DLCTHIEF: The Bank HeistLoading store offers
Thief
Thief is a solo Steam PC choice for players ready to guide Garrett through stealthy break-ins and encounters with guards. At $2.38 from 
Eneba, it makes most sense when that focused stealth experience fits your plans now; the Steam rating of 75% from 17,430 reviews provides useful context. If you are not in a hurry, an announced Steam sale window is another possible buying moment, with no promise that the game will take part or be discounted. At $19.99 from Eneba, the current offer comes with a $17.61 saving compared with Steam.
GGselThief (2014) (Steam Ключ / Global + Россия)Credit/Debit CardAll-time low ~ $1.22across Steam & third-party stores
Loading store offers
Wishlist price
Set a target to receive an email when an eligible offer in your selected region is at or below that amount.
Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $0.002024-04Current Low Across Stores~ $2.38Eneba
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
01About Thief
Step into Garrett’s silent shoes and slip through the City’s alleys and rooftops, breaking into guarded homes to seek loot and secrets. Thief is a first-person stealth game that lets you choose how to approach obstacles: sneak past guards, use arrows or a blackjack, and manipulate the environment with Focus abilities. The Steam PC player rating is 75% from 17,430 reviews. The Steam PC game was released on February 27, 2014. The Steam PC interface supports English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, and Czech.
Credits
Developer
Eidos-Montréal · Feral Interactive (Mac)
Publisher
Eidos Interactive Corp. · Feral Interactive (Mac)
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$0.002024-04-04 · Epic Game StoreBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| German | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| French | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Show 5 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Italian | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Czech | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19
02Before you buy
Play and language
The Steam PC version supports single-player and full controller support. English is available for interface, audio and subtitles.
Approach
The description centers on stealth and burglary, with options including arrows, a blackjack and abilities to manipulate the environment.
03Frequently asked questions
Who do you play as?
You play Garrett, a master thief who sneaks through the City, breaking into homes to find loot and secrets.
How can Garrett deal with guards?
The description names arrows, a blackjack and Focus abilities that let Garrett manipulate his surroundings.
Can you play solo?
The Steam PC version has single-player. No multiplayer mode is listed in the supplied facts.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
You know there are two kinds of review you should take into consideration when you have a reboot for an oldschool game like Thief. There are the the people who are hardcore fans and are looking for the game they know and love, then there are the new players who are looking for a good game in general. I am new player, I have never played a Thief game before this so obviously I speak for the 2nd group of players. So far this game is very fun and unique among my game library. I am glad to see this game sticks to its guns and focuses on actual thievery and isnt combat such as Assassins Creed or Dishonored, fighting multiple enemys is suicide and stealth is always the best option. There is also the ability to customize the difficulty in any way that suits your playstyle to make it harder or easier, by chooseing harder settings boosts your score and rewards you for playing hardcore. Another feature I like seems to be similar to Splinter Cell, after a mission you receive a score based on three catagorys (Ghost, Predator, Opportunist). My only beef with this game so far is that its a little linear and the maps seem small compared to a game like Dishonored. Its just my preference, its nothing against the game. As long as a game maintains a strong story and good mechanics then being linear is fine, being a linear game seems like a bad thing these days and to me its just one method to telling a story. On to the second part of this review. When I was reading reviews on metacritic today I noticed that about 90% of the negative reviews were about how "modern" it was or how it was a crappy addition to the series. Now I can understand why people might be disapointed in the direction a game might take but it doesnt make it right to give it a 0/10. Fact is that this is a quality game and plenty of effort was put into developing it, thats all I can ask for.Show moreShow less
7 hours at review1,011 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I had my qualms about Dishonored when I first played it, because of the plot (that ping-ponged you on the outskirts of a real story, leaving you no real choices) and and its decorative, linear world. But compared to Thief remake, Dishonored is a masterpiece. And the sad thing is, Thief is totally playable, solid game - but slightly annoying in all possible ways, and also completely ridiculous. Slightly amusing TL;DR next. Thief is not a horrible game - rather, it's quite mediocre, despite all of the evident labor that went into its making. The source of the most excrutiating pain is the game's plot: it's all incredibly half-baked, illogical twists and baffling characters who are all over the place. Yes, including Garrett, who is part action-star jock (delivering one-liners in the most inappropriate situations), and