THIEF: Definitive Edition

Yeah, it's a cinematic game - unfortunately the opposite of the player agency of the Thief series up to this point. The graphics really are great though, so it's pretty immersive. Too bad that the maps are once again tiny but even worse, this time designed to lead you around on a leash. Now, this could've still been pretty cool but Thief was just treated like a brand here as they threw out everything but a few names with no replacement for the huge central theme of the balance and the Keepers that maintain it. You know, what Thief is ALL about. It's not really about stealing cutlery which this one hones in on. Jenivere as a crow is cute, so I'm not against switching things around and coming up with smart new takes, but the entire story of this game is nonsense that leads nowhere. I thought not being able to jump would be a bigger problem but you can parkour over a lot. Of course, with context-sensitive controls comes inconsistency – you can nimbly cross this meters high barricade here but can't step over that pipe that sticks up a few inches? Oh boy. Game sells for 3 bucks these days so it can be worth it, just because the environments are really nice and gives you a sense of what a modern Thief-game could look like. That might also get you a bit depressed.

By itself, this is not a bad game at all. You have to change some options to really make it a somewhat Thief game and that's where Eidos failed at with this on making it too easy out of the box, but it's not necessarily bad at all. I still put in over a 100 hrs into it on my Steam account. My biggest complaint with this game is that it was catered to consoles and because of that, it was to easy out of the box with focus enabled (blue outline on anything interactive) and people could fly through it. When it was originally launched, it got a ton of negative press because people could complete it in less then 10 hrs and for the price of 60$, it wasn't worth it and if there was no way to turn that off, I'd have to agree with it but you can and you should. Eidos got this wrong. If you go into options and disable the focus and some other options, it becomes more of an actual Thief game. There are still the "loading" issues which is still irritating but this wasn't as bad as a lot of people make it out to be if you disable all the things that make it easy. The ending still felt off and some other parts of the story but overall, if you disable the things that basically hand hold you and tell you what to click, it's a much more enjoyable experience. Get it while it's on sale and judge for yourself but you'll get a good couple of hours out of it for a couple of bucks and worth it in my opinion.

Diamond in the rough, with some genuine strong ideas and moments. Held back by a half-baked story, and some flawed execution. If this game was a spiritual succesor and had claled itself INSPIRED by Thief, I think people would sing its praise as one of the better Stealth games in the last decade... But~, well, it wore the name of the grand-daddy of the entire sub-genera. And for a lot of those rabbid fans, above avarage just wasn't good enough. Go in with low expectations, and there's a lot to actually like or even love in this game. just don't... Well, playing this and expecting Thief 4 is kinda this game's entire tragedy in a nut-shell. This giant simply did not fill the titans shoes, no matter how hard he tried.

It´s even more linear than Thief Deadly Shadows, Thief Deadly Shadows was semi linear, acceptable, this is just linear. This game has amazing Unreal Engine 3 visuals, but lacks any proper design choice. It has this awful fog when crouching, that indicates wether you are visible or not. Fog vignette. all this type of stuff is just, why modern gaming has become a joke. Oldschool designers rationalized according to the graphics with shadows and lighting, and these designers tried themselves at it too, but unlike the originals, they couldn´t properly design levels and shadows so players know when they are visible or not. that´s the BAIN of soft shadows in this games 2014 era. it required stencil shadows or raytracing. neither was legitimate at the time. So, it was like dishonored, just an empty husk of it´s formerself with some shitty story and cringe characters to add to the mix. I don´t know. It´s like emo garrett meets, cringey batwoman and both have an adventure of game designers trying their first steps in a thief game, while ignoring what made thief great by avoiding to play the originals. It´s decent for casuals, people unfamiliar with the brand and even genre. And that´s why it gets the hate.

I tried to like this game, got about half way through, but it is just horrible and quit as the whole time I was wishing this was the original Thief The Dark Project. When compared to the games that proceeded it, it is like they took everything bad about a console and added it to this game. Its biggest let down: It is just not fun. I kept trying to go a little farther to see what comes next thinking maybe it had something redeeming, but it really doesn't. It is mostly boring. Even Thief Deadly Shadows, the worst of the bunch before this, still had some fun to it. Thief 3 also had one of the most scary levels in any game to date, but not this one. There is nothing there. Hollow is the proper word. Voice acting too - Not the same Garrett. +1 star for good graphics.