Thief 4 Is A Frigging Mess 

The biggest sin for me is what they did to the rope arrow. Nothing makes more enraged than taking something that opened up gameplay and allowed you to complete your job differently, then relegating it to useless. It's like the Magnet Gloves from call of duty. They are not giving you a tool to go through a situation differently, or opening up gameplay, your walking down a path in a slightly cooler looking way.

I'll always be grateful to Thief 4 for introducing me to the franchise, getting me to play the original trilogy and countless fan missions! And.. I actually thought it was good the first time because I had no point of reference. Hoo boy how that has changed over the years.

Thief 4 is the game that really makes me go "God, I'm so happy that the Dishonored series exists, a series that actually carries on the legacy of Thief way more". You seriously can't JUMP in this game? Oh my god.

I hate when games just let you do things when they feel like it, and most modern games are like that. Loved how in the classic thiefs, you were the one that decided where the rope arrow where, and such things.

Unfortunately this mess of a game has most probably doomed the franchise. The message being taken away from this game will be that Thief games won't sell, not that the game didn't appeal to either the lovers of the franchise or the casual crowd and thus is a money loser. Even Deadly Shadows with its cut down levels and abilities (water and climbing) was a more nuanced effort than than Thief4.

I'll take Gloomwood for 500, Alex

But i have to say. The soundtrack is actually good.

"I still feel like paying $2 for Their 4 was a rip-off." Ouch lol.

Damn, this game truly sounds to be friggin lackluster...can't wait to play it myself!

anyway I can't help but find the general villian in this game absolutely insanely funny. Like, they tried SO HARD to make him evil and unlikable. They gave him the evil mustasche, they made him balding, he curses like a sailor and is mean to his men , he's bad at his own job, he tries to go to bed with an underage girl, he has a mommy kink for you to go haha at. Like. The only thing that was missing was him tying Erin to a traintrack or something and then slip on a banana peel. It's so bad.......

They didn't get rebooting Deus Ex right, though

The reason why the sound design was eliminated like the previous installments used for immersive gameplay because Eidos didn't give an utter crap. They said, they wanted Thief 2014 to feel nostalgic but it wasn't. Everything that made the original Thief Series so well received and praised wasn't in Thief 2014. Thief 2014 was not well received and was very criticised because of what Eidos Interactive pulled and tried too hard to appeal old fans alike.

If there’s one thing the game did for me, it was introducing me to the series and subsequently having me go back to play the first bunch. Best way to spend my summer nights back in high school

Garret is actually one of those characters that, in order to make a sequel that includes him, you have to REALLY understand his character. Because Garret isn't easy or one dimensional AT ALL. He has a lot of personality. He has a certain attitude and an ego. His wicked passion is the overcoming of the challenges in thieving and proving he's the best at it. He tells himself he helps his friends because money, because he refuses to admit even to himself that he actually has a heart and cares for them. Etc, etc, etc. Anyone trying to continue this character really has to play the originals and put effort into studying him properly before doing anything. And of course, -Thief 4- failed miserably at that.

You made 30 minutes of thrashing on Thief feel like 10, it was a fun video. Sad fate for Thief in the gaming industry. But it lives on with fan content, which is all that matters.

You watched the interview the former manager of Eidos-Montréal did with Game Informer in 2016 (or 15)??? it really highlights a lot of the shenanigans that happened with Square Enix treatment of the game and the high employee turnover the project had? I feel so bummed about what happened to Thief (more than what happened with DX MD tbh) it was supposed to be this new beginning but it faced tough circumstances. Thank god for the mods tho

I have mixed feelings. Yes, overall it is lackluster, but it had moments, mostly by imagining it as not a Thief game. However, the map sucks, is too visual for its stealth, and the bloody theft animations are so long while having to be a kleptomaniac to afford anything.

I actually enjoyed this game, I completed the game on a custom Master difficulty with over 700 points. It was challenging af but it was super fun playing 100% Ghost throughout the entire game. With that being said, Thief 2014 isn't perfect and has many flaws but overall I did like it though. For me personally, Thief 2 was my favorite and was the best in the series imo. Also, I would love to see Eidos-Montreal remake Thief 1 & 2 keeping everything the same, characters, world layout, story, etc just something similar to what 2K did with Mafia Definitive Edition.

