Thief Reviews
Thief has good stealth going for it, but everything connecting its few relatively open scenarios is a mess.
Great in places, but never quite lives up to its potential. A competent sequel let down by inconsistency.
At times the game suffers from a lack of ambition, placing far too much importance on the tiresome looting of endless cupboards and dressers in the vain hope that this will be enough to propel you forwards. In other places, Thief suffers from too much ambition, unable to draw its systems into a cohesive whole. Whether the game simply needed more time or entirely different foundations is never quite clear. Either way, it's a game that adds up to less than the sum of its parts.
Thief maintains the strengths of its stealth-centric predecessors and offers plenty in the way of actual thievery, but don't expect any fun, new gameplay mechanics or an enchanting story in this reboot.
Series fans may view it as a disaster but the problem is that Thief isn't even interesting enough to get angry about, despite the well hewn stealth gameplay.
Thief's sneaking challenges are highly rewarding when you ghost through the world undetected, but will send you to the loading screen repeatedly if you're not careful
At its best, Thief makes you feel like a devious outlaw. Sadly, such moments are too few.
The elements of a better game never come together in Thief
Thief offers up moments of stealthy satisfaction, but not nearly enough of them to make up for its many rough edges, bland level designs, and god-awful plot.
A shambling, mediocre mess.
Thief will almost certainly frustrate fans of the older trilogy, but it suffers shortcomings on a more objective level as well. Though solidly made, it never challenges the well-worn conventions of stealth action. In short, it lacks a certain spark of inspiration. It's good, yet it falls short of "future classic" status.
Thief is a great escape for those of you who yearn for more stealth experiences, but it doesn't really offer up anything exciting. The story and characters are somewhat forgettable, most of the missions are straightforward, and the locales tend to blend together after a while. Having said that, there's a lot of potential here if you dig deep down into the game's ingenious difficulty sliders and challenge modes. In that sense, Thief succeeds as a bold stealth game, despite its bruises.
Thief shows one too many unrefined edges, occasionally catching itself unable to resolve the issue combining classic design with modern production. That said, although it won't steal the spotlight, it should do enough to steal your attention.
It's not exactly a perfect run for Garrett, but players will still find many things worth taking.
There is the idea of what a Thief game should be here, and it's not complicated. Strip it down, get back to the essentials, and this game may have played something more like Arkane's excellent Dishonored. As it stands, however, it's neither itself nor, really, anything else.
Thief has its hang-ups, particularly with frustrating loading times and repetitive gameplay that will have players unlocking the same doors over and over again. However, Eidos Montreal has captured the essence of stealth gameplay with their take on Thief. Players may have to work to find what makes the game special, but nobody said being a master thief was easy.
Thief feels like a game that couldn't even get the basics right, let alone offer anything new and interesting. It will almost certainly be a let down for fans of the series, and new comers will likely expect much more from such a respected series and developer.
Longevity is added by a huge amount of collectibles, from trinkets and rare treasures to documents and newspapers, but if you fancy leaving the story behind for a while you can enter the challenge maps and test yourself against the world in online leaderboards. There's an array of challenges (both timed and otherwise) that will test your skills and earn you bragging rights if you know how to use the shadows right.
Uninspiring, if solid enough.
Despite my disappointment with Thief's setting and story, I did enjoy my time with it. Sneaking about, pickpocketing guards, picking locks, and finding new ways to infiltrate a building are as satisfying as ever, and the game looks and sounds great (despite some janky audio mixing). As a longtime fan of the series, I want to believe a spot exists for Garrett in the current stealth-action genre he helped create. And if one doesn't? Well, he'll probably just wind up stealing one anyway.