Skaruts on 12/8/2025 at 05:42
Quote Posted by Platinumoxicity
If the character isn't Garrett, then that's great because that's one less connection between Thief 2014 and the real games.
How do you make sense of that, though? The real games all have Garrett as protagonist. Having him as protagonist isn't a connection to T14, it's just staying true to the series. Because
the series is about Garrett.
Not having Garrett as protagonist is kicking the series in the nuts. It would be perfectly fine in a spin-off, not in a Thief game.
Moreover, there are
actual connections to T14 that people have pointed out, and having another protagonist won't change that. Especially considering T14 already had a sidekick that no one asked for. T14 is the game that walked the baby-steps in the direction of injecting another protagonist into the series. Having a new protagonist is arguably a connection to T14.
New Horizon on 12/8/2025 at 12:34
Quote Posted by Skaruts
How do you make sense of that, though? The real games all have Garrett as protagonist. Having him as protagonist isn't a connection to T14, it's just staying true to the series. Because
the series is about Garrett.
Not having Garrett as protagonist is kicking the series in the nuts. It would be perfectly fine in a spin-off, not in a Thief game.
Moreover, there are
actual connections to T14 that people have pointed out, and having another protagonist won't change that. Especially considering T14 already had a sidekick that no one asked for. T14 is the game that walked the baby-steps in the direction of injecting another protagonist into the series. Having a new protagonist is arguably a connection to T14.
Given this story takes place a couple of hundred years before Thief 2014, it would have been entirely possible to have an older, wiser Garrett coming out of the shadows for another story. Now he is just some disembodied Ghost stuck in his mechanical eye for some reason...I still suspect the Devs mistook Garrett's mechanical eye for 'The Eye' that he retrieved for the Trickster.
Having stopped in and heard from their community manager on Discord, it seems like this game is just another blind attempt to mine the series for another dollar, without having paid attention to any of the issues fans had with Thief 2014. The game is produced in cooperation with Eidos Montreal, so I'm fairly certain they're reusing the tech from Thief 2014 with a new coat of paint...hence the same rope arrow tech.
I was excited when I heard the announcement. Then disappointed when I learned it was not going to have a non-VR release and the devs had no interest in doing so...and then I checked out when I realized it was the same Thief 2014 double talk when it came to rope arrows. I won't be surprised if you can only mantle or jump where the Devs want you to like in 2014.
Aja on 12/8/2025 at 14:59
It's hard to describe to those who don't play VR, but stuff that looks shitty on the flat screen can be compelling in the headset. The scale, the interaction, the sense of immersion are all enhanced in ways that can't be depicted on a 2D screen. So while deep down I'm not optimistic that this will be great and I don't think there's much chance it'll live up to the originals (like, honestly, there's zero chance of that), it could still be a fun game in its own right with some good voice acting, and I'm here for that.
New Horizon on 12/8/2025 at 17:17
Quote Posted by Aja
It's hard to describe to those who don't play VR, but stuff that looks shitty on the flat screen can be compelling in the headset. The scale, the interaction, the sense of immersion are all enhanced in ways that can't be depicted on a 2D screen. So while deep down I'm not optimistic that this will be great and I don't think there's much chance it'll live up to the originals (like, honestly, there's zero chance of that), it could still be a fun game in its own right with some good voice acting, and I'm here for that.
I've used VR a fair bit in my career as a software tester. It can be fun for sure but I still think this should have been a game that appeared as both a VR and at a later time, a standard release. I mean it has been 11 years since the debacle of Thief 2014 and their answer is to build another Thief titled game without even addressing the issues from 10 years ago like the rope arrows and goodness knows what else? I hope it provides some fun for causal players but I seriously doubt it's going to measure up in any way to those first two games.
Aja on 12/8/2025 at 18:29
Of course it's not going to. And likely no subsequent Thief game, if there even are any others, ever will. But if we can get something along the lines of Metro Awakening -- that is, a small-scale but polished and fun take on the franchise -- that'll be enough for me.
As for converting the VR game to flatscreen, I can't think of a single example where this has been done successfully. As I said above, the things that make VR games exciting don't usually translate well to the flatscreen. Take even the rope arrows, for example. While I'd love for them to be less constrained, in VR at least you'll be able to aim them with your arms and climb the ropes with your hands. Or you could hang on the rope with one hand and use your other hand for a different tool. In one of the previews they mentioned using both hands to position your body over railings or around doorways. I've seen this done in other VR games like Synapse, and if they can make it work in Thief, it'll have a level of environmental interactivity that even the originals don't. These sorts of interactions aren't possible in flatscreen games, so if they wanted to do both, they'd have to develop it as a flat game first and then port it over. Which would be great, but that's not what this project is.
Renault on 12/8/2025 at 21:15
I feel like some people here need to temper their expectations a bit. This game is not supposed to be the next great full on episode in the Thief saga, it's absolutely a spin-off, or kind of a side chapter. I'm sure the devs are fully aware that making a game in VR will rule out a decent portion of the fanbase, and they're OK with that. It's also likely going to be a 5-7 hour game costing something like 30 bucks. Let's not pretend it's anything else, and no one from Maze Theory or Vertigo has promised otherwise (at least from what I've seen).
I saw someone on the Maze Theory discord ask if a level editor was going to be released. There's no way that's going to happen, it's just not realistic. I think people just need to take this game for what it is, and hopefully have some fun with it. And (as has been mentioned) don't try to compare it to the originals, that's just not a logical or reasonable thing to do. More than likely everything you know about Thief will be watered down and simplified for a VR environment.
Now, if the game does well, maybe that will lead to something bigger and more serious.
New Horizon on 13/8/2025 at 13:45
Quote Posted by Renault
I saw someone on the Maze Theory discord ask if a level editor was going to be released. There's no way that's going to happen, it's just not realistic. I think people just need to take this game for what it is, and hopefully have some fun with it. And (as has been mentioned) don't try to compare it to the originals, that's just not a logical or reasonable thing to do. More than likely everything you know about Thief will be watered down and simplified for a VR environment.
Now, if the game does well, maybe that will lead to something bigger and more serious.
That was me, I asked if there was going to be a level editor, SDK, this time out. It's a reasonable question and not at all unrealistic to expect one given the history of the series. If the developers were truly aware of the history of Thief, it's something that they could have planned for and incorporated into early development...which is why I was asking...but the community managers answer made it clear that there has been no thought or planning given to an editor/SDK, just like Eidos Montreal and ION Storm before them.
To go back and decouple everything from the Editor after release would be an insane amount of work. That's what ION Storm had to do. If I recall they were able to assign one coder to the task and Gingerbreadman helped test the editor to get it into a stable enough state for release.
Personally I am so tired of settling for what things are. I want game developers to step up and deliver something worthy of the series for a change. I don't believe there is anything wrong in communicating higher expectations to the devs...knowing of course they have no obligation to meet those expectations. If this ends up being another surface level Thief entry, so be it, I hope someone enjoys it.
Hanover Aldercash on 15/8/2025 at 01:11
Quote Posted by New Horizon
I want game developers to step up and deliver something worthy of the series for a change.
They have been doing so for 28 years, for free.
I know it's not quite the same thing, but it is part of the absurdity of this situation.
New Horizon on 15/8/2025 at 11:43
Who? You mean the Thief Modding community?
Hanover Aldercash on 15/8/2025 at 16:04
Who else? It would be odd not to mention them, given how often they have succeeded where the Franchise has failed. We just got Black Parade and One Man's Trash, two masterpieces of equivalent value. Imagine what their authors could do with a proper budget.