Anyone else think main character looks like Joaquin Phoenix

Dude if I knew you wouldn’t finish the review I wouldn’t have wasted half an hour of my life. What the hell

This is a really good video. You really nailed a lot of the points that just made this game fall so short of it's legacy. And it's a real shame, because there are some things in Thief (2014) that I genuinely thought were positive additions to the stealth genre (at least I was introduced to them via this game). For starters, I actually really enjoyed the swoop mechanic, even moreso than the teleportation ability in Dishonored. With the latter, having to turn and aim to where I wanted to tele to made the ability more of a 'skip parts of the level' function as you warp above all the guards, and less of a 'bailout' function when you're about to get caught. With the swoop mechanic you're still on the ground level at constant risk of being spotted. But if you're out in an open area and suddenly notice a guard is about to spot you, it's incredibly satisfying to flick a direction on the movement stick and reflexively slip back into the shadow without having to aim first. It really felt more like having the cat-like reflexes of a master thief. The other thing I enjoyed was the sort of 'incremental alertness' the guards have. Where most games allow you to distract a guard over and over and they have the memory of a goldfish, having a guard allow only 3 attempts at being distracted until they figure out something's up and switch to high alert gave them a) a sense of some intelligence and b) an extra puzzle for the player to think ahead in - given your attempts to distract really had to count as they were finite. I wish more stealth games did this. I also liked that the lockpicking WAS simplistic, and the real puzzle for it was 'doing it without being caught' as it didn't pause the game, and still let you look around to check the coast is clear. Unfortunately most of the lockpicking spots are tucked away in areas where guards were designed to not patrol; they forgot that mini-games still need to harken back to the core appeal and challenge of the game, which in thief is to 'feel elusive'. And it's heartbreaking to see they had some instances of that but they were few and far between. But ultimately, these are glimmers of positivity sprinkled on top of a game that's fundamentally flawed and restrictive for the genre. At times I just felt like I was playing uncharted. Solving revolving staircase puzzles with no threat of being detected around. Or being railroaded through a fairly linear level and not having to take in my surroundings to orient where the loot is, and I just found my self asking: "What the fuck does any of this have to do with feeling like a master thief?"

I’m glad we have games like the Dark Mod that carries on the Thief legacy. Doesn’t quite beat the original Thief trilogy but it comes pretty close and is way closer to Thief than the Thief reboot and Dishonoured are: I'd recommend it if your looking for a Thief fix. I still hope one day though they revive Thief and give us a proper new Thief game that sets to rights all the thing’s that Thief the reboot got wrong.

Adding Alistair saying "Swooping is bad" made feel things... But, I gotta say comparing Thief 4 to the two Deus Ex titles made the most sense, and that's how I usually frame the conversation around Thief 4, to try and avoid the direct comparison to the first two games, or even Deadly Shadows. Too much water under the Builder's Bridge, I say, different times, different tech, and developers. But, Thief 4 and Human Revolution were just a couple of years apart. What happened? Did the Trickster spike Eidos Montreal's mead with some jacksberry Jack Daniels? They went from the top of Angelwatch to the bottom of the Kurshok Citadel in a span of two titles. Anyhow, loved the video, my dear Master Taffer! Many thank for enduring that long for us poor South Quarter denizens.

Dude, you need to finish it at least if you're making a review

I loved the insertion of Dragon Age's Alistair and his quote about swooping. Perfect addition to that part of the video!

@18:34 i honestly really love the original Thief(1&2) story with the religious cultists and the undead and such, there was always a air of mysticism in the series that always hinted that there is more to the world and the more you explored the more in-depth you realize it is. But no thief4 is the exact same thing they did with tenchu z by grounding everything we loved about the game and taking a shit all over it and not learning from the previous games.

The poor kids growing up on Thief 4 and Hitman Absolution...

This is what happens when corporate ceo slave puppets try to pretend to be game devs

6:10 one hardly called an example of sound, and the other on a carpet. Well done.

more thief series related bloopers please

I always called Thief the "Dishonored without Magic". In my opinion, the game isn't as bad as people think it is, yeah, it has it's bad things, but it doesn't make it unplayable. I Still prefer Dishonored, but i personally like Thief a lot too.

i do agree with the lack of sound design in comparison to t1 and 2. It saddens me that they had such gorgeous looking textures and world building tools but not able to develop the level design of those games. I still played this game a number of times tho.

