Thief (2014) - What Happened?
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- Опубліковано 15 гру 2023
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Edited By: Jesse Guarascia / guarascia and Greg S-C: / dykgreg
Additional Writing/Script Editing/Research By: Liam / liamallenmiller
SkeleMatt art by: / donwoka
Additional Garrett art by: Maddie / othatsraspberry
Intro By: / 2manysnacks and / littlevmills
Sponsored Segment edited by: Brunty / brunty023
WRITTEN SOURCES:
Game Developer - Eidos Montreal Confirms Thief 4 In Development
www.gamedeveloper.com/pc/eido...
Eurogamer - Deus Ex 3 announced
www.eurogamer.net/deus-ex-3-a...
Deus Ex via UA-cam - Deus Ex 3 - Teaser
• Deus Ex 3 - Teaser
PCGamesN.com - Rhianna Pratchett spills the secrets of Mirror’s Edge, Tomb Raider and Thief - Part 2
www.pcgamesn.com/rise-of-the-...
Eidos Montreal Community via WayBackMachine - Out of the Shadows!
web.archive.org/web/201304040...
GameInformer via UA-cam - The Mocap and Animation Process For Thief
• The Mocap and Animatio...
Metacritic - Thief
www.metacritic.com/game/thief/
VIDEO SOURCES:
Square Enix Presents E3 2013 - Day 2 (Eidos Montreal Walkthrough & Dev Roundtable): • Square Enix Presents E...
Thief: The Dark Project - Mission 1: A Keeper's Training: • Thief: The Dark Projec...
Making of Dishonored: • Square Enix Presents E...
"Thief 3: Deadly Shadows", full walkthrough: • "Thief 3: Deadly Shado...
Thief 3: Deadly shadows Movie (All cuscenes): • Thief 3: Deadly shadow...
Deus Ex: Human Revolution making of documentary: • Deus Ex: Human Revolut...
Uncharted 3 Talbot Scene: • Uncharted 3 Talbot Cha...
THIEF - Master Difficulty - Gameplay Walkthrough: • THIEF - Master Difficu...
How Thief is Returning to its Stealth Roots: • How Thief Is Returning...
Thief (Thief 4) - EXCLUSIVE Interview and Preview: • Thief (Thief 4) - EXCL...
Thief 4 - E3 presentation - Interview with Stephane Roy: • Thief 4 - E3 presentat...
Eidos Montreal Thief Producer Stephane Roy Discusses Next Gen Sequel: • Eidos Montreal Thief P...
Sneak Peek at Stephen Russell in FOGTOWN!: • Sneak Peek at Stephen ...
EM Community Video 1 - Meet Romano!: • EM Community Video 1: ...
#mattmcmuscles #thief #stealthgames - Ігри
Click HERE to check out the stealthy slaughtering of BLOOD WEST ➤ t.co/qbEFkTIH3s
Which is currently 30% off until December 19th!!
Damn thought it was just a retro shooter like forgive me father😅, i will check it out
Awesome! This was my suggestion. So cool you picked it. I'll have to buy some merch from ya.
Oh cool, a video about The Completionist
Golden comment.
pinned
hey, he totally donated the money
...a year later
...after having the lack of donations exposed
very legit
DAAAAAAMN
This one about to blow up
Ah, the 2010s. A period where "AAA" publishers wanted everything to make Call of Duty money, going so far as ressurect games with no more than a cult following, try to appeal to every demographics possible while also appealing to none, and somehow expecting them to make billions.
The "Didn't meet expectations" period. Still remember the baffled response when they announced that the Tomb Raider reboot didn't do as well as they'd hoped.
exactly why i HATED that period and people look at me crazy when i much prefer what we have nowadays with the rebirth of many different types of games coming back and the indie games rise.
@@MrDmoney156i mean, AAA isnt really doing much better now than it did then, but there is definitely an indie renaissance going on.
@@GeebusCrust What the hell are you talking about? Modern Warfare 2 was one of the highest selling games in a decade, Elden Ring is the highest selling FromSoft game ever made, even World of Warcraft is back to pumping millions of players. Triple A gaming hasn't been this successful in literally 20 years.
@@Elfenlied8675309Ahh yes, MW2 a reboot of MW2 in 2009....
God this whole story is heartbreaking. The fact that we were robbed of an Arkane Thief game really sucks. It's a shame Gloomwood and The Black Parade are the closest we'll ever get to a proper Thief 4. Those original 3 games mean a lot to me. I just wish things had gone better.
13:27 Wait why are they complaining Garrett doesn't look like a hero? He's a master thief, not some generic guy in chainmail with a sword. Square Enix really had no idea what the fuck they were doing with their western franchises huh.
