Thief, the next stealth title on the cards from Eidos Montreal, has some more new information, but not necessarily the ones that will amuse any fan waiting to play the game. To cut it short, Thief will be much tougher to handle this time around.
The game, which is a reboot of the classic first person stealth franchise, according to the company, will not sport the much needed health regeneration feature or the Focus. For those who are unsure as to what Focus is, it was previously used to activate the slow-mo feature of the game.
As a reason for this, according to a recent post by a community manager for the game regarding the demo at E3: “As it was a pre-alpha build, the availability of health and focus consumables still has room for polish and the demo itself had the health and focus resources turned up above normal availability so that the press members could get a good feel for how things operated in a short time. Health and Focus DO NOT REGENERATE. They are based on consumables.”
As far as the in-game lock-picking is concerned, the community manager stated that lock-picking will be different “depending on whether or not Focus is active. Focus makes it easier by bringing up the ‘inside the lock’ view. Without focus, the view is on the front of the lock, making things a little bit less straightforward. It is right there in the name: When picking in this special mode, he is "focusing" and the inside view is meant to communicate him doing that.”
The post also mentioned about the in-game escape scene that we have known so well since the inception of the series. The community manager wrote that the “escape portion of the demo is a tense sequence that involves a great deal of spreading fire, smoke, and collapsing environments. Although there is loot to be found for the quick-fingered, lingering in one place can have deadly consequences. It is not the strongest (or most representative) slice of game content, but served to show some variety in Garrett's escapades.”
“There was a really notable part where Garrett climbs in the window only for the supports to collapse and the apartment goes sideways while you’re still inside, everything nailed down collapsing on the far wall. It required a keen eye and fast thinking. There were also quite a bit of loot items during said escape that were particularly risky. Lingering to try to get them had a certain risk/reward factor to them, including a particular hairy part where I was picking a lock to a chest while I could see fire slowly creeping towards me down some wooden stairs,” the post added.
Thief is scheduled for a 2014 release on Xbox One, PC and PS4.