Thief Reboot: Good Game/Bad Game?

Garret's just gonna take this now okay thanks

This week, Jarys and Eli got together to discuss the new Thief game. Rather than try and make it a standard review, they found their conversation interesting enough to share with us. Enjoy! -Ed

Jarys Maragopoulos
Alright, let's start by introducing ourselves. I'm Jarys Maragopoulos, Co-Host of the Ace of Geeks Podcast, and Editor for the Ace of Geeks.

 Eli English
I'm Eli, writer for the Ace of Geeks.

 Jarys Maragopoulos
And we are both playing the new Thief Reboot game.

 Eli English
So, Jarys. What are you enjoying and disliking about Thief so far?


 Jarys Maragopoulos
I'm glad you say "so far" because it should be mentioned that I am only on Chapter three of the game. We both are coming to this conversation with some holes. I have not completed this game, but you have, yes?



 Eli English
Not yet, no. I'm currently on chapter 6 out of 9 in the game. I've done a lot of the side jobs in the game too.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
*nod* I'm glad to hear there are side jobs.
To answer your question, I am really enjoying this game so far. It has been ten years since the last instalment, and a title reboot was unnecessary, but I feel this game is still very much in the spirit of Thief.


 Eli English
There are. Quite a handful of them, too. I currently have 15-20 active side jobs. Some of them are simple "deactivate this trap, grab this loot, leave" and some of them are a lot more interactive with additional guards or traps laying hidden to hinder you. I'm sad to say that the game seems to have a lot of quick jobs (5 minutes or less) then it does longer, more interactive jobs.


 Eli English
What difficulty are you playing the game through? Are you setting any challenges for yourself (no killing, no being spotted, etc.)?


 Jarys Maragopoulos
I always play games at the most medium possible difficulty, to get a baseline understanding of the game. I am also playing on "no murder, unless plot requires it to progress" The game is called "Thief" not "Assassin", so I enjoy making as little mortal harm as possible. I also do not like to end a job while ever being seen. I really enjoy the idea of being completely mysterious in the character's comings and goings. You?


 Eli English
I'm playing through on the hardest difficulty. I originally was doing a "no murders or knockouts" playthrough but I have killed and knocked out a handful of guards after chapter 4 or so.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
Why did you feel you had to kill them?


 Eli English
I was getting frustrated with some of the games limitations (no jumping, for example) so I felt like in order to progress in some areas, I had to kill or knockout a few guards. I had more lethal arrows than I did non-lethal, so I went the lethal approach.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
The non-lethal arrows are the "interact from afar" ones? They also let you hit switches and things?


 Eli English
Yeah. That also includes choke arrows or water arrows. I don't know if choke arrows are a lot more lethal on easier difficulties, but I used them as a way to quickly incapacitate and knock out enemies. It's not very useful, as if you hit 2 guards with a choke arrow and you proceed to takedown one of them, they will stop choking and attack you.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
*nod* I think the choke arrows are for distracting them for a bit. I assume they trigger the "spotted" condition?


 Eli English
I know they alert, but I don't know if it activates as being spotted as guards never rushed me when I shot a choke arrow, but they always left people going "OKAY, WHO DID THAT?" Players who have the custom challenge of never being spotted may be sent back to a checkpoint by using them.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
*nod* I did not know there were custom challenges. That sounds fun. So how are you enjoying the game so far, Eli?


 Eli English
The custom challenges are there. They add a score difficulty which allow you to add in special difficulties (no killing, no being spotted, no non-lethal takedowns) which sound like a lot of fun.



Eli English
Sadly, I'm not really liking Thief. The game looks great and I like the amount of detail put into the game, but I dislike a large portion of the story, the huge amount of similarities to Dishonored and the darkness that shrouds the game in a somewhat silly and overdone darkness for darkness sake sort of way.


 Eli English
I also dislike the control scheme. Having no jumping and replacing a jump with a dash or a small leap has lead to me dying a large amount of times.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
I find these reactions interesting, because, I have opposite reactions. Let's see if we can understand one another.

Dowsed and darkened in 3...2...1...

Jarys Maragopoulos
Ok, so what similarities to Dishonored bother you and why?


 Eli English
The games general vibe and atmosphere (dark and grim) feels way too close to Dishonored and both of the games have certain bits in the story that seem way too close. Although I can't tell you about that without spoilers. Is it okay to spoil?


 Jarys Maragopoulos
Hmmm, let's not. Can you refer to the story bits according to their tropes and such? Is it betrayal in the end? Is Garret betrayed by his support structure?


 Eli English
There is a bit of betrayal. It's silly and you can see it coming, but it's there. The whole plot structure seems to be built on tropes. Between Erin, the "bad girl" thief, Garrett, the survivors guilt stricken "I DON'T GET INVOLVED IN THIS" good guy and the needlessly dark world surrounding The City, it's a trope built plot.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
It is as I suspected. I have found, in previous Thief games, rampant tropes. The city and its darkness is a character in itself. The darkness of the setting and the grim yet snide bitterness of the main character is prevalent in all the games. Even the obvious last minute betrayal is typical of these games


 Jarys Maragopoulos
We always knew that Dishonored would be based off of Thief. The first games inspired the newer game. I think what you see in Dishonored from Thief belong to the Thief franchise all along

I have no idea where the bad girl character came from. She is new.