part piece of wood, that chooses all the worst moments to insert a meaningful silence (so they all look like bug-eyed weirdness). All in all, Garrett reminded me of Shia LaBoeuf, which is Eldritch enough in itself. I won't even get into the game's half-assed attempt at political commentary, because it's clearly pulled straight from other movies and games without any thought. Dialogue is simply very bad (though overheard "flavor" conversations are perfectly OK). For me, the highlight of writer's craft was when chief of criminal police explained to a notorious thief the meaning of the ubiqitous in-game word meaning "thief" (along the lines of "You see, when they catch thieves, they scald their hand in tar, so thieves are often called blackhands. Did you know that?") The ending is so muddled and confounding, it's almost high-art surreal. OK, let's disregard the plot (and we can, literally, since there are several nice little, interesting side missions to play). Game mechanics (like the plot) is a smorgasbord of Dishonored, Hitman: Absolution, Assassin's Creed and others. Each one contributes a lovely bit of gameplay - and almost all of these bits don't work. Including the bits from original Thief. For example, Absolution-style closets for hiding are so completely useless, developers made them double as save points. I beat the game on Master using stealth, and I used the cabinet for hiding once. And I could do without it that time. And you can save anytime anyway. Stealth is not very good: on one hand, enemies are deaf and dumb, on the other, there are only two lighting situations for the player: brightly lit and totally obscured by darkness. The end result looks rather ridiculous, player prancing around people, snatching earrings out of their earlobes and cups before their eyes, hiding behind a coffee table in a lit room, hiding in plain sight in the middle of the stairs and so on. Another example of (Dishonored-)pulled mechanic is the Swoop - a cool accelerated stealth motion that is almost silent for some reason. Again, it's sometimes cool, but it undermines the tension and calculations of stealth: if there is a danger of detection, you just swoop around enemies like a terrified jetbike caught in hostile waters. Close combat leaves you feeling like an idiot: to make Garrett more thievy, they denied him the use of any edged weapons, so even if you make a tough moral decision to murder the guy who discovered you, you will have to hit him repeatedly with a small club until he is too tired to block. Yes, I'm not joking, it's the only kung fu in Garrett's arsenal. Open-world navigation is incredibly infuriating. In attempt to make the (very small) town into kind of a puzzle, developers closed off 90% of the roofs and plotted extremely arbitrary and convoluted paths, without any consideration for how the hell could anyone live in this city at all. And where is everybody. The "overheard conversations" mechanic always works as disembodied voices from inaccessible Nowhere, SOMETIMES EVEN IF THE CONVERSATION IS INSIDE THE APARTMENT YOU'RE IN. And it glitches sometimes, so you hear the same chat about a nice-smelling sex-worker all over the level, like it's a ghost that haunts your undersexed thieving self. Apartments that you rob, meanwhile, are always ominously empty. The nail in the coffin is arbitrary window-portals and "narrow-passage-portals" between maps, that never tell you where are you going. They're slow, annoying, and for all of their lengthy animations, they still end up showing you a loading screen. And several hours into the game, you realize that you're stealing everything from everyone, from lowly vagrants to artistic types to dead people to nobility. That's because neither Garrett or the game itself do not differentiate. For them, it's like collecting rings in Sonic. Oh, and Garrett can't jump. It's OK as a design choice, there are a lots of designated climbing points... but Garrett also can't jump over small and deadly pressure plates. He just expires, raising his hands in despair (that's his dying animation, for some reason). Anyway, it all comes down to the plot. You could gladly trod though not-so-perfect-but-totally-OK gameplay if you didn't roll your eyes every half an hour, or if any of the NPC's caused f***-giving counter to show of the myriad readings not amounting to zero. I certainly trodded through Thief all the same, and went away with something to tell - like the SUDDEN Silent Hill revival in the mental institution, or the need to set up precise soft flesh headshots, or cool side missions, or the HONESTLY COOL peripheral/central vision stealth mechanic (when enemies' reaction time depends on how peripheral you are to their vision cone). I have the utmost respect to its developers who churned out this enormous amount of content and threw in a couple of good ideas. There is a lot of things in Thief, and many of them are righteous. But the demonic side won. ***I should clarify, after reading other reviews, that there are many smart bits about new Thief's stealth. Detection of open containers, peripheral vision, multi-level alert, cumulative alert and so on. At the same time I should add that the game world (which is part of the plot, so it's covered in the review) is not very convincing. It's 1920's (or later) technology, household items, fashion and overall aesthetics in a sorta medieval world. Rachmaninov playing on voxophones but lighting with torches. Wirecutters that cut rope. Rope that controls electrical machinery. Ratchet wrenches, metal ductwork and compound bows, and no firearms.Show moreShow less
33.1 hours at review1,631 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
