Thief goes gold, gets Thief 101 trailer to prove it

Thief has gone gold, everyone! Insert your own joke here about how that means Garrett’s going to steal it.

We’ve been a bit cynical about the game formerly known as Thi4f (or Thiefourf) here on IncGamers ever since stories of its troubled development came out. And then again when previews started popping up. And then again when it sounded like the development team at Eidos Montreal had changed direction about four times during development. And then again whenever the opportunity to be cynical about it arose. I mean, come on; they only removed quick-time events and experience points a few months ago. If that’s not cause to be snarky, I’m not sure what is.

You know what, though? The trailer released in honour of Thief going gold – titled Thief 101 – actually, uh… it actually looks pretty good. It makes all the right noises about stealth gameplay, using various different arrows as tools to manipulate the environment, the possibility of ghosting through the game, etc. It’s a trailer so it’s obviously going to show the best aspects of the game (or at least what the people behind the trailer think are the aspects of the game that will make people buy it) but still, it didn’t make me cringe or double over in laughter.

Eidos Montreal previously developed Deus Ex: Human Revolution, another entry into a beloved-but-seemingly-vanished franchise, and that too looked a bit cack on first sight. Orange colour scheme? Third-person? Cover system? Gah. And then it turned out to be brilliant and all was forgiven. Let’s hope they manage to do it twice, even though the team working on Thief are entirely different to the team that worked on that, and even though it has a wrong-sounding Garrett, and even though it’s a reboot, and even though the story trailers have been unintentionally hilarious, and even though Garrett has amnesia.

Still! I guess we’ll find out on 28 Feburary, when Thief launches.