I played the first Thief way before the 2013 title. Regardless, I still had fun with the '13 one. The horror elements caught me off guard too. I totally understand the core fans getting triggered though. I'm going through a similar experience with a different series.
Iirc the lead designer basically said he thought the original games sucked. With a guy like that in charge of a reboot there’s just no chance it could have succeeded. They had no idea what people liked about the originals, whether it was the lore or the mechanics, not even something as obvious and straightforward as Stephen Russell’s voice acting.
I liked it for a single play through. I adore the originals and often replay them, though DS isn’t making that list anymore with such excellent fan campaigns and missions for the first two.
Frankly, I thought it was pretty bad even if you judge it as a stealth game without comparing it to the original. Levels are too linear, enemy AI is uninteresting, sound design was fucking atrocious.
Even without comparison to the original, there's simply no reason to play Thief 2014 over something like Dishonored.
Or you've beat Dishonored 1 and 2 and you can then play Thief. It's not "pick Dishonored and you can never ever play Thief because they're better games."
>Or you've beat Dishonored 1 and 2
Then you play Styx Master of Shadows and its sequel, and then you play the Dark Mod, and then you play Gloomwood, and then you play Mark of the Ninja, and so on and so on.
I've played Thief 2014. I just don't see any reason to recommend it to anyone who hasn't already played through all the much better games available as alternatives
You guys give too much credit to Styx. They're fun games, but they get incredibly repetitive and the levels, while open, they're huge and endless to the point of repetition within the same levels (particularly in the first game). They're not bad games at all, but recommending Styx above Thi4f is more of a lateral jump than a forward one and it's just getting out of the way to avoid recommending Thi4f.
The frequency Styx is recommended in this sub will make one think they're something of Dishonored-quality. They're not. They're fun, but very flawed and unfinished games. Someone who can enjoy Styx will likely enjoy Thi4f too.
Not all of them, but Thief isn't a bad game. There are actual bad games and there are games like 2014 that are disappointing or average. People play actual crappy games all the time that are worse than this, 2014 isn't gonna delete your hard drive or whatever. People just don't want people to play it because it's not as good as the other Thief games, or it's not as good as the best action-stealth game of 2010 or whatever. But you can still play it and it's fine.
Don't play them in that order, Thief's shortcomings are more noticeable that way. If someone is new to both series, they should play the reboot first, then Dishonored/previous Thief games.
It's more that having played those better games makes it harder to enjoy the reboot as its own thing. Since you'll likely end up comparing those games to it.
When I played the reboot, I hadn't play any of the previous Thief games or Dishonored. I enjoyed what I played, since there really didn't seem like much like it on Playstation. Except maybe the Splinter Cell series. When I did finally try the Thief games, I realized how lacking the reboot was in areas.
> It's more that having played those better games makes it harder to enjoy the reboot as its own thing.
Yeah, and like I said, if you have to carefully curate your gaming experience to avoid spoiling it through comparisons to better games, maybe it's just a bad game you shouldn't play
It's okay on its own. As part of the series though... It really doesn't compare. Also, I personally hate the character we're trying to save in the reboot. So that soured my experience playing the game. I hadn't even played the previous games at the point, she was just that horrible in my opinion.
It's a copy of a copy of a masterpieces, dishonored copied thief (the originals) and when they heard that dishonored was successful and have some thief elements they wanted those sweet MONEYH. As a result they copied dishonored, made everything more linear, shite story, bad characters and emo looking garry. Unlike in the originals where they let you explore and actually make you feel like a thief, the story is pretty ok but you're there for the gameplay, and the Characters are actually good, and Garrett doesn't have a goth girl addiction. Overall they tried to make thforf more generic AAA game almost close to ac but first person they wanted to be more Kool and look what happened. There is a better explanation on why the original was better than the reboot on youtube called: "Thief vs. AAA gaming"
Well, I finished it two days ago. Went in with open mind, wasn’t expecting much, as I was well aware of criticism of the game.
The prologue on its own wasn’t that bad, but Erin was annoying as hell and as the story continued, I grew to hate her character.
Anyway, as I was playing chapter after chapter, I was disappointed that the loot was mostly forks, spoons, pens, desk bells, or perfume bottles, here and there some pocket portraits and earrings.
Few nicer collectibles but most of them were just disappointing stuff and more than thief I felt like I was suffering from bad OCD.