NOTE: Compiled from notes found in the garbage containers of Eidos Montréal offices... "Man, I loved playing Outlast. I should definitely design a level like that. An asylum level with ghouls wandering around." "I wonder how the guards should react when they see a downed character. Hmmm, maybe they could look around first th- Ah, forget it. I'll ask the folks at Square Enix to send me the AI used in Hitman for this." "Just remembered that super cool "Blink" ability that made it possible for me to play Dishonored. I should add something like that to Thief too. I'll call it "Swoop"." "Can't think of an object to place right in the center of this locked drawer which will of course contain nothing else but that object! Ugh, I'll just place another pen." "Let's put a single gold coin here on top of this roof. Why not?" "I can't believe I forgot about the log the player has to lift to move on to another area. I should be more careful. Don't wanna end up like Dave who lost his job for using a different window model." "My son said he will never talk to me again if he can't climb on walls like Ezio even after I explained to him that this is a first-person game. I guess I have no choice but to do it." "When you finish a mission in the newest Splinter Cell, it scores your gameplay in three categories. We have to do that too man!" "Too bad. We put tons of closets everywhere so the player can hide the bodies in them but we don't have any time left to do the animations and stuff." ----- I'm the legendary master thief, Garrett. I steal pens and spoons. I can only be in total darkness or shine bright like a diamond. To be honest, the game is not that bad. Just disappointing. Definitely not the successor to the original series. I loved the setting of the game, dark and immersive. The musics are great. Can't say the same for the story, sound effects and voice acting. Actually all sounds are garbage and there's something wrong with the loudness of the dialogues. Sometimes a man talking miles away will sound like he's next to you. Bad for a stealth game. Even the Thief games I played when I was just a kid had better sound. Firing the bow is fun. Shame that none of the arrows are retrievable. Anyway, we aren't supposed to kill guards after all. I really wanted to play a mission in daylight for a change. It's always night and all the beds are empty. City of vampires? Feeling indifferent about the caged animals in the game but at least they tried something new, I guess. I don't understand how a revolutionary game like Thief ends up with a reboot so unspecial like this? Hopefully Eidos will try harder next time and we'll have a much more memorable game.Show moreShow less
20.9 hours at review343 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I just finished the game and am left wondering what happened during the concept and development phase that led to this blob of a game. I played 1,2 and 3 as they came out, before gold versions, or Steam, or any other modern game enhancement. Sure the original character backstory story was sparse, but the character didn't need to have a convoluted back story to be cool. I'm really confused as to why the writers felt it was necessary to create a whole new "broken home/brothers at odds/apprentice lover kidnapped" back story for Garrett when his original "orphan trained as a keeper turned top tier taffer hated by all factions" story was much more interesting. None of the original world was even a part of this new game. I played on the hardest mode possible, shut off all visual helps (why those existed, I'll never understand), and took my sweet time to play through without killing everyone. I never felt the need to ghost every level in the original games and so I tried to play this in the same way (adventurer style). At the end of this new Thief, though, I was left with three glaring issues beyond the fluffy console gamer additives. Also, why was his jumping and swimming ability stolen from Garret? 1: The music in the game pulled me out of the supspension of disbelief, so I shut it off. The original games had music in the title, the catacombs, the credits and one or two other atmospheric interludes, but never did it have a full-running, repeating, battle-themed score. I felt the score was an addition that cheapened the gameplay at the expense of production money. 2: The addition of ultra vulgar curse words, nudity, and sexually themed conversations was stupid. Never did a player of the original games say to themselves, "gosh, I wish their were topless chicks in this game that said the F- word all the time and performed BDSM themed scripted actions when I peered through a keyhole." Instead we all focused on stealing loot and not getting caught by guards, zombies, and ratmen. I miss the ratmen and bug creatures BTW. Cut the "real words" vulgarity and make your scripting less vulgar. BTW, why was "Taffer" dropped? I loved that euphamism. 