Thief (2014) is a "reboot" of the Thief franchise...& maybe could be considered a true-blue sequel to Thief: Deadly Shadows (Thief: DS). Thief (2014) feels like a sequel to Thief: DS, since this game takes place (again) in a somewhat open-world called The City for "The Master Thief" Garrett (the player) to explore + b/c this feels much more modern than the previous game. Also, some references also seem like a continuation to Thief: DS. Just like Thief: DS, there are main missions + side missions for him to take on, as well - which are often excellent, with numerous stealthy ways + directions to choose, in a mission (especially main ones). Also, Garrett can also just explore The City to enter people's houses + shops to rob them!

Garrett meets up with an old friend named Erin, for whom he was a mentor to. She has been greedy, trying to find a certain object, which could make her ultra-powerful + ultra-rich. Erin disappears after an incident + Garrett awakens quite a while later. A disease called The Gloom is spreading + an over-powerful figure has taken The City by storm, imposing his will on this now poverty-stricked + disease-ridden City. This part sounds very similar to another [excellent] stealth game Dishonored (in which that game took a lot of cues from the older Thief games). There is also a resistance building-up against this person, as well - which again, sounds right out of Dishonored's book. Garrett begins taking jobs again to make money + to gain information on Erin's where-abouts.

There's an interesting dynamic that goes on b/t Garrett + Erin, which I wish was further explored here. Garrett usually knocks people out, steals stuff & moves along. Of course, the player can also play deadly, if they actually feel like it & choose to do so (or not). Meanwhile, Erin's turned into the complete opposite of Garrett - willing to kill to get what she wants, without hesitation. Early on, this stuff is excellent. I do wish this was emphasized + explored a bit more, though.

I do wish certain story elements + characters were explored quite a bit further here + a bit more fleshed-out; & that certain events went a different direction - instead of sometimes taking the predictable or under-developered route. This stuff is seems to be one of the few weaknesses I've seen to find with this game.

Eidos Montreal has tried like hell to make this game appeal to both the hardcore, old-school Thief fans + for the modern gamer. Besides your typical difficulty levels that games usually allow the gamer to select, players can impose a Custom Difficulty Mode. Here, the gamer can decide what features they can turn off. A lot of these features that can be disabled (or left enabled) - they are the features modernizing the game. These can range from Disabling One-Hit Takedowns, Game Fails When You Are Seen, Disable Focus Mode, Disabling Shimmering Objects & numerous other things. Personally, on my first run-through - I played on Thief difficulty mode. More games should take this excellent approach of allowing such a deep customization of your difficulty + settings - which flat-out embarrasses most games that basically only have a few difficulty modes.

Like Hitman: Absolution, there is a new X-Ray mode (which is similar to the Batman: Arkham games) called Focus Mode. Garrett can basically see through walls + see enemies. It goes further than that, also. Garrett can even slow-down time, be faster in this mode, do lethal blows & even see important objects be highlighted even more so than normal. A lot of this depends also on your difficulty settings + what skills you upgrade. Depending on what you turn on + off, the game scores the difficulty setting. You're scored in-game, also.

The more Garrett does in the game-world, the more money he can make so he can buy Equipment from merchants & even can purchase Focus Points from a certain someone. Also, Focus Points can even be found in the game-world. This is how Garrett upgrades his skills. Skills can range from making Garrett faster; see more hidden objects in the game-world (& on the map); make him lockpick faster; be more deadly in Focus Mode; his attacks do more damage; upgrade the amount of equipment he can carry; & numerous other things.

Garrett no longer carries a sword - for his main weapon. Garrett only has his blackjack, which by default can make the game played quite a bit more stealthy (as long as you don't level-up down a more action-orientated approach). Getting into fights (especially early on) is not really the best idea, until you've followed Garrett's skills down a certain path. Garrett has his usual assortment of arrows for his bow: regular arrows to hit enemies with; rope arrows so he can climb ropes + reach certain areas; fire arrows to burn objects + enemies; water arrows to put out fires; explosive arrows - to name a few arrows. Also, Garrett has a claw + can climb certain walls w/ it. While a great majority of the game is in 1st-person perspective for the camera + you're seeing through his eyes, when Garrett is platforming on pipes & rappelling down some objects (like Lara Croft would in the Tomb Raider games or Nilin in Remember Me), the game switches to a 3rd-person perspective.