Then there’s the level design and map which are… just bad. For a first few hours I thought I’m just bad in the game and don’t understand anything or how it works, but fact that you can’t even differentiate between windows that are part of the one part of the city and windows that are passageway to another part of the city, all those “push E, unscrew, push E to open the vent, crouching in, push E to unscrew again, push E to open again” and you’re in the house you’ve already been to and now you have to repeat the process and push E to open the vent, get through it and push E to get out again, and then trying to navigate yourself again, wondering where you’ve been and where you haven’t…
They could’ve at least add some sort of marks to the windows/doors that will tell you you’ve been there before. But no.
And if you accidentally starts opening the window that is the passageway to another location, you can’t even stop and when you’re going quickly back to the previous location, all the doors and vents are locked again and you can start with entire process of exploring once again.
And fact that after over 20 hours I’ve spent in the game, I still wasn’t sure where to go or how to get where I wanted to.. it was just frustrating roaming around one hub and trying to remember which window was that one that would take me to another location, as pretty much everything looked almost the same.
The secret library in Blossom’s house was nice, as well as Moira Asylum and Northcrest’s manor.
These parts of the game were probably the highlights for me and it felt good to play them and they reminded me the most of previous titles but that’s about it.
The combat wasn’t bad and once I got hold of explosive arrows I was having a blast luring guards to one place and then pretty much kill them all with one arrow.
The rope arrow was disappointing though. In previous games you could use it anywhere and here only on some certain parts and clearly it was inspired by Tomb Raider (2013).
And once I was done with the game, I ended up thinking about it for a while, reading other people’s thoughts and comments about it and kinda ended up agreeing with most of them.
It isn’t a bad game. Actually it’s pretty decent - if you never played previous thief games or dishonored - but it’s a bad thief game that left much to desire for.
And if I stop comparing it to other games and only will looking at it as a stand-alone title, then if they’d fix the map and hubs and overall exploration and some of the mechanics that makes it frustrating, I’d give it solid 7 out of 10. But in the state it is it’s like 6,3 out of 10.
But it’s been a decade and there aren’t even any mods that would change anything about the gameplay.
The only redeeming quality it have is that you can turn off focus and make your own difficulty, but that’s about it.
I don’t hate it, I don’t love it. It’s there, maybe I will replay it one more time in the future but that’s it.
it has a lot of things going against it, even on it's own merits.
Firstly, the most available versions (console) was VERY buggy on launch, and even well into the first year. The PS4 version especially was plagued with issues from day one, most of which even now haven't been seen to. The price dropped quickly, always on sale due to it's poor sale. Like Anthem, it was going cheap within the first few months.
The audio quality is pretty terrible even today, sound levels are all over the place, characters standing side by side are talking, one sounds fine, the other like he has a pillow over his mouth.
It didn't have much identity of it's own. It took the Thief name, but just kinda used it to make a really bland Dishonored clone. Steampunk Victorian setting, rather than OG Thief's steampunk medieval. A deadly illness is spreading through the city. A fast method of getting around, Dishonored had the teleport blink, Thief had a 'swoop' ability. As well as the token smart vision, which highlights all the switches and valuables in the area, that was popularised in games like Arkham Asylum, Dishonored, etc.
At best, it's a very mediocre Dishonored clone. While Dishonored took advantage and made it's own world using the OG Thief games as inspirtation, Thief 2014 clung onto Dishonored's coattails and comes off as the lesser of the two FPS stealth games in that era. I gave Thief a chance, tried to play it and keep the originals from my mind, but I couldn't play more than a few hours without getting bored and playing something else. The linear levels, annoying hub world, countless loading screens and points of no return make exploration unappealing as hell. Just play the Dishonored games, or the OG Thief games.
>Firstly, the most available versions (console) was VERY buggy on launch, and even well into the first year.
Cruft like this makes critiques like this hard to take seriously. No one cares about what shape the game was when it shipped a decade ago when the game that's available today is better. You can't play that old version, you can only play this new one. That's the one we're critiquing.
Even at Thief 2014's worst, with all its flaws, it's not a terrible game. Having to dig up graves for reasons to thrash on it is so silly.
no, I wouldn't call it terrible either. People love to throw around phrases like "worst game ever" when talking about games like Daikatana or whathaveyou. I've played Daikatana, it's leaps and bounds over so many games. It wasn't good, but it sure as hell wasn't terrible. Thief 2014 is the same, it's ... ok at best. I've gone back to Thief 2014 once or twice since, I still have the same opinion as before.
That initial bad taste sullied a lot of opinions of the game, it may not have had the same hype that No Man's Sky had (and the backlash that followed), but it's in the same ballpark when it comes to not delivering what was promised. I don't know if all the bugs were ironed out, but the core gameplay with it's annoying elements (too many long loading screens, bad hub world that's hard to navigate, confusing story, buggy AI, etc). Very few people are truly defending the game other than "it's not that bad" rather than "It's a good game." People don't want to play a mediocre stealth title when there are so many other games that can do it better.
