Thief 4 fans to be "happily impressed"

By Robert Purchese Published 12 May, 2009

Eidos Montreal to "break new ground".

Eidos Montreal boss Stéphane D'Astous reckons we'll be "very happily surprised and impressed" with Thief 4, which was officially announced yesterday.

"People should know that Thief is the grandfather of the stealth genre, which was a new type of gameplay back in 1998, and it's important for people to know that this game really created that. It shook the ground a decade ago, and we're trying our best to bring it to market and break new ground," D'Astous told IncGamers.

"The setting, the character, the story, the features - anything related to the actual content of the game, we cannot discuss for now. What I can say is that people are going to be very happily surprised and impressed. I think that we've put our finger on a number of things. Innovation and originality will be important, and I think it's going to serve this great franchise very well."

The Eidos Montreal team has finished the conceptual phase of development with a core team of 20. The next step will be hiring around 40 others as the project moves into pre-production. Incidentally, none of that number includes former Looking Glass Studios staff who responsible for the original Thief games, "But we've done our homework," added D'Astous.

"We went through this a couple of years ago when we launched the Deus Ex 3 project, so we're pretty much in constant contact with a couple of people. We have people that have worked on the Rainbow Six series, on Prince of Persia, on the Splinter Cell games - the list is very long and we'll soon release the pedigree of the team, and you'll notice that these guys have a lot of credentials," he said.

Of chief importance will be the vocal communities of both Thief and Deus Ex. D'Astous said something the fans clearly want are the original Thief voice actors to return, "And this is obviously something that we'll consider very seriously."

"The communities of these two projects are so vocal, so protective of what they want, and one thing is for sure - they're very active!" explained D'Astous.

"We're keeping our ear very close to the ground. As you may have noticed, we now have a forum up and running for Thief 4, and I said to my guys, 'I really want to have a forum at the very early stages,' because I want people to have a medium with which they can express their wishes, their expectations, and what they would like and not like to happen with the next Thief.

"Our main goal is that the essence and the spirit of these two franchises are as good now as ever before," he added. "Now we need to bring them to the highest level of technology, the highest level of design - the characters are very important, the story is important; we recognise all that, and a good game remains a good game if it's made accordingly."

More information will be released towards the end of the year. Until then, fans can pledge their support by buying themed merchandise for either Thief 4 or Deus Ex from a Virtual Boutique, which should go live today.

Dates and platforms for Thief 4 are yet to be confirmed.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (33) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • superdelphinus #1 3 years ago

    bumchickens

  • peak_performance #2 3 years ago

    "We have people that have worked on the Rainbow Six series, on Prince of Persia, on the Splinter Cell games - the list is very long and we'll soon release the pedigree of the team, and you'll notice that these guys have a lot of credentials,"

    Wow that's my dream team for a Thief game

  • space_ace #3 3 years ago

    "wolfenstein" is the grandfather of the stealth genre, some 15 years before "thief".

  • superdelphinus #4 3 years ago

    granny's garden was the stealth originator

  • systems #5 3 years ago

    I hope it's not the team that made Rainbow Six: Lockdown and Prince of Persia 2. We're in the shit then. Credentials my arse.

    The dream team would be the Rogue Spear / Raven Shield boys with the Sands of Time team plus a bit of Chaos Theory.

  • neorapsta #6 3 years ago

    Anyone who believes a developer when they say 'you'll be impressed and amazed' is just asking for bitter disappointment.

  • Wastelander #7 3 years ago

    Metal Gear came out in 1987...

  • Azazel #8 3 years ago

    ZOMG *I* am the original stealth game!

  • DUFFMAN5 #9 3 years ago

    I'm a thief fan...I had better be impressed god darn it.

  • RexRunti #10 3 years ago

    The Sentinel came out in 1986...

  • chicknstu #11 3 years ago

    Can't wait, you taffer!

  • wittynic #12 3 years ago

    I want Thief 2 Gameplay, in a GTA sized city, in shiny HD graphics. THey had better hop to it.

  • Yossarian #13 3 years ago

    Real-time weapon change! Button combso! Quick-time events! Loot glint! Explosions!

  • systems #14 3 years ago

    @Yossarian - stop it you're scaring me. It might be like that to "appeal to a wider audience" (i.e. ruin it for the fans).

  • psychokitten #15 3 years ago

    My dream team for a Thief game consists of the Thief 1+2 teams + Jordan Thomas.

    Also, it's THIAF

  • systems #16 3 years ago

    As long as it has proper thieving in I'll be happy. i.e. breaking into mansions, museums, crypts, prisons, high streets. Running through sewers and across rooftops is also a must. I want to be Thieving. It's not called "Sneak". It's not called "Assassinate". It's not called "Slo-mo Brawler". It's called "Thief".

    No more daft gadgets are needed. Just keep it to the usual stuff and add the rope arrows back in (removed in Deadly Shadows because the Xbox couldn't handle it). How about a choice of bows though, or crossbows, or hand-crossbows?

    So if it's got that, and you can spend your ill-gotten gains buying thieves tools, we should be pretty safe. No pissing around with martial-arts moves and keep the magic to a minimum please.

  • LowEnergyCycle #17 3 years ago

    "and you'll notice that these guys have a lot of credentials"

    The original games were made without such pointless boasts. Stop with the willy-waving and get on with the game.

  • khaz #18 3 years ago

    If there is a single QTE judging by Ubi Montreal's latest games I will personally behead the entire production team.

