“I’ve been away, but I couldn’t tell you where. Time’s moved on. Powers have shifted. New greeds replace the old.”
Those lines – uttered by Thief’s returning antihero Garrett in the demo I saw – are acutely self-aware. (You can almost see the writer winking at you.) Thief has spent too long in the shadows – an entire generation, in fact. And as Garrett rightly points out, time’s moved on. Today’s player is different, and so are their expectations. A game often has to appeal to the widest possible audience. The original Thief series was in many ways an uncompromising experience – a hardcore stealth title – that made few concessions to accessibility. It was purposefully arcane, ambiguous, difficult.
Those lines – uttered by Thief’s returning antihero Garrett in the demo I saw – are acutely self-aware. (You can almost see the writer winking at you.) Thief has spent too long in the shadows – an entire generation, in fact. And as Garrett rightly points out, time’s moved on. Today’s player is different, and so are their expectations. A game often has to appeal to the widest possible audience. The original Thief series was in many ways an uncompromising experience – a hardcore stealth title – that made few concessions to accessibility. It was purposefully arcane, ambiguous, difficult.