@@earthbound9999 that is very true, they are still the company that expects Call of Duty sales numbers for a lot of their games and apparently even reaching astounding number of copies sold in the millions they still don't think it's enough.
@@earthbound9999That made my brain hurt :S He's a THIEF
@@earthbound9999Guess they were expecting dashing handsome rogue with a heart of gold.
I don't remember which game came first, just the order I personally played them, but if Dishonored came out first then it's an absolute win that Arkane was turned down. Their Dishonored series is damn good and a good replacement for the failed resurrection of Thief.
I remember being REALLY miffed when I saw that "XP system" in that demonstration. Like, Garrett is a master thief. What the hell does he need that for?
Because ever game now has to have some form of leveling up or perk gain because God forbid you make a game where the player isn't gimped out of abilities they should have
Why does any video game have an XP system? Oh yeah, for the player. Almost no game actually makes sense to have an XP system. Why would you need to unlock abilities or earn XP as Batman when he's been Batman for 25 years in the story? Because the game wouldn't really be that interesting if you could just do everything from the beginning and had no progression of any kind.
@Elfenlied8675309 In an RPG or something similar, it makes sense because you're learning as you go. If you can't make your game interesting without a system like it, that's on you. There were three games before this one that didn't need it, and they turned out great despite its absence. The intrigue from a Thief game doesn't come from leveling up. It's from the challenge and the storytelling.
I never played Thief 3. I didn’t hear too many good things about it. Save for the fact that Garrett using a dagger made more sense than the long sword he used in 1 & 2. The closest thing you had to xp in Thief was gold. You used gold to purchase more arrows and tools for your heists. If they stayed true to that they could have had their cake and ate it too. You could use the extra gold or loot to upgrade Garrett’s equipment. I would have killed for a better pair of boots than the ones I had in the first two games. It sounded like I was walking in high heels across a marble floor at times.
Now if the game was a prequel and Garrett was just starting out. I could definitely see an Xp system being a believable factor.
@@FilmAcolyteReturns Deadly Shadows was ruined by XBOX just like the Deus Ex sequel because of XBOX's limitations. Smaller maps/areas and loading screens affected the immersion. But IMO it's still fun game and lot of good missions. It's just it's okay but it could've been great. Only progression elements it had was tools and skills that were part of the story (ability climb certain walls, ability to open glyph doors and stronger blackjack for certain enemies). Since it was third part Garrett already had the eye there
I want to take this perfect moment to shill ‘Thief : The Black Parade’, a total conversion mod for Thief Gold. It’s an amazing mod made by veteran Thief fan map makers that includes 10 giant levels that has been cooking for 7 years.
If you loved the original Thief trilogy pls play this mod and vote it for ModDB’s mod of the year award. It seriously deserves it.
Lead director of The Black Parade works in Arkane. If you ever wondered how a thief 3 would be on the old engine look no more. Its insanely good
Never heard of it, but I still have PTSD from the thieves' guild.
The original Thief by looking glass still stands up against modern games and is one I can go back to every time. Fantastic level design, environmental storytelling, great overall world building and narrative and some of the best traversal gameplay I've ever experienced.
You should play the new Black Parade mod for Thief 1. It's insanely good, there's even a living moving horse in the first mission.
1, 2 and 3 are amazing still. Speaking of which, I beat 1 again last year, 2 again this year, time to load up Deadly Shadows. The Rutherford family vault is waiting to be robbed!
Still go back to thief 1 and 2,still haven't played deadly shadows. Great games!
and don't forgett the most importan thing:
_Dat ATMOSPHERE_
@@PackTactics I plan on it. Playing so many games at the moment. When I narrow it down a bit, i'm all in.
I've always rooted for Eidos Montreal since, let's face it, Square Enix's period expectations for their Western games were fairly absurd. Which is why the Embracer-Extend-Extinguisher Group acquisition worries me so much.
Yeah, Square was mad on western team for selling "only" 10m units, but very when they jrpg sold 200K copie for 5 years... lmao
@@calmarfps That's rich coming from a nation that relies too heavily on JRPGs and visual novels and still couldn't have reached international standards had it not been for the oppai googly-eyed waifu. While I understand that each nation has their own thing, Squeenix has been on the down when the likes of Activision-esque managers took over.
@@calmarfps Square Enix after rebooting development on FF15 three different times and dedicating a mountain of money to rebuilding FF14 from the ground up: Man these gaijin games are costing us so much money.
Square Enix selling Eidos Montreal was honestly a reasonable call at the time. Square recognized they weren't capable of giving their foreign studios the resources they needed and began consolidating their efforts to their Japanese operations; they were also heavily in debt, which is why they sold Eidos Montreal for a low price (and probably explains their comically high sales projections). In theory, selling off Eidos Montreal was the right move.... but it just _had_ to be Embracer Group. Ugh.
