Let me start off by saying, I’ve never played a Thief game before. I generally tend to stay away from games whose entire premise revolves around patience, but this struck my fancy, so I decided it was time to check out the franchise.
This may sound horrible but after about 30 hours of gameplay, when I finished the final chapter, all I could think was, “thank goodness, it’s finally over.” And in actuality that’s not a true statement because Thief has an open world aspect that allows you to play, replay, and explore until you’re exhausted. The greatest feature in this game is that you can do side quests and replay each chapter of the game in whatever fashion you see fit. In addition to this, you can enter challenge mode and test certain gameplay skills accordingly.
This version of Thief begins with Garrett and Erin trying to steal the primal stone, which goes horribly wrong. Garrett then spends the rest of the game trying to help a friend or two whilst discovering the real story behind the primal stone. There are only eight chapters in the main storyline and the difficulty varies on each. At the end of each chapter, your gameplay style is characterized by ghost, opportunist or predator. The longer I played, the more I became a predator.
As the storyline progresses, your environment deteriorates and society becomes more and more corrupted by the people in power. Once this happens, getting around town undetected becomes more difficult. The final boss battle felt anti-climactic like that of Dragon Age II; when it was over I couldn’t believe it was actually over. I do have to throw kudos out for the Asylum chapter because the developers, Eidos Montreal and Nixxes Software BV, managed to throw in an, albeit clichéd, evil asylum. This was one of my favorite chapters because the audio and visual aspects made it rather creepy, and it felt like Thief switched genres for that chapter.
This may seem minor to most, but I really wish you had the option to play as a female thief. Quite frankly, the only other main female character, Erin, is downright obnoxious and annoying. It felt like she was whining the entire game, which needless to say didn’t make me want to help her in the slightest.
Whenever, I have an open world I want to explore more than I care about the main storyline. I checked as many nooks, crannies, and secret passage ways and occasionally did the chapter missions. However around hour 15, I have to admit that I was burnt out; in plain English, I was bored. You can only steal and sneak for so long before it becomes monotonous. All of the things that I found wonderful when I first started playing became a bit of a nuisance. Stealth games require a modicum of patience, I understand but I felt like I was doing similar things ad nauseam. Needless to say, I found myself running through the remaining chapters just to finish a storyline that isn’t strong and pretty predictable.
Thief makes use of the PS4 touch pad feature, which took some getting used to but once you’ve gotten the handle of the game mechanic it quickly feels like second nature to use. I actually like how it was integrated into the game instead of being this optional and inorganic feature. Accessing other menus and upgrades was irksome and at times downright cumbersome and awkward.
Thief is gorgeous on the PS4 and I suspect on every platform it is available on. I didn’t have a problem with the dark dungy world; I think it adds to the environment. There are some game mechanics that get old very fast, i.e., opening windows, but overall it’s enjoyable to play. The shear amount of hours that you can spend replaying this game makes it worth the price. You don’t have to be a stealth master to be able to play and enjoy Thief, and I am highly grateful for that.
This review was based on a digital copy of Thief for the PlayStation 4 provided by Square-Enix.
