THIEF: Definitive Edition

While I'm of the opinion that this game doesn't deserve the amount of hate that it gets, I completely understand *why* it gets that hate. Thief 4 came out after the popularity of Dishonored and before Dishonored 2, so there were a lot of things that were done to change the main mechanics of the game. There was suddenly a new focus more on the *magical* aspects of the series when it came to how you traversed the world. While Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age had elements of Garret using mystic technologies, the gameplay was largely a mundane thief making their way through the mystical world. And it was great. Here we're given a mundane thief becomes a magical one, and it just plays more like Dishonored than Thief. Then there was the combat becoming easier, having the game encouraging killing sometimes rather than making it a bad idea (but still doable) like in the first games. The choice to remove the voice actor was bad. And the story was not in line with Thief. Garret wouldn't work with anyone or be kind to people. He was a hardened thief in the old games and had little sympathy for people in his professions. Yes, his cooperation was shortlived, but it became the impetus for Garret moving the story along unlike his old motivation. Stealing. Like a thief would. The guard AI is worse than the old games, which it wasn't great then so that's saying something. Finally there's the enclosed areas and limited traversal. Thief 3 made that mistake because it was made specifically for consoles and it seems they didn't learn there lesson here. It's slightly better compared to 3 because of improved hardware but you can still expect lots of load screens and highlighted 'go here' travel points. A missed opportunity simply because it set out to try to imitate the success of Dishonored.

Imagein you are buying a wine. You really like semi-dry, so you buy one labelled very dry. But after opening it turns out that it's a lager beer! Same here: in theory it's stealth game, in theory it's Thief. But every level has some kind of crazy fly or die sequence (so not very stealth). And game is absolutely linear, hero even cannot jump! Also you cannot normally do any action, because everything neds to have animation. After seeing same gold picuk for the 1000 time or hearing same senstence from a guard 5th time in 10 minutes... Game is using nostalgia of old fans by reusing same place and character names, but treats as if previous games never happened, abusing the story and game world. And It's not as if it's not possible these days to make a good stealth immersive sim, where you can do what you like. Dishonored proved otherwise, being a better game than Thief 3.

There is so many things to list that I don't even know where to start. Just play the original 2 Thief games and act like this game never existed and you'll be much happier. Even if you turn every game-mechanic off in the options, such as the ridiculous "focus" or the minimap, it still isn't nowhere near the originals in its atmosphere and gameplay depth. The developers complete missed or deliberately ignored what made the originals great and made this mess. Just some lowlights of the game: - there is bossfights ... in a stealth game... and they are lackluster to say the least - you have "objectives" in every mission which includes stuff like "3 headshots".. why? and who is paying you gold for completing them? - your hideout in the clocktower is completely superfluous - the levels are super linear, could as well be from a FPS - There are more guards in a single mission than in the entire original Thief. It is absurd. - no noise arrow and no moss arrow. Instead we get an explosive arrow. For gods sake this is a stealth game not a FPS. What were they thinking? - you need to turn valves by moving your mouse in a circle 20 times... guess it was designed for console players but this just shows how this game is simple void of love and attention to detail. - most disappointing ending of any videogame ever I give 2 stars because at least it is playable, didn't crash and 10% of it was fun.

Don't buy this game expecting a proper modern entry in the Thief franchise because that's simply not what you will get here. What you get is more in likeness of the Dishonored franchise (without the magic powers) with a Thief setting. This is a reboot. Much more linear and simplified compared to the older entries of the original trilogy. Not a bad game necessarily but definitely a bad reboot for Thief in terms of story and what it is compared to.

and are desperate... this probably still isn't what you want. (+) It has some nice atmospherics (-) It's clunky as heck thanks to all the canned animations for interactions (-) You can only use certain special arrows with specific hot-spot nodes (-) The story is really lackluster, the ending feels really meh (+/-) Open world/city, but the city is heavily segmented, with loading screens. (?) There's an upgrade system with skills and perks If you come from the other Thief games, it is likely you'll be disappointed with this one. It's not completely insufferable, but just know there's no reward at the end either.