Being the first major release on the new shiny consoles of 2014, and being the reboot of a venerable series with a large fan base, Thief had a considerable weight of expectation on its frail shoulders before it was pushed out into the limelight. 

Being one of the first ‘next-gen‘ games to be released, the first thing anybody wants to know is whether it looks good, and for all you shallow gamers who just want to see a fantastically rendered eyebrow instead of any kind of story, it does look good. It looks great even.

‘The City of Dunwall‘ looks amazing in all it’s steam-punk glory. The fog drapes over the bleak and shadowy streets, making the city look for all the world like a delightful Gothic playground for everybody’s favourite master thief to explore.

However, it may look like a playground, but it’s actually a well-decorated but painfully linear series of paths. Most levels have a single route Garrett has to traverse, meaning that all the buildings that look oh so climbable are literally just for decoration. Garrett can’t even climb onto a three-foot box unless he is specifically supposed to climb on that particular box.

The aggressively linear nature of Thief ultimately ruins it. It’s a shame to see such a well-presented game killed by such bad level design, but forcing Thief down a linear path would be like making Grand Theft Auto into a turn-based RPG. It just does not work.

The beautifully rendered city-scape becomes an intangible ideal, there just to taunt you. ‘Look at the fun you could be having if you had the ability to stalk along the roofs and approach missions in a variety of ways, you know, like we promised. Now get through that particular window and go down that corridor.’

Because of the lack of freedom, the stealth is dull and repetitive. I got past most obstacles by either throwing a bottle to distract the guard of the moment, or using the water-arrows to put out a nearby light so I could walk past whilst they were all distracted by it.

The guards stick to their scripted ten metre paths, which makes them predictable and easily bested. Even if one does catch a glimpse at Garrett, if the player runs for about ten seconds, there’s usually a point where the guards can’t follow, there’s a checkpoint and then everybody acts like nothing happened.

Through-out this game there is a major problem with sound, which affects the stealth. How loud somebody’s voice is seems to have no correlation to how close they are to Garrett or how many walls there are between them. The player will be sneaking through a darkened room and all of a sudden, they’ll hear a booming voice complain about the weather as if they were in the same room, but it’ll turn out they’re downstairs in front of the fire.

Thief is hub-based, meaning the player has to traipse from Garrett’s hide-out to the next mission every time they want to do some stealing. At first I appreciated the trek, because it gave me a chance to soak up the graphics, but like everything, their effect soon wore off and I began to resent having to sneak past the same guards, spilling the same dialogue lines about how everybody hates them but they don’t care because they’re in charge.

The game also has side-quests, but it’s during these that Thief’s linear nature is as aggressive as it possibly could be. They usually involve going to a house nearby, climbing through the window, stealing a single item and then leaving again. It’s less a riveting example of the life of a renegade master thief, and more of a light-fingered window cleaner.

There isn’t even that much stealing in the game. Sure, there are things to steal, and it’s very satisfying when the player manages to slip unnoticed into somebody’s treasure room and pocket their favourite earrings, but beyond the fleeting enjoyment of the actual stealing, there’s no real reward or context.

Why is he stealing? The answer ‘because he’s a thief’ doesn’t really satisfy me. He lives in an abandoned watchtower so he doesn’t need to pay rent. He doesn’t seem to have any hobbies to fund. The only thing he buys is items to help him become more efficient at stealing. It seems to me he could be equally as happy just laying about in his hideaway, stealing the odd titbit when neccessity arises.

In terms of story context, Thief introduces a female character, who is simultaneously a potential love-interest and daughter-figure, and instantly kills her. Garrett then spends the rest of the game pining over her as if he was traumatised by her death. Well, he may have been but I certainly wasn’t, so what’s in it for me?

In wider terms, The City of Dunwall is being ravaged by a terrible plague called ‘the gloom’ and the aristocratic leaders are ruling ruthlessly with little care for those in the streets. Sound familiar?

There are good things about Thief. As I said earlier, stealing is fundamentally satisfying, even if it is a bit aimless. It is visually brilliant, and the lock-picking mechanic is probably the best lock-picking I’ve ever played in a game. Also, when Garrett feels something with his hands, like for instance a painting with a switch behind it, the ultra-realistic way he feels the texture just staggered me every-time. It may be an insignificant feature, but thank god for small mercies.

Thief is disappointing, both to it’s fan-base and to the newcomer. It’s a bland, linear action-adventure game wearing the skin of an open-world stealth game. If you want to play a fantastic stealth game that will let you climb onto anything you see, go steal yourself a copy of Dishonered. 

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