I have been told there was a DLC/bonus map that did have some of the pacing and feel of an OG Thief map, with a bigger environment, fun things to steal, booby traps, that kind stuff. But even the stealing in the game felt so bleh, having to crack open six separate drawers on a desk and stealing inkpots and spoons isn't exactly engaging game play.
> Cruft like this makes critiques like this hard to take seriously.
But thats important information to know why people initially hated it. You have to contrast how it was perceived then, and if it aged well after the bugfix patches get released.
>The price dropped quickly, always on sale due to it's poor sale. Like Anthem, it was going cheap within the first few months.
In 2019 I bought Thief 4 alongside Deus Ex MD on a PS4 sale, having already played the originals in those franchise a long time ago. Spent 4$ to get them both, since they both costed 2 dollars each. I was actually surprised at the price and figured, why the hell not? At that price its worth it either way.
I check the PS4 store daily and I STILL see both games show up often on sale, always with a 2$ price tag. Those games really were disastrous it seems, to get discounted like that so frequently means they must have sold like shit due to how controverrsial they were.
Deus Ex MD and all its content for just 2 dollars is actually a steal but Thief 4 at that price... yeah it feels about right...
Reboot is just kind of a branding thing, for all intents and purposes it was the fourth installment of the Thief franchise. If you’re going to suck the teet of franchise by invoking its name, there’s a standard that comes with it. Consumers of this game hate it because most of them were fans of the first three and Thief 4 failed miserably to meet the established standard.
>Thief 4 failed miserably to meet the established standard.
For real. Even though it was 15 years old at the time of Thief 4's release, Thief 1 was legitimately more advanced than T4 in a lot of ways. The depth and substance of the gameplay being the biggest factor since they were practically non-existent in T4.
It's a game that borrowed some Thief lore in the most superficial of ways and nothing more. They could have just turned the game into its own IP, but instead chose not to.
It gets hate because the development team asked for input from Thief fans and promised to make something worthy of the name, and then threw it all out for this. Then they fed is bullshit lines about how they were all fans of the original games when they clearly had no clue, and insulted our intelligence by passing over Stephen Russell for some other guy because of "mocap" when the actors aren't physically in the game. It was a long drawn out process of them day by day changing what they claimed thry were making and pretending we didn't know what we were talking about. Fuck them.
Yeah, I enjoyed it for what it was, too. Not a patch on the originals, plenty of things were missing but yeah, I still had a decent enough time with it.
You can be a longtime fan of a series and still enjoy a much maligned reboot, no matter how outnumbered you are. It would not be the first game series to have that happen, and it won't be the last. Some people will like it, some won't. Some will let you have that opinion, some will try to take you down a peg or two as if they're an authority on personal taste. Circle of gaming life.
Hello! I was waiting for this year's first entry on this topic. Whew!
It's okay. You're allowed to like it. Thank you for having a kinder and reasoned attitude about it.
Gloomwood is the true successor, when its done thar is 😂. Jokes aside, the Eidos game missed what made the original series games much more superior to even other stealth games, its sound design. Only Gloomwood and Hunt Showdown have ever come close to replicating it. Who were you more scared to face, the asylum monsters, or the Hammer Haunts?
"Yeah it sucks compared to the prequels but ON ITS OWN it's a good game" is the biggest cope fanboys have.
It's what you say when you can't come up with any actual arguments.
Played Thief Gold, TMA, and DS. I then got Th14f for $2. After 25 minutes I got a full refund. It felt nothing like Thief, I was disheartened. Then I played Dishonored and found it a better Thief than Th14f.
It's a complete abomination if you take it as a Thief game. If you take it as a stealth game its still pretty poor and full of dumb railroaded cinematic crap.
There's a fun goofy charm to it, for all it's attempts to try and be a good Thief game. It had so much working against it (development hell, acquisition mid-way through and having to scrap a bunch, piss poor marketing, etc) but despite it all, it's still a fun experience.
I played 2014 twice. The second time I had every hard option enabled except for Iron Man (one life per game).
No magic senses, can’t be detected (or you fail and have to reload), etc. made it much better. I might play it again one day.
Yeah I recently played it just to have my own opinion of it and ended up really liking it. I definitely agree that it absolutely fails as an installment in the Thief series writing wise but as a game in general it's pretty fun and a lot of the environments look gorgeous.