3: Stop trying to make partial RPGs out of single player action games. Each level needs clear singular goals that drive profit or plot. Explain and answer all the plot points by end of the game. Start each level with a store for getting gear purchased with previous leveling loot cash. Eliminate the "wandering through town in search of random side quests and loot" bit. Bring back the storybook cutscenes between levels to drive the story. And, for the love of Pete, stop trying to make up a new origin story and faction rules for a world that already existed. The Hammers, Keepers, Zombies, Ghost Priests, Mechanists, Pagans, Ancients, bug people, ratmen, etc had more believeability and intriguing conceptualization than any of the crappy angry mobs and homeless people in this new iteration... Grrrr Arrrgh. Played, finished, sad, uninstalled. There is no replay factor in this game for me. Replay should be story driven; not multiplayer, stupid goals, and trinkets driven. I wouldn't watch a movie over and over again if its story sucked, and single player games are the same kind of entertainment for me. Make the story interesting and I'll play it again and again and again, because I love the story. I would also recommend it, if I loved the story. I recommend Thief 1 and 2 very highly. I wish someone could take the original gameplay from 1 and 2, the original cutscenes, voice acting, footstep sounds, and story lines; and put them into this beautifully rendered game engine. That would be the coolest thing that could possibly happen to the Thief franchise at this point. Make it and expansion pack and I'd pay for the stories all over again. Just don't kill an existing fanbase with crap like this ever again. Shame.Show moreShow less
30.3 hours at review1,406 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
AT A GLANCE (Full review follows below) Game Name: Thief Original Release: 2014 Genre Tags: Stealth; Action; First-Person; Atmospheric; Aesthetic My Overall Grade: B+ Estimated Playtime (Campaign): 10-25 hours Multiplayer Aspect: None Recommended To: Established fans of the genre; Those intrigued by the genre; Aesthetes; Game atmosphere connoisseurs REVIEW I’m going to begin by saying that I understand some people with specific tastes may legitimately dislike this game, and they are entitled to their opinion and I respect that. But I also believe some of the excessive negativity that surrounds this game is exacerbated by an overly vocal group of “Debbie Downers.” At the time of writing this: the data shows that more than two-out-of-three people who took time to review this game enjoyed it; but there are mostly negative reviews as the “most helpful” on the store page. So it seems the people who disliked the game really want you to know about it, even though there is evidence that suggests that there are more people who liked it than who didn’t. And so this review may receive a load of critique by those who refuse to respect my opinion even though I’m able to respect theirs, but that is OK. All I know for sure is that: I liked Thief. Is this game different from the early installments of the Thief franchise? Yes. It has no doubt been modernized to appeal to a wider audience of gamers and not just the hardcore stealth fans (i.e.: it is easier). Still, if you take the time to set up a custom difficulty, you can remove much of the “hand-holding” and make the game quite punishing. Nevertheless, I can empathize with everyone who was let down by this game being too mainstream by default and not staying true to the established traditions. Thief is semi-linear, undoubtedly, especially during the individual levels; although there is a decent amount of freedom to explore The City. The thing is: you certainly won’t get stuck spending 3 hours lost in the sewers like you may have in the older games. Thief is far less enigmatic than the earlier installments. Some long term fans are upset by this, and you may be too— and that is your prerogative. That said, there are also a lot of people who don’t want to spend a whole evening of gameplay being lost on one level in one game, especially if they only have a limited amount of hours of free time in which to play games. So it is true that this game is quite different than the early editions in the franchise. It does hold your hand in the default state (although you can turn off most assistance in the options and difficulty settings). And it is rather linear. You have every right to dislike that and dislike this game. But maybe you are one of the many gamers who just wants to relax and play a game for a few hours after working all day. Maybe you are looking to go on an intriguing adventure, want to be told a story, and don’t feel like getting lost or frustrated on the way. Well then maybe you should give Thief a try. I felt the most captivating aspect of the game was the stellar atmosphere of the gameworld. The ambiance is mysterious, violent, dark, and mystifying. The high production value of the graphics and soundscape went a long way to reinforce the air of quality inherent to the game’s atmosphere. Moreover, even if many other aspects failed, I thought the ambiance of the game stayed true to the established traditions of the franchise. The narrative isn’t the most riveting piece of writing to grace the realm of video games, but it is mildly interesting and serves to give some purpose to the gameplay. The gameplay itself is fun. With the custom difficulty settings you really can take the driver’s seat in determining how casual or grueling of an experience you want. The controls are smooth and intuitive, and there aren’t any painful flaws that will cause you to accidentally be spotted. There are plenty of collectibles, secrets, and achievements if you are into that kind of thing. There are also a large amount of sidequests which can really open up and expand the game if you choose to pursue them. Thief is a pretty fun game, but certainly isn’t a masterpiece. It is quite mainstream, and definitely has stepped out from the hardcore stealth realm of the earlier editions in the franchise. If you just want to play a nice atmospheric game with a high production value and have some fun, you can definitely find that here. If you want traditional hardcore Thief gameplay, you may be disappointed— although you may also want to consider trying the custom difficulty before you blindly dismiss it. It has some flaws and minor annoyances, but overall it can be a rather enjoyable experience. Regardless, this is definitely the type of game where you are going to have to determine your own preferences and decide if you want to try it or not. All I know for sure is that: I liked Thief. Follow my curation page to see more of my recommendations!Show moreShow less