I'm out of the loop on this one, why does Embracer have such a horrid reputation?
A game that was ROBBED of its potential.
I see what you did there.
Ha
Y'all, pay close attention to the first person hand animations on Garrett! They're simply some of the most exquisite movements of hands that I've ever seen in a video game. I still think about them whenever this game is brought up
yep, not better example for a time wasting animation than this
@@TYR1139 Okay, but like - they're so good though!?!?
Hand movements are nice and realistic, but I would prefer to steal some more substantial loot than acting like a kleptomaniac and steal every little spoon and fork I can find.
@@ChristopherBatsonOkay the hand animations are good, whoopdy fucking doo. Id rather have that effort put into making the game more fun instead.
Is the hand animation really the highlight for you? That's like praising the handwriting of a multi-volume epic years in the making.
As hyped as I was for a new Thief game, honestly, the moment I heard they ditched Stephen Russell the game was dead to me. Garrett's voice is one of the most iconic in video game voice acting, what a numbnut decision to change that.
Even if this game was not well liked or particularly good, I remember being kinda enamoured by the fact that all the treasure had their own fancy little animation when you picked them up. Kinda made me feel immersed in it.
That's one of the most awful things about it, adding context sensitivity to a mechanic like that makes the game feel much more restrained. In the original Thief you could grab treasure in any way you wanted, as long as you were close enough. So you could lean around a corner and grab treasure, or grab something from under a table, or while standing on top of a table. In the 2014 game theres's ONE way to grab treasure, how the game wants you to. For a thief game, and hell for any kind of game, I can't really see that as anything but a huge downgrade. And it was just quicker in the original too, which added to the feeling of being a swift thief swiping everything. Feels so much more slow and cumbersome in the 2014 game, while also chaining down your abilities as a player.
Playing Dishonored 2 as Corvo and without using powers is probably the closest we'll ever get to a modern AAA Thief experience. But at least the indie scene is keeping the spirit of the old Thief games alive (special shoutout to Gloomwood!), not to mention dedicated modders and creators who are still to this day making new fan missions and entire new campaigns for Thief 1 & 2 and The Dark Mod.
The Dark Mod is the cats nutz, I love it. Some of those missions are so good
I love doing all coin runs. Grabbing loot in Dishonored is so satisfying. I wish it had a mod scene like the Thief games do so we could get Thief style missions in the Dishonored 1 engine.
Dishonored 2 is so freaking good man.
@@ClassicJoyfulMemoriesI need to give it another whirl, I think it just ran like shit on my computer at the time
Dishonored is a scenario "what if Garrett had superpowers". You get so many tools to play around and execute your enemies, it's a shame to not use them, but the game is constructed to suit all playstyles, instead of playing Thief and being essentially a gimped warrior. While older franchise has advantage of it's name for marketing, Dishonored was also free of it's baggage to be more combat heavy and introduce magic. It's just devs being so based, they could fit all playstyles so neatly.
My favorite memory about Thief is that during a Black Friday at Target, I got Tomb Raider Definitive Edition for about $4 because that game’s barcode was a mistake and read Thief for $4.
New-Gatt successfully robs GameStop. Congratulations on the first fruitful job of the veteran burglar!
every time someone talks about Thief, my gaming heart skips a beat. Too little is said about Garrett, my childhood friend. I hope that, sooner or later, a proper remake will be made.
Man I miss the hell out of the Thief franchise. Played the new Thief, got in love and them went back to play Thief II. Amazing games, wish they would make another entry
Wouldn't be surprised if Night Dive eventually takes a crack at it, though given their dev time for even stuff like System Shock, I dunno when.
great to see this style of game is still alive in the indie-sphere
Do you have any recommendations? I love dishonoured, prey and deus ex: mankind divided, but I've tried looking for immersive sims/0451 games available on console and there isn't a huge amount, I'm still waiting for the system shock remake to finally come out on console (if that ever happens)
@@emiloguechoons9030 Gloomwood.
@emiloguechoons9030 Ctrl Alt Ego is a brilliant Immersive Sims.
@@emiloguechoons9030 for stuff on console, Try out Void Bastards? it's more of a roguelite spin on the genre but it's solid af, and on consoles? although more influenced by the shock games than thief. also give thief simulator a shot if you want a more grounded modern day approach on that systemic stealth gameplay, Weird West isn't first person but it's a solid af isometric attempt at doing one by a bunch of ex Arkane staff, Teardown super recently got a console port and that's supposed to be a solid more destruction focused one. For more adjacent stuff that's more disputable if it's in the genre you're looking for but gives the exact same vibes, the Hitman games (aside from absolution), and Splinter Cell Chaos Theory give a lot of pretty similar gameplay vibes to the genre. Also if you have an OG Xbox, then Arx Fatalis got a port on there and that's Arkane's first game. Hopefully at least a few of these pique your interest?