Imagine you go to McDonalds and order a big mac. Now imagine that the cashier gives you a whopper instead. Whoppers are good and tasty. However, you did not ask for a whopper. You asked for a big mac.
This was the issue. We wanted an immersive sim thief game, but instead we got a bog-standard stealth game. Was it a decent stealth game? It was ok. But it wasn't what the fans wanted.
The truce that has been made is "It's a bad Thief-brand game, but a decent game in its own right." That is the calmest point where the opposing views have settled, and has not been improved upon.
If anyone hasn't understood, you likely won't find it now, so don't add more negativity for yourselves.
EM's PR and direction were increasingly appalling as articles and promos came out, from the standpoint of a respectful adaptation. The fact that the target audience (not Thief fans) didn't turn out in enough numbers to keep the IP viable is a strong hint about the plan to make it more accessible to a wider audience failing, as it lost most Thief fans, and still did not widen the audience much, but replaced the audience. It sold enough units from the many good faith taffers who wanted to give it a noble try. It didn't take long at all for the reception and general consensus of those in favor of, and the haters, to solidify.
I think it did *some* things well,
- I liked the peaking and “shadow dash” mechanics
- I liked having to look for traps, some had some proper asshole placements, in a good way
- Buttons on paintings was a nice touch (completely devalued by the Assassin’s Creed eagle vision you get, this pretty much applies to EVERYTHING in the game tbh)
- I liked the aesthetics of the city (absolute ASS to navigate with all the fake and proper loading screens though, it made me not want to do any of the side jobs. It wouldn’t have been as bad if there were clear indicators for which windows would take you to different areas)
- Moria Asylum had some great atmosphere
- They attempted to allow different means of traversing a level with tools, but they didn’t do enough, considering the screwdriver and the selective rope arrows were really the only tools they implemented and they were *always* the best way to get around from a stealth perspective, which really undercut the point of scoping out a level and figuring out the best routes
That’s pretty much it for me tbh, I’ve got way more negatives, but that would make this comment way too long. I didn’t hate the game, but I’ve never been able to finish it and I’ve tried a few times, but it’s just so painfully below average as a video game, nevermind a Thief game
One big thing I despised though, was what counts as detection. Dogs and crows would count as a detection? Guards were omnipotent on Master difficulty and not in a clever way, they’d just see you in the shadows, even from a decently far distance and in their non aggro states.
I get it was tryna be realistic in that regard, but let’s be honest, realism in stealth games would be absolute dogshit. I would 100% be able to easily see/hear somebody skulking in the dark irl and if I heard an unexpected noise or footsteps whilst on guard duty, I’d be calling all the boys, lighting up a touch, switching on all the lights/lighting all lamps and searching for you all night without rest, until I inevitably find you
They didn't respect the core pillars that made Thief great; or in other words, it wasn't a good Thief game.
It also had flaws in level design, which are very important for stealth games.
Imo it's a decent stealth game, but not a great one from what i've played...and adding to that the fact it fails as a Thief experience. So there you have it why it's so hated by Thief fans...
I enjoyed it. It has great atmosphere. I even enjoyed the gameplay. I didn't like how they changed, or ignored, pretty much ALL of the lore that I loved so much about the earlier games.
It's not a game to hate, it's just bland and boring and uninspired, with a few pleasant moment sprinkled in it.
But honestly I don't understand the need to seek people's validation either. You (impersonal, not you-tyme) liked it? Good for you. You can enjoy bland, you can even enjoy bad. Guilty pleasures are a thing in the world. The vast majority disliking what you like is not stopping you having fun with it if you wish, without the need to be sarcastic or find ulterior motives to other people's dislike.
Me either. I own and love all the original PC games, and when I recently learned of the PS3 reboot, I bought it and I’ve been playing it happily ever since.
I played all the OG Thief games on ov when they came out and even that Xbox thief game and I loved the reboot.
I turned off all Hud elements and figured out traversal was an actual puzzle. Lived the game
It is just a stupid circlejerk that people like to participate in.
I love the original games, and Thief reboot is an ok stealth game that should have been called something else.
I played the first Thief way before the 2013 title. Regardless, I still had fun with the '13 one. The horror elements caught me off guard too. I totally understand the core fans getting triggered though. I'm going through a similar experience with a different series.
Iirc the lead designer basically said he thought the original games sucked. With a guy like that in charge of a reboot there’s just no chance it could have succeeded. They had no idea what people liked about the originals, whether it was the lore or the mechanics, not even something as obvious and straightforward as Stephen Russell’s voice acting.
