I remember the first time I played Thief 1 (1998) on a PC Gamer demo disc. I replayed Lord Bafford's Manor so many times until a friend gave me his full copy he got bundled with his graphics card. After Thief 2, the only way to get more Thief was from fan-made maps. The experience changed with Thief 3 on, until Dishonored, and the only way to get a good Thief experience in-between was either Darkmod or the lesser known Thievery UT. So, from the bottom of my heart, devs, thank you so much for this and treating it with respect.
For review context, I'm playing on Blood Moon difficulty and I have 1 seal. I always play these types of games with expert difficulty and go for not spotted/no kills.
The level design that I've seen so far is perfectly dense. Making it one big constant world is a nice change from Thief stage progression. No matter where you are, you're always going to see a unique structure(s) or crevice(s) that needs investigating and is worth it. You're not going to get lost because something looks too "same-sy." There's incentive to go back to places you've visited with new equipment a-la Metroid. Every guard patrol will have many options on how to handle based on level design alone, you're never going to have to wait for a guy to turn around down a long corridor.
The RE-style inventory management is fun. The scarcity and placement of items and ammo is really well done. It feels like the perfect balance of always having to weigh options on what to take. As long as you haven't read ahead to any spoilers, you're going to find a lot of items that you have no knowledge of what it's used for, it looks important, and that mystery along with not knowing when you're going to use it while balancing inventory is a fun kind of stress.
The only thing that seems off to me is the enemy's detection. Keep in mind, Blood Moon, but I also haven't tested on a lower difficulty to see the difference, and I haven't looked on forums to see if other people have mentioned it. I don't know how to explain it, but the detection feels broken. Like the sensitivity, sight, and hearing are bouncing off and through walls in ways they shouldn't. It's hard to explain, it's not because it's the difficulty setting, I've played waayyyy too many of these types, I think it's just maybe broken or needs tweaking. Non-snipers will see me on a perch when I'm full shadow and 2 stories up.
Similar to that last issue with detection, I want to like having the ring as a non-gui indicator of your visibility, but some weapons and cramped cameras can really mess that up and make life difficult. People mistake that I'm explaining it not knowing "It's supposed to be realistic." No, it is, I like it, it's just broken in certain conditions.
The leaning mechanic also needs some buffer time, because you can pop out at high speeds and be fully visible and detected in under a second. Maybe working as intended, but have a speed modifier (like with doors, unless it's there and I haven't found it.) There are some places or corners that can be completely dark, and I can lean and be fully visible.
All that being said, this game is so freaking awesome, I'm excited to see more. I hope it never ends. The way it's built, it's like there's a driving force to see what's next, and I can say I get fully immersed when playing this. Devs, blackjack Stephen Russell and wake him up in the recording studio for the cherry on top. Classic Thief lovers, absolutely get this game. MORE THIEF.