@@emiloguechoons9030 I guess you can try the recent Hitman series? (the rest that I'm about to list are PC only atm I believe, hopefully it comes to console)
Gloomwood and Ctrl Alt Ego that's already mentioned are both great. I enjoyed Blood West as well, but that's a bit lighter on the Im-sim side imo. I also enjoyed Cruelty Squad, but you might need to get used to the art style.
I don't understand how these people think sometimes. They can't have a sequel because they NEED to have the original character but then they recast him and basically make him a completely different guy?
The Embracer video might end up becoming the biggest What Happened ever.
Depends on if Matt is even willing to make such a long essay video on them (and at the rate they are operating, its at this point feeling its heading towards a 1 or 2 hour video).
a 1 or 2 hour video, volume 1, part 3.@@DirgeTV
@@DirgeTV I'm sure he will do it. Probably in multiple parts like the other person suggested.
He could make a compilation like Capcom and Square
The Embracer Group video is gonna be longer than the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
The extended versions.
Square enix in the 2010’s having crazy, unobtainable goals for game sales that end up irrevocably damaging their production? Say it isn’t so!
You are totally going to do a VtM: Bloodlines episode once the trainwreck of Bloodlines 2 comes out, right? The franchise was made for this show
If it *ever* comes out.
You have been following then. Game is almost complete.@@GeebusCrust
Bloodlines 2 is gonna come out when Half-Life 3 comes out.
I mean, the first Bloodlines came out when Half-Life 2 did.
I always remember that the developers actually hired a freaking blacksmith to build that collapsible bow of his. To realistically translate it into the game I guess??
The fact that the team members you interviewed still defend the art director despite his experience shortcomings show that he was the first good leader the team had lol. Sounds like he really tried his best to get over the development hell.
Every time I feel like I’m regretting deciding to go into a “normal” IT/software dev career instead of making games I can just watch an episode of this show and be reminded what a great decision that was.
Cannot imagine working 60-80 hour weeks, over the holidays, and shipping a quality product just to have random people on the internet telling you to be “ashamed” because the final product didn’t exactly meet their expectations.
@@Zodroo_Tint thanks for literally proving my point? What they produced may not have been what fans wanted, it it was by most accounts a competent game that plenty of talented people worked hard on and made sacrifices to produce only to have random people on the internet tell them it was crap they should be ashamed of.
@@MikeGaruccio the criticism usually goes out to management and story writers that screwed up the final product. we can deal with shit graphics or the occasional bug if the rest is flawless. terrible story and gameplay with perfect technical base is, unfortunately, still bad.
if you buy a car and it looks great, your favorite color, great design, beautiful rims but the drivetrain breaks down completely after 500 miles, would you also be this defensive? no, you would call it the failure that it is
Every development team always have their best intentions when making games, but time and time again, crunch and mismanagement continues to reign as the master thief.
The thing about dedicated stealth games is that gameplay style is fairly niche. MGS got around that by having a great story. Thief should have never been expected to be a flagship IP because they would either water it down to appeal to the masses, or keep it super stealth, limiting it's broad appeal.
MGS is not niche by any means, it's popular because they are not pure stealth and focus to be this blockbuster action movie style ( Plus it's a console games )
While Thief relies things the old fashioned way, no radar, no senses, no markers etc and trying to be this soap opera style.
Squeenix is moronic lol
It would not surprise me if the Embracer Group winds up getting a What Happened episode of its very own one day...given how some of their development studios such as Volition and Free Radical Design have been shut down (the latter happening two weeks before Christmas😢), I cannot help but wonder just how much further the Embracer Group will fall in the months to come.
I mean volition was only a shell of its former self
There just doing what EA does. Buy studio run it into the ground, close it. But you have to look at the groups overall profits if there making money they, like EA dont care.
My understanding is that the Embracer Group were "borrowing against valuation", which is a fancy way of saying that they were getting big loans with the collateral being the the things they were planning to buy with those loans. Which is irresponsible financial speculation and if those assets don't meet the value they expected them to have (or the owners won't sell to them) then they're screwed.
@@brendanroberts1310the thing is that EA does it on a case by case basis. Embraced however is just cutting everything because they just realized they couldn’t afford what they have.
This one's a tragedy indeed. We almost could've gotten a masterpiece.
Funny, I think the opposite. I don't think there was anything that Eidos could have done to try and salvage this mess.