19 hours at review338 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
While all in all, not a bad game, true Thief fans from the original games will find themselves dissappointed. I was sad to see that Thief does not have the same feel as the old games. The humor that you receive from listening to the guards talk is also gone. Citizens wandering around the city do not acknowledge you, giving them a lifeless feel. The story is not as good as the stories in the previous games as it feels less compelling than the Dark Project, the Metal Age and even Dark Prophecy. The new game is also missing some of its most dynamic parts. What happened to the Hammers? The Pagans? Not to mention the unique enemies you encountered in all the previous games (mechanist robots, pagan creatures, keeper statues, etc). You also have to watch Garrett steal and interact with everything as opposed to just taking things, this wouldn't be a problem except that it slows down your ability to stay out of sight of guards. The combat in this game is an improvement, but as the old Thief games were the birthplace of stealth games, combat never was a big focus in Thief, if you're being seen by guards then you're doing it wrong. Overall, the new Thief lacks the dynamic story and gameplay of the original. I give it a 6/10. If you didn't play the original games then you likely will enjoy the game for what it is.Show moreShow less
11.5 hours at review1,381 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
I'm currently playing on master difficulty with focus and like features disabled, the only one I left enabled was the auto-save (I'm not that much of a masichist). I've seen other people complain about length and based on what I've played so far I feel that they tromped through the main story only and on easy difficulty at that. Also I believe The City was segmented on purpose as a homage to the previous Thief games, TDS specifically. I can understand if some people don't like it or would consider the term "open world" somewhat misleading The game is not perfect: The voice acting sometimes will leave much to be desired (Garret), the controls are solid albeit a little strange e.g. sometimes to drop you press x and other times rmb with the fail on guard notice switch on some loot is nigh impossible to get to, Some textures are abnormally low res (Beggar Queens fox coat for example) Characters can be forgettable Can't comment too much on the story at the moment, I will amend this review once I'm finished What the game gets right: The dark and sullen Thief world (master difficulty) Slow and methodical stealth that forces you to find alternate paths Makes you greedy and OCD for loot On average the game looks pretty good (its no crysis thats for sure) Won't complain too much about the AI, at the very least it has proven to be consistent and punishing on Master, Guards will notice if you leave a door open or a safe/case for a valuable item although its not without its bugs e.g. saw a guard constantly spinning in one spot If you are a stealth fan I recommend picking this up If you are apprehensive then go ahead and wait for a sale I believe this game needs to be judged on a per gamer basis, very hard for people to know if they will like it or not but it does recieve my recommendation at this point Current Rating I'd give it ~~~~~ 8.1 (lowered slightly after running into some control issues) ~~~~~ I feel like that is a fair rating, to put this rating into perspective I'd give the original Thief games around 8.8. I will update this once I am finished with the main story... p.s. the game isn't optimized very well so hopefully you'll be playing on at least a midrange systemShow moreShow less
14.1 hours at review300 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I've been a Thief fan since I bought Dark Project on release in that triangle-shaped box. I put over 40 hours into this game and I did all the side quests. I can't recommend anyone else do the same. And I got this for about $10 with the bank heist DLC. http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970398622/recommended/239160 covers most of what I think, so I'll just append to those thoughts here: The Thief series is fundamentally a game about hiding in shadows and moving quietly to avoid being detected by enemies for which you yourself often hear first before seeing them. I've played every Thief game and that statement is axiomatic, fan-patched or not. The problem with Thief 4, as I will refer to it, is that the game's sound engine isn't properly coded and being fully in shadow (as denoted by the light gem and screen border indicators) doesn't meaningfully translate to "enemies are unable to see you at distance." You may be walking along and suddenly hear footsteps or someone speaking quite loudly to your right, as though they were inches away. You turn, and there's nothing...because the person is actually on a separate floor, in another room, or across the street. You can't reliably use sound to determine "there's someone moving from that direction...and they're getting closer/further away" in this game, especially when it comes to overheard conversations. You can be crouched down in full shadow, and a guard/civilian walking past may still be alerted to