When I first bought and played this game in 2014 on the Xbox One, I had no clue what franchise I was getting in. I thought it looked very cool and I love stealth games, particularly Assassin’s Creed and some aspects of TES. When I played it over and over, it felt like a guilty pleasure game to me. I know everyone has their doubts and… skeptics but I’m grateful that I got to play it because it let me to watch JohnnyDFox’s playthrough of Thief: DP, Thief: MA, and Thief: DS. Now I wish I could play the old games and experience them like some 90s kid.

Been binging thru your videos and I really appreciate when you go into a game’s development. Something which a lot of youtubers usually don’t do

I noticed you harp on objective arrows/markers a lot in these kind of games and while I agree that they shouldn’t be necessary as good level design can lead you through a level, even a large one…with a lot of modern games, good or bad, a lot of times progressing through a level may lock other parts of the level off, limiting your exploration. I always use the objective arrows as a means to know where NOT to go first more than I do as a means to know where I’m supposed to be headed.

The video is well put together, the narration is really good. However I felt disappointed that you didn't finish the game before making this review.

24:43 I love how the best level in Thi4f is just a ripoff of a dishonored level

I loved this game when it came out. It was one of the first games I played that generation on the Xbox One. Haven't played it since so it might not have aged so well.

Could you talk about 3rd person in Immersive SIms? It feels like a topic often discussed in forums/discord but never approached in videos. Hitman, VTMB, MGS4 etc.

Thief 2014 was the second time I played a thief game, back in 2019, and I got it again now on my pc since I used to have it on the ps3 back then, compared to the ps3, the pc port is really good, it has the settings it should have and it runs very well. However still doesn't fix many things with the game, Erin still pisses me off in the beginning and I could not care about her more, the levels feel somewhat linear compared to thief 2 and 1 and the AI is pretty decent but nothing special, however you can't say this game doesn't have an incredible atmosphere, if you can look past the flaws it has and take it for what it is, it's a pretty good game.

I loved this game 😕

The game is $2.39 today, should I buy it or it isn’t even worth it?

Thief can still be revived if the devs someday decide to remake the old games.

You were at 1k subs 2 years ago? Man you are blowing up

no sword, 0/5

Can we talk about how a series that revolutionized sound design and had memorable music DOESN'T HAVE A EASILY ACQUIRED SOUNDTRACK TO BUY?! It's downright damning that fans have to download RU-vid videos to get memorable songs that don't require a 24/7 internet connection.

the bad background makes so much sense. I'm sure this would've been an underrated masterpiece of a game if it had been developed and worked on for much longer.

Not a fan of Tori Amos, but respect her allot. Then you said Kardi B. and I felt that like a sudden, quadruple increase in gravity. Crushing.

The only thing i like about this game is the animation of simple stuff like finding switches on paintings and opening cabnets im a sucker for animations over an item just getting added to you inventory

Ok, the reboot has its ups. But there's so much more downs! Good job on marking all of them! And thanks for a nice review! Thank you so much for more behind the scene trivia! You found some stuff that isn't spoken of a lot even among the fans. Agreed on Steven Russel. Praise the Builder he wasn't involved much with the project. "Why did they take away jumping?" - Because they couldn't deal successfully with physical model, so their "super artistic and hard to perform" animations turned to shit. "Sound desing in Thief 2014" - very nice examples. The best part is that volume of dialogue is screwed across all localizations. A memeber of a Russian localization team told once on a TTLG-like forum how he and his colleagues tried to solve this problem manually after they had been denied several times any kind of fix both from Russian tech team and Eidos Montreal. "Picking windows" - I swear I saw at least two houses that clearly showed the City wasn't unloading. Mentioning it because many people say the animation for window opening was made to mask loading. While it's true for a number of key load zones, anything that doesn't lead you to one of Ector's or Vittori's missions, or to a different district, or to a story mission is just Team B Montreal being lazy and reusing animations. Only after playing twice myself, watching a ton of reviews and YOUR review I've realized tips of swords glow right before they are about to go down on you. Odly reminds me of charged attacks in Bloodborne, even the color of the glow is almost identical. There are very weird similarities between the reboot and Bloodborne, btw, and I'm not sure if it's me going crazy or these are some crazy coincidences. P.S. Roasting Thief 2014 is the best part of the whole game. EDIT: grammar. EDIT 2: grammar again. My apologies for all misspellings. Sometimes they just slip through and it takes me ages to notice them. And yes, I go back to my comments on RU-vid, because I'm paranoid. Bless you, random stranger and author of the video!