The premise was fucked from the get-go. They didn't know if they wanted it to be a sequel, a reboot, or some weird middle ground. (The latter option is what we got -- a semi-sequel where it takes place a century into the future and makes weird concessions to justify the plot -- how has Keeper Magic returned to the world after DS explicitly said it was all eliminated? Is this Garrett/Basso a descendant of the original? If not, why are they named and look the same?) It never got the A-team resources Eidos delegated to DX:HR, and had to make do with a rotating stable of producers, all with their own ideas, coming and going, despite being a franchise with more history and legacy to the stealth genre than DX.
It was a game where they were clearly trying to chase some of the trends Dishonored has created (Swoop/Blink, multiple playstyles having their own unique benefits) without understanding what made the former work. T2014 was just chasing trends and trying to be edgy for no real reason other than "for the sake of it".
I love the Thief series, and what's funny to me is that the _HEADSHOT-KILLING-SPREE_ E3 video that they showed is what made me not bother with the game. The nail on the coffin was them cutting Stephen Russell and their hilarious excuse that he couldn't do any of the mocap. We went from hyping up the game to openly mocking it.
Years later I got the game for free, and with extremely low expectations, I ended up liking it. lol
@@Zodroo_Tint I ended up playing it like the classic Thief games, where getting caught was pretty much it for me. It really did start to scratch that itch, but you have to squint with certain aspects of the game. It's not going to have _massive_ maps, and I don't think there's bonus objectives if you play it on harder settings, but playing on Master Difficulty is pretty much the same: no knockouts, can't kill civilians, fair stealth gameplay (use darkness, take out lights, learn routes, etc). The story is nothing to write home about and like the voice work, it's all just okay. You lose out on some of the 90s graphic style, but the maps & tasks are perfectly fine with some open-ended jobs scattered about so it's not too linear.
I'd say if you want to try a modern-ish Thief game, you can adjust the gameplay quite a bit to suit that style since there's toggles you can mess with. Get it on the cheap and it's a fun game, imo.
I remember seeing this game during E3 2013 and thought “Huh, this looks cool, I wonder if there are any older games like this?”
Keep in mind, at the time I was still primarily a console gamer and didn’t know the first thing about the Thief series or PC gaming as a whole; didn’t even know what Steam was.
So after having my interest piqued with Thief 2014, that led me to looking into where I could get the old Thief games, which then led to me discovering Steam for the first time. The “Thief Trilogy” bundle (it’s not sold as a “trilogy” anymore) was the very first thing I purchased on my Steam account.
What I’m getting at is that Thief 2014 is, inadvertently, what helped me discover the Thief series and getting me into PC gaming as a whole. That’s the most positive thing I can say about this game 😂 thanks *_Teef_*
A much better story than Thief 2014.
That's actually a really nice story. Sounds like I should really look into this series.
18:37 - As someone who worked on a game that was a multi-console, multi-generation release that same year, I can back up the sentiment of the staffer here. The Xbox One was released prematurely from a developer's perspective and needed a lot more time in the oven, so to speak.
As an outsider I liked it. The thieving animations, paintings, tools and stuff. It was nice.
This video makes me want to revisit Thief 2014, I have some fond memories of that game
Theif 3 was the first big game in 2004 ish that made shadows and graphics really matter effecting game play. This and tenchu were awesome. Been waiting for another.
Splinter Cell?
@southpaw117 to me it didn't hit the same marks.
@@soniczero532 How did Pandora Tomorrow not make effective use of shadows?
@southpaw117 it may have. I only played it a little. And I named "my first" couple big games that utilized shadows, splinter cell I never got into. I also mentioned games I'm waiting for continuations of. The game to be discussed is theif cause that's what the video was about, nothing against your first game that utilized hiding in shadows. And this might be wrong, but could you hide in shadows, or was the game poorly lit, and you had plenty of stuff to hide behind, probably wrong but that's what I remember. Thief you'd be trying to hide in wide open areas in shadows same in tenchu, wrath of darkness was my favorite.
I love the OG Thief, but I actually enjoyed the reboot a lot too. However, the only real way to enjoy it was by turning off all the UI and disabling the focus mode. In fact, it should be praised how much customization was allowed to tailor it to both new and older players alike, a fact I rarely see mentioned these days, and something more games should do. You could essentially disable 100% of the UI, disable all the assist features and it was so much more enjoyable as a result.
I honestly liked the game for the most part and i was eagerly waiting for a sequel that was more polished.
I actually really enjoyed this game back when I first got my ps4. Picked it up for like $4 on sale and had a blast. Whenever someone mentions “horror moments from non-horror games” I always mention this games hospital level. Spooky mannequins always get me.
i think that area was a reference to the level from Thief 3, def try the original trilogy if you havent yet
I'm in the same boat. I heard everyone say this game was a horrible Thief game, but it was a fairly solid gaming experience. Maybe my expectations were low but I don't think this game deserves the hate it got.