 Eli English
I know Basso has been in the older games, but Erin seemed to come out of no where according to my friends who have played the older games.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
Indeed.


 Eli English
I think the biggest falls for Thief come in its gameplay. Between the lack of a jump button which has had me die multiple times, glitches in audio (characters would speak two different lines at the same time or would be incredibly quiet or super loud when speaking) and general NPC glitches, there are tons of bugs to kill the vibe the game tries desperately to produce.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
That I can not defend , though I do not believe the last two Thief games had a jump. I am encountering fewer bug


 Eli English
I like the dash mechanic they added, but I wish a jump feature was also there as it would lead to fewer accidental deaths for me.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
What is happening there?


 Eli English
Well, in order to jump to ropes you need to grab or to climb obstacles, you'll need to use the dash. Because there's no button to jump, you have to dash. That dash can lead to you falling to your death, doing a needless dash which requires you to dash again (and if you're being chased, that will get you killed) or it'll work.

But it working fully depends on a lot of things that are beyond your control.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
Such as?


 Eli English
Because if you try to leap onto a thing of rope, there will be sometimes in which it will just send you right off the edge to your death or to a point where Garrett is seriously hurt. It's really up to the game to decide if it wants you to make the jump or not. The only somewhat successful strategy I found is to shoot a rope, wait a couple of seconds for its animation to finish and THEN jump. Or to go to an edge, stop, wait and after a few seconds you can jump. If you like to play games a lot more aggressive, this won't work as by the time you've stopped, you're already seriously hurt or dead.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
It sounds like the dash/climb button is very contextual.

But I am not having these problems with it, which may lead to our different take from the game.


 Eli English
I'd imagine so. I'm encountering far too many issues with the save system and the feel of the world to a point where my general enjoyment of the game is very low and very selective. I've enjoyed one mission and a couple of side jobs so far, but nothing else besides that.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps I need to play more before the glitches catch up to me?

The Aforementioned Erin. Best secondary character...?

 Eli English
Possibly. You could get lucky and have a glitch free experience, but I doubt that will be the case.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
We'll see. So, dark for darkness' sake. I agree, this can be extremely frustrating, but I do not agree that the game is dark for darkness' sake alone.

At least, no more than Dishonored was. I believe both games use darkness to accentuate the themes. Dishonored uses the dark art and story lines to highlight the emotional darkness of desiring revenge.

While Thief uses the dark art and storylines to highlight the darkness both literal and figurative that the main character must skulk through to get what they want.


 Eli English
No, the game does have a light at the end of the tunnel in the later chapters. It's not "everything is dark and it always will be," but I felt like Dishonored hit the nail on the head a lot more and a lot better then Thief did. Plus I feel like Dishonored did a better example of a dark world by adding in the fact that you could choose what happened. You could choose if the world was gonna be dark or if it could become lighter again. That makes it a better game by giving you choice. Thief rarely gives you a choice besides for the occasional "do you want some extra loot? Find this"


 Eli English
I think now is a good time to talk about the characters in this world. Garrett has a lot of people he regularly speaks to and the players he crosses paths with. How did you feel about Garrett, Basso and Erin? Did you like the chatter you noticed throughout the game?


 Jarys Maragopoulos
Mostly yes, so far. I like Garret's gentle neutrality. It makes any moral action he takes, or the moral actions I take when I choose not to kill, to be all the more meaningful.

Basso has the same one note character he has always had. Erin is interesting, though not very deep as far as I have seen her. I tend not to like characters as self ignorant, brash, and ambitious as her. I appreciate that Garret and Erin do not seem to have a romance going.

Yet, at least...

...Or is The City the best secondary character

 Eli English
I haven't noticed a romance so far, but I have noticed in dialogue between Garrett and others that it's getting dangerously close to Garrett going "but... I LOVED HER!" I don't mind Garrett or Basso as characters, but I felt that Erin was very forced in to try to add emotional depth to the game.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
Honestly, I don't see the emotional depth yet, but I do see the shadow of a mentor student relationship.


 Eli English
Note that I said "tried" though. I feel like it was just a way to get Garrett to be more emotional about certain situations he encounters. I'd like to say more about that, but I can't without spoilers.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
So, as we previously discussed, please summarize your thoughts and would you recommend this game.


 Eli English
Honestly, this game does get a few things right. I really feel like a thief when I play this game. The game also looks really nice and the soundtrack is fantastic. There is a mission or two plus a couple of the side jobs that are really fun. But between a huge amount of bugs, a handful of annoying situations that could have easily been solved and a world that seems to be too dark for the sake of being dark, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
While I understand where you are coming from, I enjoy the game much more. I feel that there were a lot of elements from previous Thief games that are present here, while still being new. The story interests me, I like this Garret. The gameplay is interesting. I would recommend this game to any Thief fan....but I would make sure they knew I have not completed the game.


 Eli English
That's a very fair view of the game.


 Jarys Maragopoulos
Could not have done it with out you. Thank you for doing this with me, Eli.


 Eli English
Thank you for having me!

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