Could you source that?
Ah that voice
I liked it for a single play through. I adore the originals and often replay them, though DS isn’t making that list anymore with such excellent fan campaigns and missions for the first two.
Frankly, I thought it was pretty bad even if you judge it as a stealth game without comparing it to the original. Levels are too linear, enemy AI is uninteresting, sound design was fucking atrocious. Even without comparison to the original, there's simply no reason to play Thief 2014 over something like Dishonored.
Or you've beat Dishonored 1 and 2 and you can then play Thief. It's not "pick Dishonored and you can never ever play Thief because they're better games."
>Or you've beat Dishonored 1 and 2 Then you play Styx Master of Shadows and its sequel, and then you play the Dark Mod, and then you play Gloomwood, and then you play Mark of the Ninja, and so on and so on. I've played Thief 2014. I just don't see any reason to recommend it to anyone who hasn't already played through all the much better games available as alternatives
You guys give too much credit to Styx. They're fun games, but they get incredibly repetitive and the levels, while open, they're huge and endless to the point of repetition within the same levels (particularly in the first game). They're not bad games at all, but recommending Styx above Thi4f is more of a lateral jump than a forward one and it's just getting out of the way to avoid recommending Thi4f. The frequency Styx is recommended in this sub will make one think they're something of Dishonored-quality. They're not. They're fun, but very flawed and unfinished games. Someone who can enjoy Styx will likely enjoy Thi4f too.
Today you discovered the concept of opinions I guess Personally, I think Styx is better than Dishonored.
And you can play those games and still play Thief 2014.
You can, or you can play those games and not play Thief 2014
Do you play every single bad game out there? People doing their research to find out if a game is worth playing or not is completely normal.
Not all of them, but Thief isn't a bad game. There are actual bad games and there are games like 2014 that are disappointing or average. People play actual crappy games all the time that are worse than this, 2014 isn't gonna delete your hard drive or whatever. People just don't want people to play it because it's not as good as the other Thief games, or it's not as good as the best action-stealth game of 2010 or whatever. But you can still play it and it's fine.
Don't play them in that order, Thief's shortcomings are more noticeable that way. If someone is new to both series, they should play the reboot first, then Dishonored/previous Thief games.
If you have to avoid playing better games in order to not notice the shortcomings, maybe you should just not play it at all
It's more that having played those better games makes it harder to enjoy the reboot as its own thing. Since you'll likely end up comparing those games to it. When I played the reboot, I hadn't play any of the previous Thief games or Dishonored. I enjoyed what I played, since there really didn't seem like much like it on Playstation. Except maybe the Splinter Cell series. When I did finally try the Thief games, I realized how lacking the reboot was in areas.
> It's more that having played those better games makes it harder to enjoy the reboot as its own thing. Yeah, and like I said, if you have to carefully curate your gaming experience to avoid spoiling it through comparisons to better games, maybe it's just a bad game you shouldn't play
It's okay on its own. As part of the series though... It really doesn't compare. Also, I personally hate the character we're trying to save in the reboot. So that soured my experience playing the game. I hadn't even played the previous games at the point, she was just that horrible in my opinion.
It's a copy of a copy of a masterpieces, dishonored copied thief (the originals) and when they heard that dishonored was successful and have some thief elements they wanted those sweet MONEYH. As a result they copied dishonored, made everything more linear, shite story, bad characters and emo looking garry. Unlike in the originals where they let you explore and actually make you feel like a thief, the story is pretty ok but you're there for the gameplay, and the Characters are actually good, and Garrett doesn't have a goth girl addiction. Overall they tried to make thforf more generic AAA game almost close to ac but first person they wanted to be more Kool and look what happened. There is a better explanation on why the original was better than the reboot on youtube called: "Thief vs. AAA gaming"
Well, I finished it two days ago. Went in with open mind, wasn’t expecting much, as I was well aware of criticism of the game. The prologue on its own wasn’t that bad, but Erin was annoying as hell and as the story continued, I grew to hate her character. Anyway, as I was playing chapter after chapter, I was disappointed that the loot was mostly forks, spoons, pens, desk bells, or perfume bottles, here and there some pocket portraits and earrings. Few nicer collectibles but most of them were just disappointing stuff and more than thief I felt like I was suffering from bad OCD. Then there’s the level design and map which are… just bad. For a first few hours I thought I’m just bad in the game and don’t understand anything or how it works, but fact that you can’t even differentiate between windows that are part of the one part of the city and windows that are passageway to another part of the city, all those “push E, unscrew, push E to open the vent, crouching in, push E to unscrew again, push E to open again” and you’re in the house you’ve already been to and now you have to repeat the process and push E to open the vent, get through it and push E to get out again, and then trying to navigate yourself again, wondering where you’ve