The problem with it is that it gets pretty good in the second act in terms of gameplay, but most people don't make it through the drudgery of the first act. But "it gets good about 15 hours in," isn't exactly a ringing endorsement when Dishonored 1 starts good and stays there the whole time.
I’ve played all the thief games, I’d have to say that Thief 2014 is my favorite.
Honestly, for all it's troubled development they did indeed ship out a decent game which has a mixture of all their ideas throughout the years. I think most of the people making harsh criticisms of it also disliked Deadly Shadows, the one Thi4f takes the most notes from in gameplay terms which of course makes sense since it was initially a direct sequel to it.
I thought it wasn't as bad as people said but this was before I played the original two games (masterpieces imo) and deadly shadows. It was catching trends from back then and dumped down the whole formula.
I find it amusing that the production team cast a younger actor as Garrett because they wanted him to look naturally athletic...because nothing is as natural as strapping dozens of sensors onto a person's body and running their motion through a compiler while they run around in a completely artificial environment.
All I ever think of with this game is that I was working at Toys R Us when it released. Whoever stocked the electronics isle didn't lock the wall pegs this game was hanging on and every copy was stolen.
Shocker, Square-Enix sets ridiculous expectations for sales numbers 🤦♂️
I actually loved this game, it’s one of my favorites.
From the bit I played, which I didn't really dislike, my biggest takeaway was "Hey! I can set it so if I speak in real life, the guards will actually notice! That's pretty neat."
The good thing about Thief 4 is that it's not a sequel. It still hurts, that it was such a letdown.
If i had a nickel for every legacy stealth franchise that was panned by fans for not maintaining enough of the original gameplay and not retaining the main character's original voice actor...
I would have TWO nickels
If I had a nickel for everytime I wrote a useles response to a comment, I'd have one.
What's the other one? I'm having a hard time differentiating between all the failed stealth game sequels of the last few years...
@@Catonator Deus Ex maybe?
I was about to say Splinter Cell
@@Catonator Splinter Cell Blacklist. Michael Ironside was replaced with Eric Johnson. But to be fair, Ubisoft wasn't to blame. Ironside got seriously ill, and wanted to keep it private.
Another great video from Matt, a small nitpick of me is that I wish we could have the list of music in the description or credits cause either sounds familiar too me (like the one at 17:07) or I like I want to listen to it. Edit : Finally found it, it's from Castlevania 64, name of the music is : Underground Tunnel - Invisible Sorrow.
Sometimes I wonder how Squeenix EVER got anything released with such unrealistic expectations from the Eidos side. I'm on the camp that hated the 2014 reboot and I haven't changed my mind ever since, but at least it's refreshing to know it was a victim of circumstance (and Squeenix) and actually had passionate devs behind it, even if the final product doesn't feel like it. Kinda funny that Arkane actually used Stephen Russell as Corvo in Dishonored 2 though.
I'm not all that surprised that Square-Enix messed up another western franchise given how they LOVED to be trigger happy when it came to cancelling Legacy of Kain games which is up to 11 in total I believe. Square-Enix were pants-on-head incompetent when it came to handling their western branch at the time. It's a miracle that Thief 2014 even managed to survive all of the corporate higher-up bull crap and I truly feel bad for all of the Devs that had to deal with it all during the game's development.
Eidos Montreal deserves to make the Thief game that they actually truly wanted in the first place.
the real Thief 4 was The Dark Mod all allong
and it is for free, made with love and respect to the source material
y’know, i actually enjoyed this game. i first played it maybe 3 or 4 years ago with no prior knowledge of the thief series (which i’m sure helped my opinion) and had a lot of fun sneaking around all these gothic areas.
i honestly had no idea this thing had such a rocky development cycle.
As a fan of Fallout NV, cryptid/urban legends, and gothic dark atmosphere, this BLOOD WEST is looking pretty damn good...
The original thief-titles were so much more original compared to the reboot. It had graphics, yeah, but that didn't do much to distract from the boring story, the wet blanket that was Garret's character, the unimaginable maps and so many lost features (like the moss-arrows used to dampen sound).
All the time it felt like it wanted to be thief but someone from the higher-ups screamed "No! No! Make it more mainstream!".
Sadly there would've been like soo much potential with a sequel. Garret raising a successor would've given the option of maybe coop or being able to switch between characters with each having their own skills and advances (The apprentice being able to fit into more narrow spots for example). I hope there will be a new thief game one day, cause the concept still is one of a kind.
