First impression: Not total garbage. I'm surprised! You and I both expected me to flat-out dislike this game because I'm a long-time fan of the franchise, didn't we? But it really is not total crap.

As far as I'm concerned, all references to "classic Thief" elements such as the Hammerite symbol, the Keeper statuette, Garrett's mechanical eye, guards mentioning the word "taffer, etc., they are all just nods and easter eggs paying homage to the original trilogy. There's some clumsy attempts to dovetail the rebooted universe with the old but it's too nonsensical to take seriously. And why use the name Basso for new-Garrett's fence? Why not use Cutty? Old-Basso was just a boxman (expert lockpicker).

The city hub makes a return in Thief 4. I know some people who didn't mind it in Thief 3, but I know *nobody* who LIKED it. Its reuse here only served to pad gameplay time with tedious walking back and forth. Thief 2's "Life Of the Party" mission had Garrett traversing the city rooftops from his home all the way to Angelwatch. In that single mission alone, the world-building achieved by the things you witness and the conversations you overhear on the way to the actual mission area gave that Thief-universe more heart and soul than this entire game did for its own universe. I'll never forget the pejorative 'taffer' or the battle between the guards of Lady van Vernon's house and Master Willey's castle. A few weeks from now all I'll remember about Thief 4 is "sloop" and "Garrett, I'm slipping!"

Analogy time: This game is about as classic Thief as the movie "World War Z" was a faithful adaptation of the book, i.e. not even a little bit. Now, now, this is a reboot, sure, sure. I'm already accounting for that and I'm still making this statement! The thing they've created here does not inherit enough Thief-y essence to rightfully call itself a reimagination of the original intellectual property. This game and that movie should have no right to affiliate themselves with those respective IPs. The only reason they have each done so is because their creators did not have faith in their products to stand alone on their own merits.