The Downfall of the Thief Series

Via Kotaku, an interview at Evil Avatar about the bad end of the Thief series. They discuss the game series with designer Randy Smith, who details the fine points of the early games and the ignoble end for the trilogy of games. From the article: "I view Thief 3's more action-inclined gameplay as being more than necessary for a mass-market acceptance. The problems with Thief 3 were the same as the problems that plagued Deus Ex: Invisible War - it was the tech. The team scaled back the freeform design, incorporated loading zones, not to mention the unstable frame rate and other misc. issues derived from the technology. The gameplay was relatively solid by comparison."

Comments

Thief had redefined the FPS

[alfs boner]

I find the Thief series redefined what a FPS could be. The game had many things that made it unique. For one, you couldn't just attack a whole army of soldier, because you were guaranteed to get killed.

It also rewarded you for just sneaking around, stealing and not getting caught. At the time, it was the only game in the FPS category that you could complete without killing anyone. Even now, I haven't seen a game where you could do that.

The one thing that disappointed me the most was that no one else got into the thief genre. Once the company went belly up, I haven't seen a game that created the same tense, yet immersive environment that Thief 1 and 2 (haven't played 3).