Mr. Tibbs on 27/11/2013 at 04:24

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There's a 0% chance of that happening.

I'm looking forward to folks over on the official Eidos forums justifying the slew of 3/5 scores, underwhelming sales and "most disappointing game" nominations in 2014.

Silliness aside, Thief just doesn't look like a title that's going to inspire much passion on either side of the fence. I doubt anyone will turn down the chance of playing a great game, but right now, everything I've seen seems really underwhelming. Aside from being a showpiece for the new consoles, why would anyone pick Thief (2014) over Dishonored? It seems like Eidos Montreal are trying to make the best of a bad situation. The fact that Square-Enix has cancelled their original property, the projects been through multiple, troubled iterations and the publishers financial worries indicates Eidos Montreal might be transitioning from a three game studio to the Deus Ex studio in a matter of months.

Renault on 27/11/2013 at 06:48

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Tbh, I think "Game of the Year" means very little to people around here, especially if it's being dished out by IGN, Gamespot, and any other type of overly commercial site.

I mean, I'm sure Bioshock Infinite will win a few of those awards, but most of the folks around here were fairly lukewarm on that one. And I'm not even talking about just the Thief forums.

jay pettitt on 27/11/2013 at 12:00

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Accepting that there's more about T4 that we don't know than we do...

I'd be bothered. Because I've got some notions about what does and more importantly what doesn't make for good design and good narrative and I'm pretty much prepared to nail my colours to the mast on that one. From what I've seen of T4 (which is limited) it looks to all the world like they're specifically doing most of the things that I reckon don't make for good design or good narrative.

So at best I'll have misjudged T4. At worst I'll be totally wrong about everything I think I ever knew about anything. But lets cross that hurdle if it happens. Which it won't.

yxlplig on 28/11/2013 at 15:27

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It seems really unlikely that Thief 4 will get named Game of the Year. If you look at Dishonored, sure they're selling a GOTY Edition and it probably was some site's game of the year, but it didn't really get praised by the gaming press other than just being acknowledged as an entertaining and well put together game.

Now look at Bioshock or Bioshock Infinite. Very similar type of game. It plays similarly to Dishonored, they are from the same lineage of games, but the press absolutely loves Bioshock. I would argue that the difference in the way these games are treated by the press is that Bioshock deals with serious social issues. I don't think it has anything intelligent to say about those themes, but they are there as window dressing and that's the main difference. The press can hold up Bioshock Infinite and say, "Look how deep videogames are, we don't review toys for children at all. Look there's objectivism."

Thief 4 goes the Dishonored route and doesn't seem to be very pretentious about the themes it's story touches on. Maybe if they were making a commentary on disparities between the rich and the poor, or something about the banks it would be hailed as GOTY, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

EDIT:

I'm willing to admit that I would be mad if it happened.

kora on 29/11/2013 at 04:24

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Sooo, no Q&A till next week I take it.