Thief Reviews
Eidos Montreal's smartly designed reboot will pilfer dozens of hours of your free time – and you'll wish it would take more.
For where it falls short, it far more often had me crouched in a shadow, heart racing, waiting for the perfect moment to dart past a guard's routine. It may be the fourth best Thief game, but it's a damned fine game in its own rights.
Though this might seem incongruous with the rest of the review, Thief is definitely a game that's worth playing. It gets a recommendation, despite the final score and its many, many, many flaws, because the stealth gameplay really is great, and with pure stealth games becoming such a rarity it's gratifying to find a game that really brings the art of thieving to life.
Despite my deep reservations regarding the reboot of my favorite character and the world he inhabits, Thief manages to deliver a compelling experience. Sure it's a bit grimy in areas, but the team at Eidos Montreal have done well with the reboot of this title, just as they did for Deus Ex. The main missions are immersive, and the team has clearly catered to both new audiences and us old taffers with the bevy of options and mods. While it may not convey the same style as its forerunners, it delivers what I would call a mostly-authentic Thief experience. Now, let's talk about getting those cutscenes back…
Nick Cowen: Thief feels unwieldy at times, although it's not the travesty some reviewers are making it out to be
A prolonged development has not been kind to this reboot of the classic Thief series, making for a game stitched together from disparate parts of better contemporaries.
The three major strengths of past Thief titles - wide open mission design, sound propagation and narrative - are this game's biggest weaknesses. That is a fundamental problem it cannot hope to overcome.
While the game does have its faults - particularly falling apart when Garrett is spotted - Thief excels in the shadows as a pure stealth title, becoming increasingly enjoyable as your skills improve.
of the original will likely find parts they love about Garrett's new adventure, but anyone bred on more recent stealth games likely won't see what all the fuss is about. Eidos Montreal has done an admirable job, but too much holds it back from being the reinvention of the franchise we all were hoping for.
Thief is a mess. It's disappointing that there's a genuinely good game hidden under a lot of mediocrity.
Despite some of Thief's annoyances, the game is rich in detail and hard to put down. Needless to say, this is one convict I won't be locking up any time soon.
There's tense, creative stealth action to be had in Thief's fun-but-flawed triumph over technical flubs, wasted narrative potential, and cringeworthy dialogue.
In fact, of all the games I've been in, this one is definitely the worst. I've been in some terrific games though, so that's not as damning a verdict as it looks. If I adjust the difficulty by turning off HUD elements, never ever get into any sort of combat with the incompetent AI and try to ignore huge chunks of the game in which I'm forced into criminally unimaginative and unstealthy situations, and then pretend that the zombies don't exist, and then maybe just not play the last two chapters at all, then this is an okay game with two or three good missions.
Actively unpleasant to play, embarrassingly buggy, and wholly devoid of any personality, Eidos Montreal's Thief reboot certainly isn't the worthy continuation fans waited almost a decade for.
The makings of an absolutely fantastic game are evident here, and fans of the genre will love what's being offered. However, there are just too many flaws at launch to really recommend Thief to a wider audience.
To the player willing to take the game at a slower pace, with a focus on pure stealth and without the artifice of in game assistance Thief will deliver the goods. For everyone else the reward may not be worth the effort.
This is a great restart for the franchise and should hopefully bring in a new set of fans (like myself). While some of the platforming can be a bit cumbersome and the A.I can be downright moronic at times, this game is a good starting point for future titles that will no doubt refine the mechanics and add to the game's lore. Fans and non fans of the stealth genre should find a lot to enjoy in Thief.
I wanted so much for Thief to be fun, and in the beginning I did have a lot of fun with it. But, due to no sense of impact in the story and its unrewarding gameplay, it degraded into a chore well before the final act. While playing Thief I couldn't help but feel like I'd done this all before, and often in a better setting. Thief may be a throwback to the early days of stealth games, but this reboot really feels aged and dated. While there is some fun to be had, you will have to sift through a mess of problems to find it. Now, this is the part where I insert the obligatory "Thief didn't manage to steal my heart" line, right?
All this being said, Thief is ultimately worth playing, especially for fans of the stealth genre. It hearkens back to the things that made the original games of the late '90s and early '00s so intense and enjoyable, while offering a wealth of settings and options that cater to a wide range of players. If you can forgive the game's rough edges and its lack of a unique vision, Thief might just rob you of a dozen or two hours without you even noticing.