others but that is what I can think of now and the only games that are just about thieving are the Thief games.

EDIT: I forgot to mention Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines as being heavy in stealth based gameplay and if you play a Nosferatu it is mostly stealth based.

[Alrik Fassbauer]

I'm actually surprised (well, on the other hand I'm not) that no-one ever used the model of implementation for thieving from this game series in RPGs.

[Dusk]

Direct influence: In a limited form though, the stealth system was introduced to Oblivion. The designer of the quest-line of Dark Brotherhood, Emil Pagliarulo was one of the designers of Thief II:Metal Age. Also, although I have mixed feeling to the town adventure in Deadly Shadows, it actually played like an RPG in a way. Unfortunately, while it's fun, NPC AI wasn't good enough to prevent things from being messed up. My overall reaction to Thief III is positive, though.

Indirect Influences: Deus Ex is, somehow, influenced from Thief. Warren Spector, being unhappy with the single game-play, added the other game-plays to the game. Vampire the Masquerade:Bloodlines, and probably Alpha Protocol seem to be influenced by Deus Ex, I think it makes quite a list in RPG genre.

[Sergius64]

Didn't Messiah of Might and Magic have something similar as well?

[Zygo]

Dark Messiah was pretty similar in its stealth aspects, though more limited of course- it had a few ex LGS people working on it and Arkane hired one of the major fan mission designers from T1/2 as well. It also had a couple of Thief easter eggs (eg the 'master thief' armour referenced Garrett)

[bartouze]

That's great news.
Thief 3 was way better than Deus Ex 2.
The gameplay from Thief 3 was indeed very good, although different from the first two ones, and the story was good.
The BIG problem was the lack of balancing, proabably lack of polishing in the end. It's a pity, the first play though was a bit boring, once I found a mod to dramatically limit the resources it became a blow.
Reminds very much of Gothic 3.... Couldn't stand playing it after 10 hours or so when it came out, had not touched it again since that time. I'm now playing with CP, and with good balancing, it became one of my favorite game ever, on par with G1 and G2

[JDR13]

Thief 3 was way better than Deus Ex 2.


That's good to hear, I'm playing DX:IW right now, and it sucks compared to the first DX. I'm still going to finish it just for the storyline though, which is actually pretty decent.

I have Thief 3, but other than the demo, I haven't played it yet. Playing through all three Thief games is something I've wanted to do for some time now.

[Dusk]

I agree that the stories of DX:IW and Thief:DS Thief: DS are decent/more than decent, which often makes me pretty forgiving. It would be nice if "Thief 4" has no cartoonish aspect, though.

[txa1265]

That's good to hear, I'm playing DX:IW right now, and it sucks compared to the first DX. I'm still going to finish it just for the storyline though, which is actually pretty decent.

I have Thief 3, but other than the demo, I haven't played it yet. Playing through all three Thief games is something I've wanted to do for some time now.

Completely agree with the Thief 3> DX:IW assessment. Replayed some of both last year. Thief 3 remains the same, while DX:IW plays lousy, looks lousy ... is lousy.

[JDR13]

Completely agree with the Thief 3> DX:IW assessment. Replayed some of both last year. Thief 3 remains the same, while DX:IW plays lousy, looks lousy ... is lousy.

I almost quit DX:IW about half-way through, but I'm glad I didn't. Yes the game is terrible when compared directly to Deus-Ex, but the story really picks up in the 2nd half of the game, and I'm actually finding it somewhat enjoyable now.

[Dusk]

I just noticed my previous post has an unintended "cartoonish" aspect...
Thief:DS

DX:IW was from the time when the publishers shied away from even the word "RPG" and the size of each area map was said to have designed to fit the limited memory of Xbox... That said, I have enough reason to appreciate them since it has been being really hard to find a game with even a decent story.

[DArtagnan]

I guess I should attempt to play IW again, then, though I've already tried to get into it a half dozen times. Last time I got to Cairo (?) and gave up.

I'm a gameplay before story guy, so maybe it's just a lost cause.