Deus Ex & Thief IPs + Eidos Montreal are about to be sold to Embracer Group - by henke
Jason Moyer on 31/8/2022 at 15:44
Yeah, I agree re: sound. It's kind of ridiculous that TDP came out almost 25 years ago and nothing has touched that game's environmental audio. And not just the way it added to situational awareness, which made the "see through walls" ability that every other stealth game has to resort to completely unnecessary, but the way the it influenced the AI's ability to detect you. It always feels like a cop-out when games make crouching completely silent. The noise created by different surface types was an important part of the level design, especially in Thief 1, because the relative difficulty of moving quietly would increase as you worked your way closer to the mission's primary goal.
ZylonBane on 31/8/2022 at 18:37
Quote Posted by EvaUnit02
I remember prior to Human Revolution's release, people here were crying about the 3rd person cover system. I pointed out that it wasn't a big deal, since you could ya know, not use that particular mechanic.
Then you were, y'know, full of shit, because HR doesn't have first-person leaning, so the "cover" system is the only way to peek around corners.
Aja on 31/8/2022 at 21:14
Quote Posted by Jason Moyer
Yeah, I agree re: sound. It's kind of ridiculous that TDP came out almost 25 years ago and nothing has touched that game's environmental audio. And not just the way it added to situational awareness, which made the "see through walls" ability that every other stealth game has to resort to completely unnecessary, but the way the it influenced the AI's ability to detect you. It always feels like a cop-out when games make crouching completely silent. The noise created by different surface types was an important part of the level design, especially in Thief 1, because the relative difficulty of moving quietly would increase as you worked your way closer to the mission's primary goal.
The feeling you get when muffled footsteps of an AI in another room suddenly become loud and clear and you know they're close to you has not been equaled in any game I know. Forcing the player to rely on audio cues, including their own, as you say, added so much tension and atmosphere, and in retrospect it's really the quality that makes Thief still feel exciting so many years later. That and actual shadow-based visibility.
I guess developers moved away from those things because you can't rely on anyone to have a decent speaker setup or a monitor with good contrast. Thief-style stealth took a backseat to mostly line-of-sight, that, without Thief's audiovisual cues, is too difficult for a player to keep track of, hence the now-common X-ray vision. And things have never been the same.
New Horizon on 31/8/2022 at 22:15
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
Then you were, y'know, full of shit, because HR doesn't have first-person leaning, so the "cover" system is the only way to peek around corners.
Quite true.
Pyrian on 1/9/2022 at 00:50
Yeah, and there's cover that won't conceal you if you're not in cover mode, which is super annoying.
heywood on 10/9/2022 at 19:21
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
I've played the original Deus Ex more times than I can remember. I've even replayed Invisible War a few times. Human Revolution though, I've played it... maybe one and a half times.
There's nothing objectively
bad about HR. There's just a lot of little ways in which it falls short. I found the mission control guy, Pritchard, to be greasy and obnoxious. My boss Mr. Sarif? A high-strung control freak. The color palette, even in the Director's Cut, still came across as monochromatic and cloying. Fun fact: Out of all the colors, (
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/33091/do-certain-colors-fatigue-eyes-faster) yellow is the most fatiguing to look at. In HR, yellow is everywhere.
In HR I never felt like I was free to fuck around, which I think was a core appeal of the original DX. HR feels like it always has you by the scruff of the neck, directing you to go
here, then do
this, then do
that to progress. It feels like a very authored experience, which Warren Spector has stated multiple times is antithetical to immersive sims.
Now, maybe the amount of actual freedom is both DX and HR is the same. But again, it's the feeling, the
illusion of freedom that's important. And I think a part of this diminished feeling of freedom is that HR sectioned off so many formerly simulated interactions into discrete idiot-proof "modes". In HR you don't just run up behind someone and whack them with a stick, instead you enter "takedown mode". You don't just hop on a ladder and climb it, you enter "ladder mode". You don't just lean around a corner, you enter "cover mode".
I thought there was plenty of freedom to fuck around once you hit the first hub. The opening part of the game definitely leads you by the nose, and I think that was done to ease people into the game who hadn't played DX before. As much as we loved Liberty Island, I know it turned a lot of people away from the game before they had a chance to have any fun.
But anyway, have you played Mankind Divided? It's more sandbox than Human Revolution and has the best level design in the franchise.
heywood on 10/9/2022 at 19:24
Quote Posted by Aja
The feeling you get when muffled footsteps of an AI in another room suddenly become loud and clear and you know they're close to you has not been equaled in any game I know. Forcing the player to rely on audio cues, including their own, as you say, added so much tension and atmosphere, and in retrospect it's really the quality that makes Thief still feel exciting so many years later. That and actual shadow-based visibility.
I guess developers moved away from those things because you can't rely on anyone to have a decent speaker setup or a monitor with good contrast. Thief-style stealth took a backseat to mostly line-of-sight, that, without Thief's audiovisual cues, is too difficult for a player to keep track of, hence the now-common X-ray vision. And things have never been the same.
I blame the XBox. Suddenly every big budget title had to be cross-platform, and the consoles didn't have the capability.
To me, Thief isn't Thief without 3D positional audio and a superior sound propagation model. I wouldn't be interested in a future Thief game unless they make it a top priority.
henke on 1/11/2022 at 18:54
Onoma (previously Square Enix Montreal, makers of Hitman Go, Deus Ex Go, etc), have been shut down, some of the staff moved to Eidos Montreal.
(
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-01/embracer-group-shuts-down-montreal-video-game-studio)
Jason Schreier, who reported on this, had more to say (
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1587515910046220288) in tweets, including:
Quote:
Eidos Montreal, which remains intact, canceled the Stranger Things-inspired "kids on bikes" game that was rumored recently. They're now working on:
1) A new IP (recently rescoped)
2) A new Deus Ex (very very early)
3) co-dev partnerships with Xbox including Fable
New Deus Ex! Maybe! At some point! Possibly!
heywood on 1/11/2022 at 20:10
Hmm. I never played the Kids on Bikes tabletop game, so I can't say whether it would adapt to a video game well. But I kind of like the idea of a game that plays like a Spielberg kids adventure film, and it might have been a good way to attract some younger fans to the studio's work.
While it's nice to see the news and rumor mills teasing Deus Ex again, by the time a new release might be expected Mankind Divided will be 10+ years old. We may get a reboot rather than a continuation from where Mankind Divided left off.
EvaUnit02 on 1/11/2022 at 22:32
(
https://archive.ph/ptcEk) Non-paywalled archive of article, BTW.
As for the news, that's a shame. That GO series of puzzle games was pretty damn good.