Arkane Studios should make a new Thief.

Sees length: 30 Minutes *Grabs Popcorn

As a huge fan of the original Thief trilogy, I can honestly say that this game isn't as bad as people make it out to be, and it did a lot right in my opinion. But I can never get over the fact that there are no Hammerites or Pagans. =(

Thief was the 1st pc game i played on pc. It was so amazing seeing graphics better then ps1 and voice overs.

In regards to difficulty Assisted, Normal, Hardcore as an example from the RE2make when tuned correctly should be all that's necessary for a quality game. Anything else and there's usually a good chance the game isn't balanced so they want you to do the balancing.

before assassins creed, all old time games (ww2/medieval ages and stuff) - they pretty much all used the age appropriate music; it's an interesting choice/mix, I like that in thief 4 also.

You should of played Invisible War. That is a good game.

They were supposed to use Taffing not friggin. Didn’t anyone notice that not once was Taffer or Taffing mentioned. That was a core part of the Thief series for me. Oh, and the only two characters that were actually familiar were just Garrett and Basso (the former box man; now Garrett’s fencer and only true friend). Personally the concept (outline) of the story itself was not bad. Thief was unjustly treated.

The past few weeks I’ve been playing notoriously average/bad games people said to stay from like watch dogs 1. Now I’m gonna try this one, hope I like it more than others did.

All I want is a direct remaster of the first two games with the original music, voice recordings and game mechanics, just with updated graphics like how shadow of the Colossus was done.

If you yearn for more taffering, I suggest you to download and play The Dark Mod, a spiritual successor of the Thief series that offers hundreds of fan-made missions.

The story did leave a lot to be desired, but I actually didn’t have much of a problem with Erin being unlikeable. To me it was clear that despite how much the two had clearly grown apart, Garrett still cared for Erin and held himself responsible for how (purposely unlikeable) she’d turned out. It was a mentorship and sorta relationship (romantic/familial - still not clear on that lol) gone bad. And she was paying the price for it by being the murderous mess of a person we were introduced to. I ended up caring about saving Erin not because I liked her, but because I related to the feeling of holding regret/guilt and wanting desperately to make right whatever wrongs you think you made. Totally understand where you/other reviewers are coming from, and the writers definitely could’ve done it better. It’s just interesting to see what everyone thought of their dynamic

@16:05 your opinion about Stephen Russell is absolutely on fucking point! I remember when this game first came out only to hear that he wasn’t voicing as Garrett and I was so disappointed (being a FM voice actor, and huge fan of the thief series). But bringing your opinion into perspective, based on the facts and a horrible direction of Thief4, I couldn’t agree more. I’m glad he stayed away and for good reason.

That Cardi B analogy killed me😆

Often times games that let you turn off all the objective markers and hand-holding HUD elements are designed with all that stuff turned on in mind, and they become confusing, convoluted and difficult to navigate with them off. Thief 2014 was so bloody derivative, and as a result really had little identity of its own.

dude this review and your opinion of trailer park boys was spot on mate

I love your videos... Will you consider reviewing "The Dark Mod" since you have so much Thief related content....? I'd like to hear your thoughts on it....

"it's not how much you steal, it's what you steal" >95% of stuff you still is a lot of 1$ tupperware To this day, I still remember how the writing of this game convinced me that as long as the writer of those lines I am not the most mentally challenged person on the planet.

A nice focus on an old game. Glad to see people giving it love

"Oh! A low-effort review made by a tiny channel with almost no subscribers compared to the people in the big leagues." Wrong. This is a splendid review brimming of fun edits and references that almost anyone can find funny. And the channel name! A classic through and through. I actually just thought of going through this game again, but now I think I can spend my time more efficiently. Thanks for reviewing this game so I don't have to play it a second time.

Remember getting this game when it came out at the time as PS4 wasn’t out long and wanted something to play it was very mediocre only thing worth remembering is the asylum level just about

What's wrong with HUD icons or objective markers?

I liked as much this game! Very intense game.

I liked this game quite a bit until the boss fights towards the end. I had a lot of fun stealing things to that point.

I think I played and out the controller down on the second chapter.

You didn't even finish it?? It's like 8 hours long, dude. You lost credibility on this one.