Thief (2014) gets the feel of being "The Master Thief" better than any other game I've seen. Besides the big things the Thief games always got right, there's also now a lot of subtle + little things that are emphasized big-time here. A new cover system has been added, as well - in which Garrett can glance, lean + look around objects. Garrett can switch from cover-to-cover. A bit similar to Blink Mode from Dishonored, Garrett can perform a "Swoop" move that moves him very quickly & hard-to-see for a moment - but, its range is very limited. While here you can't move very far + in that supernatural way like Dishonored allowed with Blink Mode - Garrett's "Swoop" seems like a way to speed-up the gameplay here a bit, making it a bit faster + more action-orientated.

That's not everything on subtlties, either! When putting his hands around paintings, we see Garrett's hands close-up, moving around to try + find the switch to find hidden objects. The same goes for bookshelves, as well - when Garrett's looking for a book that actually might pull a switch to reveal a hidden area. We see Garrett react to objects he finds in the game-world, that might be worth a lot of money. We see (mostly) from the 1st-person perspective, with Garrett opening drawers to cabinets, dressers & other things - moving quick + fast like a Thief would. Garrett has a home-base, in which he stores all of the important things + trophies that he's found, stolen + taken. Not only that - you can look at your stats in-game + even store equipment there, also.

Nixxes has done a good job with making the PC version look technically excellent - which seems like the norm for them, after seeing many of their recent ports for Square Enix + Eidos (Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider 2013, Sleeping Dogs, etc). Though, performance was all erratic on DX11 w/ most things on Normal on my PC (i7 950; 1 GB of GF GTX 560 Ti; 8 GB RAM; Win 7 64-bit) on its own - ranging from 40 frames to 60 frames per sec at any moment. Locking it down to a 40 frames maximum with EVGA Precision X certainly solved this issue.

If you really liked Thief: DS w/ the direction that game took with gameplay + modernizing the series (when it did), then I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here - play Thief 2014; it does this even more so than Thief: DS. If you weren't happy w/ the direction Thief: DS took [especially when compared to the previous 2 Thief games (Thief: The Dark Project / Gold + Thief II: The Metal Age)] - it's still possible the game might be for the old-school Thief fan b/c of its new Custom Difficulty Mode. After 31 hours w/ my 1st playthrough - Thief (2014) was really good, even despite its few flaws that just rob it from reaching greatness.

Grade = B+.