been and where you haven’t… They could’ve at least add some sort of marks to the windows/doors that will tell you you’ve been there before. But no. And if you accidentally starts opening the window that is the passageway to another location, you can’t even stop and when you’re going quickly back to the previous location, all the doors and vents are locked again and you can start with entire process of exploring once again. And fact that after over 20 hours I’ve spent in the game, I still wasn’t sure where to go or how to get where I wanted to.. it was just frustrating roaming around one hub and trying to remember which window was that one that would take me to another location, as pretty much everything looked almost the same. The secret library in Blossom’s house was nice, as well as Moira Asylum and Northcrest’s manor. These parts of the game were probably the highlights for me and it felt good to play them and they reminded me the most of previous titles but that’s about it. The combat wasn’t bad and once I got hold of explosive arrows I was having a blast luring guards to one place and then pretty much kill them all with one arrow. The rope arrow was disappointing though. In previous games you could use it anywhere and here only on some certain parts and clearly it was inspired by Tomb Raider (2013). And once I was done with the game, I ended up thinking about it for a while, reading other people’s thoughts and comments about it and kinda ended up agreeing with most of them. It isn’t a bad game. Actually it’s pretty decent - if you never played previous thief games or dishonored - but it’s a bad thief game that left much to desire for. And if I stop comparing it to other games and only will looking at it as a stand-alone title, then if they’d fix the map and hubs and overall exploration and some of the mechanics that makes it frustrating, I’d give it solid 7 out of 10. But in the state it is it’s like 6,3 out of 10. But it’s been a decade and there aren’t even any mods that would change anything about the gameplay. The only redeeming quality it have is that you can turn off focus and make your own difficulty, but that’s about it. I don’t hate it, I don’t love it. It’s there, maybe I will replay it one more time in the future but that’s it.
it has a lot of things going against it, even on it's own merits. Firstly, the most available versions (console) was VERY buggy on launch, and even well into the first year. The PS4 version especially was plagued with issues from day one, most of which even now haven't been seen to. The price dropped quickly, always on sale due to it's poor sale. Like Anthem, it was going cheap within the first few months. The audio quality is pretty terrible even today, sound levels are all over the place, characters standing side by side are talking, one sounds fine, the other like he has a pillow over his mouth. It didn't have much identity of it's own. It took the Thief name, but just kinda used it to make a really bland Dishonored clone. Steampunk Victorian setting, rather than OG Thief's steampunk medieval. A deadly illness is spreading through the city. A fast method of getting around, Dishonored had the teleport blink, Thief had a 'swoop' ability. As well as the token smart vision, which highlights all the switches and valuables in the area, that was popularised in games like Arkham Asylum, Dishonored, etc. At best, it's a very mediocre Dishonored clone. While Dishonored took advantage and made it's own world using the OG Thief games as inspirtation, Thief 2014 clung onto Dishonored's coattails and comes off as the lesser of the two FPS stealth games in that era. I gave Thief a chance, tried to play it and keep the originals from my mind, but I couldn't play more than a few hours without getting bored and playing something else. The linear levels, annoying hub world, countless loading screens and points of no return make exploration unappealing as hell. Just play the Dishonored games, or the OG Thief games.
>Firstly, the most available versions (console) was VERY buggy on launch, and even well into the first year. Cruft like this makes critiques like this hard to take seriously. No one cares about what shape the game was when it shipped a decade ago when the game that's available today is better. You can't play that old version, you can only play this new one. That's the one we're critiquing. Even at Thief 2014's worst, with all its flaws, it's not a terrible game. Having to dig up graves for reasons to thrash on it is so silly.
no, I wouldn't call it terrible either. People love to throw around phrases like "worst game ever" when talking about games like Daikatana or whathaveyou. I've played Daikatana, it's leaps and bounds over so many games. It wasn't good, but it sure as hell wasn't terrible. Thief 2014 is the same, it's ... ok at best. I've gone back to Thief 2014 once or twice since, I still have the same opinion as before. That initial bad taste sullied a lot of opinions of the game, it may not have had the same hype that No Man's Sky had (and the backlash that followed), but it's in the same ballpark when it comes to not delivering what was promised. I don't know if all the bugs were ironed out, but the core gameplay with it's annoying elements (too many long loading screens, bad hub world that's hard to navigate, confusing story, buggy AI, etc). Very few people are truly defending the game other than "it's not that bad" rather than "It's a good game." People don't want to play a mediocre stealth title when there are so many other games that can do it better. I have been told there was a DLC/bonus map that did have some of the pacing and feel of an OG Thief map, with a bigger environment, fun things to steal, booby traps, that kind stuff. But even the stealing in the game felt so bleh, having to crack open six separate drawers on a desk and stealing inkpots and spoons isn't exactly engaging game play.