I miss Rhiannas dad 😥

to be fair, I think 2 bux is worth it at least for being able to check out some of the environmental modeling

Recently "Thief" (more like "Petty Kleptomaniac") 4 was added to gog library, and one of mine friends asked me "Will you add it for your collection?", for which I replied: "Only if they will pay for purchase... I already spent my money for PS3 version of it, so no way in this life." At least I was able to change this game for more enjoyable game for PS3 after I've finished it... And while I was playing, I had an idea that "Daniel Day Lewis wanna be" could be a more skillful thief, than a protagonist - this guy always manages to approach "petty kleptomaniac" unnoticed. Although, considering broken sound design (possibly it was made in order to force player to use focus ability), everyone in the game could be better thiefs than a protagonist.

V good summary - I`ve had Thief 4 on my Steam library for ages, and recently realised that I hadnt played it since 2015, so I DLd it and fired it up.....and found out the terrible truth about why I`d ignored it for so long. I understand why you`d say that the franchise is dead, but now, in 2023, other similar First person franchises have stalled - Dishonored, Bioshock, Elder Scrolls - so if Square Enix had a scrap of sense they`d resurrect Thief, hire some twisted genius as Development Head, and get a new kickass game under construction.

The button on Rihanna Pratchett's red blazer is doing some serious work.

sound design is fantastic. thats what makes it challenging. forces u too use sound anddd visual cues.

I feel like from around resident evil 4 onwards a lot of games had really mind numbing crap colour palettes too. All grainy looking grays, brownss and dinginess. I’m no gaming expert but it seems like a trend that went on for a long time. Thief 4 being another example.

The Class War story arc could've had potential, with a virus breaking out along with a mysterious cult pulling the strings behind the curtains, there could've been a good story there and that's probably what I was most disappointed in, how poor the story was. Yeah the gameplay took a lot of steps back compared to other Thief games but it was decent enough to hold my attention, the atmosphere was alright, ambient soundtrack was good and something bout looting every nook and cranny of the environment kept my attention longer then it should. The story also had my interest too, as I was curious how it was all going to play out at the end. Probably one of the worst endings ive seen as it clearly alluded to a sequel thats just not going to come.

I paid $60 for this at launch and still haven't finished it

The more time goes on the more I hate Square Enix.

Its at discount for like 3 bucks only on the ps store....i was considering in buying it because i enjoy stealth games but then everyone is saying its a bad game.... EDIT: I bought the game, I'm in chapter 5 I think so far I kinda like it. Garret is such a dull character to me, I just don't find him that interesting at all. I like the animations and my absolute favorite part is the asylum. I felt like I was playing a horror game for a few minutes and that Jump scare got my ass lol. I think the story seems alright. The thing I hate is how restricted it is. You can't climb certain obstacles and buildings which is so stupid because this game is stealth heavy and you're supposed to use your environment to the fullest. This is where Styx fails to do as well. Hell the first Assassin's Creed game came out in 2007 and you could climb literally anything and anywhere.

Was that a Tori Amos reference? nice!

Subbed! Found you through Patrician, keep up the good work! It's such a shame Thief 4 was bargain bin Dishonored when Dishonored was in many ways a love letter to Thief... I'd love to see you do videos on Thief Fan Missions or a breakdown on great levels, like Return to Haunted Cathedral Life of The Party

That button on her red jacket is going to pop of and kill someone.

Now I’m not saying this game is good; played this before Dishonored and got exactly what I was looking for in the latter that was missing in the former, however, I think I felt so sorry for this game because it was very clear that it was missed potential, and my willingness to fight for the underdog prohibits me from really hating this game. Is it good? No. Is it the worst game I’ve ever played? Absolutely not.

Thanks for save me 1 dollar 😄 Pd: There is a thief easter egg in deus ex mankind divided sysyem rift dlc

Here's an epic 45 minute rant from years back that I found cathartic: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xaQmzShBZ_k.html

I like this, but what is "surface level immersion", sounds quite paradox

As the first Thief game I played, I still love it, but compared to the others it was still just a solid meh

the open city was ruined by the fact that it was like 4 small sections connected together by long loading times

As an Tori Amos fan your analogy is spot on. Discovered you through PatricianTV and you earned a new subscriber. Great content, Rock Hitter!

Would love a video on the best fan missions for Thief series!

I went into this having not played any thief games before or even knowing anything about the previous games. I couldn't bring myself to finish the game either.

As someone who doesn't like stealth games Thief 4 was amazing.