Thief (2014) is a "reboot" of the Thief franchise...& maybe could be considered a true-blue sequel to Thief: Deadly Shadows (Thief: DS). Thief (2014) feels like a sequel to Thief: DS, since this game takes place (again) in a somewhat open-world called The City for "The Master Thief" Garrett (the player) to explore + b/c this feels much more modern than the previous game. Also, some references also seem like a continuation to Thief: DS. Just like Thief: DS, there are main missions + side missions for him to take on, as well - which are often excellent, with numerous stealthy ways + directions to choose, in a mission (especially main ones). Also, Garrett can also just explore The City to enter people's houses + shops to rob them! Garrett meets up with an old friend named Erin, for whom he was a mentor to. She has been greedy, trying to find a certain object, which could make her ultra-powerful + ultra-rich. Erin disappears after an incident + Garrett awakens quite a while later. A disease called The Gloom is spreading + an over-powerful figure has taken The City by storm, imposing his will on this now poverty-stricked + disease-ridden City. This part sounds very similar to another [excellent] stealth game Dishonored (in which that game took a lot of cues from the older Thief games). There is also a resistance building-up against this person, as well - which again, sounds right out of Dishonored's book. Garrett begins taking jobs again to make money + to gain information on Erin's where-abouts. There's an interesting dynamic that goes on b/t Garrett + Erin, which I wish was further explored here. Garrett usually knocks people out, steals stuff & moves along. Of course, the player can also play deadly, if they actually feel like it & choose to do so (or not). Meanwhile, Erin's turned into the complete opposite of Garrett - willing to kill to get what she wants, without hesitation. Early on, this stuff is excellent. I do wish this was emphasized + explored a bit more, though. I do wish certain story elements + characters were explored quite a bit further here + a bit more fleshed-out; & that certain events went a different direction - instead of sometimes taking the predictable or under-developered route. This stuff is seems to be one of the few weaknesses I've seen to find with this game. Eidos Montreal has tried like hell to make this game appeal to both the hardcore, old-school Thief fans + for the modern gamer. Besides your typical difficulty levels that games usually allow the gamer to select, players can impose a Custom Difficulty Mode. Here, the gamer can decide what features they can turn off. A lot of these features that can be disabled (or left enabled) - they are the features modernizing the game. These can range from Disabling One-Hit Takedowns, Game Fails When You Are Seen, Disable Focus Mode, Disabling Shimmering Objects & numerous other things. Personally, on my first run-through - I played on Thief difficulty mode. More games should take this excellent approach of allowing such a deep customization of your difficulty + settings - which flat-out embarrasses most games that basically only have a few difficulty modes. Like Hitman: Absolution, there is a new X-Ray mode (which is similar to the Batman: Arkham games) called Focus Mode. Garrett can basically see through walls + see enemies. It goes further than that, also. Garrett can even slow-down time, be faster in this mode, do lethal blows & even see important objects be highlighted even more so than normal. A lot of this depends also on your difficulty settings + what skills you upgrade. Depending on what you turn on + off, the game scores the difficulty setting. You're scored in-game, also. The more Garrett does in the game-world, the more money he can make so he can buy Equipment from merchants & even can purchase Focus Points from a certain someone. Also, Focus Points can even be found in the game-world. This is how Garrett upgrades his skills. Skills can range from making Garrett faster; see more hidden objects in the game-world (& on the map); make him lockpick faster; be more deadly in Focus Mode; his attacks do more damage; upgrade the amount of equipment he can carry; & numerous other things. Garrett no longer carries a sword - for his main weapon. Garrett only has his blackjack, which by default can make the game played quite a bit more stealthy (as long as you don't level-up down a more action-orientated approach). Getting into fights (especially early on) is not really the best idea, until you've followed Garrett's skills down a certain path. Garrett has his usual assortment of arrows for his bow: regular arrows to hit enemies with; rope arrows so he can climb ropes + reach certain areas; fire arrows to burn objects + enemies; water arrows to put out fires; explosive arrows - to name a few arrows. Also, Garrett has a claw + can climb certain walls w/ it. While a great majority of the game is in 1st-person perspective for the camera + you're seeing through his eyes, when Garrett is platforming on pipes & rappelling down some objects (like Lara Croft would in the Tomb Raider games or Nilin in Remember Me), the game switches to a 3rd-person perspective. Thief (2014) gets the feel of being "The Master Thief" better than any other game I've seen. Besides the big things the Thief games always got right, there's also now a lot of subtle + little things that are emphasized big-time here. A new cover system has been added, as well - in which Garrett can glance, lean + look around objects. Garrett can switch from cover-to-cover. A bit similar to Blink Mode from Dishonored, Garrett can perform a "Swoop" move that moves him very quickly & hard-to-see for a moment - but, its range is very limited. While here you can't move very far + in that supernatural way like Dishonored allowed with Blink Mode - Garrett's "Swoop" seems like a way to speed-up the gameplay here a bit, making it a bit faster + more action-orientated. That's not everything on subtlties, either! When putting his hands around paintings, we see Garrett's hands close-up, moving around to try + find the switch to find hidden objects. The same goes for bookshelves, as well - when Garrett's looking for a book that actually might pull a switch to reveal a hidden area. We see Garrett react to objects he finds in the game-world, that might be worth a lot of money. We see (mostly) from the 1st-person perspective, with Garrett opening drawers to cabinets, dressers & other things - moving quick + fast like a Thief would. Garrett has a home-base, in which he stores all of the important things + trophies that he's found, stolen + taken. Not only that - you can look at your stats in-game + even store equipment there, also. Nixxes has done a good job with making the PC version look technically excellent - which seems like the norm for them, after seeing many of their recent ports for Square Enix + Eidos (Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider 2013, Sleeping Dogs, etc). Though, performance was all erratic on DX11 w/ most things on Normal on my PC (i7 950; 1 GB of GF GTX 560 Ti; 8 GB RAM; Win 7 64-bit) on its own - ranging from 40 frames to 60 frames per sec at any moment. Locking it down to a 40 frames maximum with EVGA Precision X certainly solved this issue. If you really liked Thief: DS w/ the direction that game took with gameplay + modernizing the series (when it did), then I'm pretty much preaching to the choir here - play Thief 2014; it does this even more so than Thief: DS. If you weren't happy w/ the direction Thief: DS took [especially when compared to the previous 2 Thief games (Thief: The Dark Project / Gold + Thief II: The Metal Age)] - it's still possible the game might be for the old-school Thief fan b/c of its new Custom Difficulty Mode. After 31 hours w/ my 1st playthrough - Thief (2014) was really good, even despite its few flaws that just rob it from reaching greatness. Grade = B+.