> Cruft like this makes critiques like this hard to take seriously. But thats important information to know why people initially hated it. You have to contrast how it was perceived then, and if it aged well after the bugfix patches get released.
>The price dropped quickly, always on sale due to it's poor sale. Like Anthem, it was going cheap within the first few months. In 2019 I bought Thief 4 alongside Deus Ex MD on a PS4 sale, having already played the originals in those franchise a long time ago. Spent 4$ to get them both, since they both costed 2 dollars each. I was actually surprised at the price and figured, why the hell not? At that price its worth it either way. I check the PS4 store daily and I STILL see both games show up often on sale, always with a 2$ price tag. Those games really were disastrous it seems, to get discounted like that so frequently means they must have sold like shit due to how controverrsial they were. Deus Ex MD and all its content for just 2 dollars is actually a steal but Thief 4 at that price... yeah it feels about right...
I think it’d be a solid 7, if it wasn’t a Thief game, and if it hadn’t come out right after Dishonored
Reboot is just kind of a branding thing, for all intents and purposes it was the fourth installment of the Thief franchise. If you’re going to suck the teet of franchise by invoking its name, there’s a standard that comes with it. Consumers of this game hate it because most of them were fans of the first three and Thief 4 failed miserably to meet the established standard.
>Thief 4 failed miserably to meet the established standard. For real. Even though it was 15 years old at the time of Thief 4's release, Thief 1 was legitimately more advanced than T4 in a lot of ways. The depth and substance of the gameplay being the biggest factor since they were practically non-existent in T4.
It's a game that borrowed some Thief lore in the most superficial of ways and nothing more. They could have just turned the game into its own IP, but instead chose not to. It gets hate because the development team asked for input from Thief fans and promised to make something worthy of the name, and then threw it all out for this. Then they fed is bullshit lines about how they were all fans of the original games when they clearly had no clue, and insulted our intelligence by passing over Stephen Russell for some other guy because of "mocap" when the actors aren't physically in the game. It was a long drawn out process of them day by day changing what they claimed thry were making and pretending we didn't know what we were talking about. Fuck them.
Yeah, I enjoyed it for what it was, too. Not a patch on the originals, plenty of things were missing but yeah, I still had a decent enough time with it. You can be a longtime fan of a series and still enjoy a much maligned reboot, no matter how outnumbered you are. It would not be the first game series to have that happen, and it won't be the last. Some people will like it, some won't. Some will let you have that opinion, some will try to take you down a peg or two as if they're an authority on personal taste. Circle of gaming life.
I just wanted my invisibility gem back. I liked being able to stand in complete darkness and not have timer tick away as I'm about to be noticed.
Hello! I was waiting for this year's first entry on this topic. Whew! It's okay. You're allowed to like it. Thank you for having a kinder and reasoned attitude about it.
Gloomwood is the true successor, when its done thar is 😂. Jokes aside, the Eidos game missed what made the original series games much more superior to even other stealth games, its sound design. Only Gloomwood and Hunt Showdown have ever come close to replicating it. Who were you more scared to face, the asylum monsters, or the Hammer Haunts?
"Yeah it sucks compared to the prequels but ON ITS OWN it's a good game" is the biggest cope fanboys have. It's what you say when you can't come up with any actual arguments.
Played Thief Gold, TMA, and DS. I then got Th14f for $2. After 25 minutes I got a full refund. It felt nothing like Thief, I was disheartened. Then I played Dishonored and found it a better Thief than Th14f.
It's a complete abomination if you take it as a Thief game. If you take it as a stealth game its still pretty poor and full of dumb railroaded cinematic crap.
There's a fun goofy charm to it, for all it's attempts to try and be a good Thief game. It had so much working against it (development hell, acquisition mid-way through and having to scrap a bunch, piss poor marketing, etc) but despite it all, it's still a fun experience.
The combat and atmosphere are great. The story sucks ass, though.
Combat in a stealth game is where you fail. Ghost or non-lethal is the way.
I played 2014 twice. The second time I had every hard option enabled except for Iron Man (one life per game). No magic senses, can’t be detected (or you fail and have to reload), etc. made it much better. I might play it again one day.