I wish for the future that the rights to the thief series goes to a studio that can put the time and the proper planning and leadership into making a proper thief sequel
I remember being really excited for this game as someone who loved the first three games (even Deadly Shadows). A pity it didn't live up to its full potential
Unpopular opinion, but I would love a sequel to Thief 2014. They could do a plot line about the mysterious engineer that’s alluded to in several notes.
Real happy that you went over this game. I remember getting this as a Christmas gift from a friend, and being quite excited as he had high praise for the previous Thief games, which I hadn't played.
Unfortunately, I found the game itself to be quite underwhelming, with a middling storyline and some relatively clunky controls, which definitely looked worse as I had also recently played the first Dishonored prior to this (which I had loved).
The backstory here really shows all the pain points that this game faced and gives me a lot of visibility to why Thief ended up so okayish.
0:15 Aaaaaand you had me at the Darkwatch Main Menu soundtrack
Great video! Thank you. This happens to be one of my favorite games - apparent technical and story flaws in all. In college I loved watching my friend - a super fan of the originals - play through them with expert skill. This game’s strength is in its atmosphere and the tactile feel they nail when you are swiping things, cutting cords, and removing paintings. Also the swoop mechanic was neat.
You know I didn't really mind this game, i found the gameplay pretty smooth from my perspective.
It actually made me wanna play Dishonored after I heard of it.
Blood West is actually really, really good. Grabbed it when it was in early access and have been loving it ever since. I really hope people don't just write it off since it was a sponsor segment, like this isn't some raid shadow legends bs it's a legit very good immersive sim.
I'm really worried about Embracer for 2024, there's either going to be a bargain sale (which given how MS only just squeaked the AKB sale through i can't imagine them buying another studio will look good for their monopoly claims, and the sale will need to be quick. Nintendo and Sony... i'm not even sure they would either) or... they just shut down all the studios/companies, which i really REALLY hope does not happen.
If either Eidos or Crystal Dynamics gets closed down I will get really sad, hope Embracer will try to sell them at least first (If it comes to that. rumors has it that they have tried to sell Gearbox a few times now). These are both studios that could fit in Sony's portfolio quite well.
Honestly if Embracer was smart they would focus more on the IP they have and take full advantage of them, big games, small games, remasters and brand new adventures, seriously if they did that than focus on buying everyone out, they would be more financially stable right now, to own that much and not make consistent bangers is a problem of in itself, because owning that much costs money so yeah.
As much as this game gets paned I still love this game and franchise.
I got to say, thank you very much for stressing how much work Liam put into this. It's awesome to see you giving kudos to folks working hard behind the scenes
Like many other people in this comments section, I too have enjoyed the reboot at first (because I haven't played the original trilogy), but that enjoyment turned into disgust soon after I finished the trilogy.
This video at least shed some light onto the development hell that all the talented devs went through. It's truly a shame that so much potential has been lost with all this mismanagement.
I remember how excited I was when Thief 2014 was announced as the classics were some of my favorite games as a kid, but as soon as I started seeing interviews with the devs I became very wary as it seemed like they have no idea what actually made the originals great in the first place.
Did you actually watch this video or did you just click and comment
Got this game with my PS4 in the summer of 2014.
I'm not that used to stealth games, so I wanted no other games to distract me while getting into it, and into it I got.
Loved it!
Thanks for this. I followed this when it was in development, and saw the 4+ creative directors, the build not running in the very first build, the constant switch between remake and sequel; I always thought a book on its whole development with interviews should be made.
I'm one of those weirdos that likes this game actually. I'm a sucker for stealth games. It's definitely a mess but it's one of those guilty pleasures I guess? And kinda sad to think we'll probably never see a Thief game again
I thought I was the only person in the planet that remembered this reboot.
Speaking of the Xbox One. I will never forgive or forget the broken promise of a Halo TV show that was “fulfilled” by Forward Unto Dawn being released in several parts on UA-cam
So I legitimately never touched 2014 Thief after the xp popup notices in the trailer. I just declared the game dead and went back to pining for a sequel to Thief 2. The fact that was a mockup is just genuinely baffling to me. They should've gone full bore and had the main character kill someone then have text flash 'Airstrike unlocked'
You should do what happened with the Jet Set Radio series now since a remake/reboot is in development
This was my first ever ps4 game and I forgot it ever existed till this video
I often wondered what happened to Thief. I remember seeing adverts on it years ago.
Awesome video. ^_^
I can't think of Thief without thinking of the sound effect from the first game that was stolen and used in Limbo of the Lost.
...that's a What Happened video idea right there.
Yeesh. Were I do to similarly, then I wouldn't be able to play most games without thinking of Limbo of the Lost.