    :(

  • Spekingur #19 3 years ago

    Stop whining about him boasting. He has to. If he didn't you would all be "who are the people programming this? we demand to know, they don't know anything about thief" etc etc.
    Seriously, people almost never stop to listen to themselves. And yes, that includes me.

  • Domovoi #20 3 years ago

    Garrett's (and by extension the Keepers') story was pretty much wrapped up at the end of Thief 3. The whole thing came full circle with the intro from The Dark Project, only instead of Garrett being the young boy trying to rob a Keeper, it was a young girl trying to rob Garrett, with the latter suggesting that he'd teach her like the Keeper taught him. I'd be all for following a female protagonist in Thief 4. Maybe she could be more nimble and athletic, with Garrett in a NPC mentor role.

    As for the setting, it'd be a shame if they dropped the amazing steampunk universe. Maybe skip ahead a year or 10 (so that the little girl has had time to grow and the whole end of the Keepers thing can die down a little), but keep it in that setting. If it's going to be futuristic or set in the real world or something, why bother with the Thief franchise rather than making it an all new game?

    I love spoiler tags.
    Edited by 3 at 12/05/09 @ 13:18

  • LowEnergyCycle #21 3 years ago

    @Speakingur

    To quote the above: "The setting, the character, the story, the features - anything related to the actual content of the game, we cannot discuss for now"

    The only thing he can discuss at the moment is the size of his team and their "credentials". He may as well not bother discussing anything at all then, IMHO. I've read a lot of news stories announcing new titles, and I don't remember the only useful piece of information being "we've hired X many people who have worked on Y and Z."

    These faceless 20-odd developers are meaningless to my news-hungry brain - none of them are original Looking Glass members and their game credentials are just name-dropped to keep the peace across the forums.

    And as for telling the fans we'll be "happily impressed" - well no shit. That degree in PR and Marketing is just paying for itself... He was hardly gonna say that fans will be "so furious they'll explode".

    The entire news post just reeks of "Please don't kill us. You may actually enjoy Thief 4." They're scared of the Looking Glass fans.

  • bratmandu #22 3 years ago

    No zombies please.

    They better make a good job of this, Thief has always been a favourite of mine.

    I'm thinking, Thief 2 type control system, with bits of Thief 3 (climbing gloves were handy).

    Keep most of the original weapons like rope arrows, moss arrows (for stepping softly) and of course water arrows.

    Assassins Creed levels of free roaming-ness.

    Yea we're ready for a new thief game.

  • Andreas2402 #23 3 years ago

    Pong came out in 1968 or something ...

  • TONYgr #24 3 years ago

    a lot of stealth games came out in 1998.metal gear solid,tenchu and thief.

  • peak_performance #25 3 years ago

    I hope AI is one of their main priorities, it didn't evolve that much from TDP to TDS. Have them be more on their guard at all times if the player is spotted (none of that "guess I scared the taffer away" after one minute of searching), call in reinforcements to search through areas, expand on the consequences parts of the gameplay.

    Perhaps add a touch of non linearity to it as well, not in terms of sandbox gameplay but perhaps in optional objectives or just events that may change the storyline a bit down the line if achieved/spotted.

    And if you make a full city to walk around in between missions, don't make it as stupid as the one in TDS. Sneaking by the guard to the fence was interesting once, after that a chore. The same is said of breaking out of prison. Don't gimmick the game.

  • systems #26 3 years ago

    @Domovoi - very good points there. In a way I hope you're right as then the first trilogy is tied off nicely and you can spend the 4th game learning Garrett's skills one at a time.

  • kangarootoo #27 3 years ago

    "add the rope arrows back in (removed in Deadly Shadows because the Xbox couldn't handle it)."

    They removed rope arrows because the XB couldn't HANDLE it. What does that even mean? :)



    There is no way they will put it in a furistic environment. The steam punk setting is as much a part of Thief as the leather cosh.

    As for the environments, the very best levels in the series were some of the massive sprawling ones in T2, where you crossed a city by moving over the rooftops and briefly through buildings. Not neccessarily free roaming like GTA, but large levels with ground to cover. A mix is good though. The levels set in large mansions were always fun too.

  • FiZiE #28 3 years ago

    aww, i was hoping it would be out this christmas, but now its looking like a late 2010/2011 release :(

  • MrsPacMan #29 3 years ago

    Skool daze and back to skool were stealth games years and years before

  • peppergomez #30 3 years ago

    can't wait to resume taffin' around.

  • systems #31 3 years ago

    "They removed rope arrows because the XB couldn't HANDLE it. What does that even mean? :)"

    It means at the time of development they were having too much trouble not just with the rope itself but with the additional freedom which a rope arrow allowed. They had to keep the levels small and tight to fit in the XB memory footprint - the levels are small enough as it is without making them smaller still. So they fixed the problem by mysteriously making rope arrows unavailable (even though he'd been using them happily through two games) and instead you can only climb up special walls.

    That's what it even means. ;)

  • dominalien #32 3 years ago

    Thief 4 fans to be "happily impressed"

    This headline doesn't make any sense. Of course, if someone's a Thief 4 fan, they'll be happily impressed with it. I'd say we'll have to play it to become its fans in the first place. Don't you mean "Thief fans to be happily impressed with 4" or something?

  • Domovoi #33 3 years ago

    I actually kind of enjoyed the open world bits of TDS. It made the city (which is almost a character in its own) feel more real. Same goes for Garrett actually having a house that you could go home to. Pickpocketing the residents and such was sort of gimmicky, but still.