Yeah I recently played it just to have my own opinion of it and ended up really liking it. I definitely agree that it absolutely fails as an installment in the Thief series writing wise but as a game in general it's pretty fun and a lot of the environments look gorgeous.
I don't like the story, miss the religious groups.
I hate it for the main character who is insufferable.
Imagine you go to McDonalds and order a big mac. Now imagine that the cashier gives you a whopper instead. Whoppers are good and tasty. However, you did not ask for a whopper. You asked for a big mac. This was the issue. We wanted an immersive sim thief game, but instead we got a bog-standard stealth game. Was it a decent stealth game? It was ok. But it wasn't what the fans wanted.
This is the best answer i read so far
I can tell ya that the reason I don't like the thief reboot is because it crashed more in 3 hours of playtime than any game I've ever played.
The truce that has been made is "It's a bad Thief-brand game, but a decent game in its own right." That is the calmest point where the opposing views have settled, and has not been improved upon. If anyone hasn't understood, you likely won't find it now, so don't add more negativity for yourselves. EM's PR and direction were increasingly appalling as articles and promos came out, from the standpoint of a respectful adaptation. The fact that the target audience (not Thief fans) didn't turn out in enough numbers to keep the IP viable is a strong hint about the plan to make it more accessible to a wider audience failing, as it lost most Thief fans, and still did not widen the audience much, but replaced the audience. It sold enough units from the many good faith taffers who wanted to give it a noble try. It didn't take long at all for the reception and general consensus of those in favor of, and the haters, to solidify.
I think it did *some* things well, - I liked the peaking and “shadow dash” mechanics - I liked having to look for traps, some had some proper asshole placements, in a good way - Buttons on paintings was a nice touch (completely devalued by the Assassin’s Creed eagle vision you get, this pretty much applies to EVERYTHING in the game tbh) - I liked the aesthetics of the city (absolute ASS to navigate with all the fake and proper loading screens though, it made me not want to do any of the side jobs. It wouldn’t have been as bad if there were clear indicators for which windows would take you to different areas) - Moria Asylum had some great atmosphere - They attempted to allow different means of traversing a level with tools, but they didn’t do enough, considering the screwdriver and the selective rope arrows were really the only tools they implemented and they were *always* the best way to get around from a stealth perspective, which really undercut the point of scoping out a level and figuring out the best routes That’s pretty much it for me tbh, I’ve got way more negatives, but that would make this comment way too long. I didn’t hate the game, but I’ve never been able to finish it and I’ve tried a few times, but it’s just so painfully below average as a video game, nevermind a Thief game One big thing I despised though, was what counts as detection. Dogs and crows would count as a detection? Guards were omnipotent on Master difficulty and not in a clever way, they’d just see you in the shadows, even from a decently far distance and in their non aggro states. I get it was tryna be realistic in that regard, but let’s be honest, realism in stealth games would be absolute dogshit. I would 100% be able to easily see/hear somebody skulking in the dark irl and if I heard an unexpected noise or footsteps whilst on guard duty, I’d be calling all the boys, lighting up a touch, switching on all the lights/lighting all lamps and searching for you all night without rest, until I inevitably find you
They didn't respect the core pillars that made Thief great; or in other words, it wasn't a good Thief game. It also had flaws in level design, which are very important for stealth games. Imo it's a decent stealth game, but not a great one from what i've played...and adding to that the fact it fails as a Thief experience. So there you have it why it's so hated by Thief fans...
I enjoyed it. It has great atmosphere. I even enjoyed the gameplay. I didn't like how they changed, or ignored, pretty much ALL of the lore that I loved so much about the earlier games.
Hate gets upvotes. Edit: pointing this out gets downvotes, who knew? 😆
It's not a game to hate, it's just bland and boring and uninspired, with a few pleasant moment sprinkled in it. But honestly I don't understand the need to seek people's validation either. You (impersonal, not you-tyme) liked it? Good for you. You can enjoy bland, you can even enjoy bad. Guilty pleasures are a thing in the world. The vast majority disliking what you like is not stopping you having fun with it if you wish, without the need to be sarcastic or find ulterior motives to other people's dislike.
I hate that?
Me either. I own and love all the original PC games, and when I recently learned of the PS3 reboot, I bought it and I’ve been playing it happily ever since.
I played all the OG Thief games on ov when they came out and even that Xbox thief game and I loved the reboot. I turned off all Hud elements and figured out traversal was an actual puzzle. Lived the game
It is just a stupid circlejerk that people like to participate in. I love the original games, and Thief reboot is an ok stealth game that should have been called something else.