Damn I remember really enjoying this game, didn't really care for the story but found it nice, the stealth though UGH so good and a lockpicking minigame that doesn't make me wanna rip my hair out wanna put it in every game with lock picking I play
I clicked on this so damn fast, I've been asking for this review for like a year. So excited!
Didn't expect an opener for Blood West! Been playing that for several months now and it is a fantastic piece of indie gaming!! Lots of time and love went in to it and adding Stephen Russell as the main protagonists voice is a great nod to the Thief series. Awesome video as always, it's a shame that there hasn't been any significant movement on the Thief series after a foul taste left from some shite management. Maybe someday we will see it get the resurgence it deserves!
When I had worked at GameStop years ago, I remember seeing this game on our PlayStation shelf for AGES. And I’ve always been curious as to what it actually WAS till now! So I’m super excited for this episode, it’s like revealing a long lost mystery lol
The Zero Punctuation review for this game was great.
I hate love this game. I played through it twice and enjoyed it both times. But it was clearly two games in one and both of those two games were half baked.
I bought this game during one of the PlayStation stores many sales. I quite enjoyed it. In fact, I may play it again now that you reminded me of it.
Must be really cool to draw on your own experience as it directly relates to the video!
I did really enjoy this game when I played it, however I've never played the originals. After watching more on them, I can see why fans didn't like it nearly as much. But on its own, I thought it was quite solid.
Never forgot. My first platinum game trophy
My favorite thing about this game is that I bought the 2014 thief game on a whim for 5$ with no context of the original, and just had a very average content fun time with the game lmao
Good vid. I look forward to your future episode of The Day Before.
Thief was a game I put maybe 45 minutes into before never playing again
I KNEW there was something behind the so called "Thief"!
Would love to see DXMD get an episode one of these days. Seems like a lot happened with that game that people have only scratched the surface of
Yo catbomb
Even with the few things I know of about mankind divided and it's development sounds like a mess, the game apparently got really good reviews but didn't sell enough? So apparently they shelved making another game
DXMD is great, it's honestly sad seeing Imsim games often get underappreciated considering the effort and details they put.
Well to be honest, I still liked Thi4f after all, completed the game as far as I could. But it was obvious and cleary visible they had other plans for the game and bits and pieces made it into the final version. Some characters were way too detailed to be only side characters with which you would interact only a few times.
So yeah I agree it was the end result of several concepts brought together and finally just shipped because it was stuck in development hell. It was an okay and fun game, but far from special.
I remember getting this game free as a "free games with gold" thing on the xbox one back then.
I liked what i was playing until i noticed a certain bug resulting in enemies being able to see me through walls, resulting in a game over due to playing a particular way in order to earn achievements.
I got frustrated due to getting stuck because of it and never finished it
Ah Thief, like many companies and properties these days, they got the equivalent of a Johnny Cage fatal blow:
"You just got EMBRACED"
(The one thing I kinda found funny was that the Reboot Garrett voice actor, Romano Ozari, is also the VA and likeness, of Giovanni Auditore, Ezio Auditore's father in Assassin's Creed II, and also climbed things, did stealth, and wore a hood lol)
Great Stuff, as always!
Shoutouts to Blood West and Gloomwood
I remmeber liking Their 2014 A LOT, it was so much fun to play it
Love the Castlevania 64 OST playing in the backdrop throughout
As someone whos not a fan of the series, this game still looks good to me. I have it just never got to it
I just remember the hubris from the marketing of this game and had to record a portion of an interview (from Rev3Game) for future reference.
DEVELOPER: "I don't know who you are but let's say you are in love with an old TV show and in your mind it's the best thing on earth and 15, 20 years later you have a look at it and finally it's not exactly, like, you know? Eh... The more the years and the years are going to have a kind of... A fake, you know?"
INTERVIEWER: "Yeah, nostalgia."
DEVELOPER: "Bingo!"
I get it that at least some of the devs wanted to create a true successor to Thief but at least that particular interview left a really bad taste in my mouth. He was basically saying that what we think as good is just nostalgia and nothing more and it's time to move on with the times. And once Thief 4 released, everyone saw what it was: an immense AAA misstep that was Thief in name only and with few visual cues here and there. All the nuance was thrown out the window giving room for the cinematic disasterpiece. The map designs were nonsensical and many of the places felt like more like corridor shooters than an immersive sim where you have a set of tools to use how you see fit.
The old saying "If you love something, pray that it never becomes too popular" rings so true with Thief 4. Instead of leaving it in its niche corner, they tried to forcefully push it into the popularity contest with other AAA titles and in the process removed everything that made it "it". I hope Eidos never does anything with the Thief series. They are not worthy and it's best to let the trilogy of games lay rest.