your presence upon walking by. Or not. Because of the inconsistent application of "the rules" your success or failure is based less upon your own player skill at stealth games (I'm no Lytha, but I consider myself competent) than your ability to predict the path the designers insist you take. You don't actually have much in the way of multiple solutions. This has NOTHING to do with any individual's CPU, GPU, or speaker setup. You can manually swing your blackjack, but it generally won't do you much good. You can't really thwack a surface to distract a guard, and if you try to manually swing it to KO someone it won't work. Nope, you've GOT to use the context-sensitive cinematic takedown button. Sometimes you can kill or knock out one guard (in this game there is absolutely no functional difference between the two outside of some arbitrary challenges) and the guard mere footsteps away detects nothing. Other times you do so and someone several feet away is alarmed. Aside from "broken glass" there is no difference in sound between moving on carpet vs moving on stone, wood, tile, etc so you'll spend most of the game crouch-walking with your hands mimicking the tiny arms of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. I do at least appreciate that you can see your hands and feet, and your picking up of loot items is animated. That makes it seem like you're really in the world. But nearly all of the stuff you steal is below your "master thief" calling. Ink bottles? Pens? Ashtrays? Common silverware? Once you start asking "wait, why are coin purses in bird's nests?" and "if everyone's starving and in poverty, why is this shiny gold ring literally lying on the ground in the street near these beggars?" you can't help but notice that the big unruly mob there to witness the latest hanging--frequently overheard as the only entertainment left to see--consists literally of two people. Thief 4's story, setting, characters, and dialogue isn't even in the same league as the prior Thief games, such that during the moments in this one where they tried to reference / tie-in the old mythology to this my reaction was "game, you haven't earned the right to reference Keepers/Hammerites/Pagans." The writing isn't even in the same league as Assassin's Creed or Dishonored, the two games they were really, really trying to emulate here more than anything else. I think the only Thief game they really looked at was Deadly Shadows, but I don't think they learned from its missteps. "How was I seen just now?" is what you will often wonder. "Why am I not able to jump/climb onto this when I was able to jump/climb onto something just like it?" is another frequent question. The answer to both is the same: "unlike last time, the developers didn't want you to do that THIS time." You are at least powerful enough to be able to easily dispatch multiple guards at once if detected. Only one enemy type in the game is a true threat for which you can't fight head-on, and that's when the capriciousness of the stealth mechanics become particularly noticeable. Don't believe me? Demand proof? Then don't just watch one guy's video playthrough. Watch three. Watch four. Note how they all more or less have to do the same thing the same way, especially during the scripted "you've been spotted and have to escape" moments. I understand the need to reboot old series to be more accessible to new generations of fans. But if you're going to do that, at least do it well like Deus Ex: Human Revolution did. After that game, I had so much hope for Thief 4. But in the end, I got a poorly written game with awful characters and a nonexistent ending with gameplay that could've been acceptable with just a little more effort.Show moreShow less
42.5 hours at review689 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
>be me >download thief >sneak into brothel >get caught by police chief >set the room on fire to cover my tracks >go home >play thief fun gameShow moreShow less
5.8 hours at review296 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
This "reboot" of the reknown series replaces Garret w/ a comic book variant that is part Batman and part The Crow. Picture an Emo Goth Garret, complete w/ eye shadow and dour expressions, who spends his days sulking alone in an abandoned clocktower listening to 'My Chemical Romance' and writing bad poetry: "The clocktower of bleakness ticks a song for the black sadness of my existence. I'm so alone and no one gets me." until a crow comes to guide him to do things. Yup. Garret is no longer just a Master Thief. He's also Batman. Instead of simply running from shadow to shadow, he now "swoops". Instead of simply knocking some jerks out w/ a blackjack, now Garret beats the living snot out of them in a "takedown". He can also do beat-downs-from-above ala Batman. And like Batman he has a code: No killing. Well.... sorta. Not really. Depends on his mood, apparently. He even has a "It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me" moment. They should have just called it: Batman - The Dark Victorian Knight We can't talk about Garret without talking about loot. You'll spend half the game collecting scissors, gears and syringes. I kid you not. You'll also find valuables that are "collectable". These are unique and gaudy (profitable!) items that instead of selling them for a fat payday you'll instead decorate your clocktower with. Did I mention they destroyed the very heart of Garret's character? There is actually a moment when he's told by his fence, Basso, that he doesn't have to go risk his neck to break into a safe that may or may not have something in it, because there's no job and he's not getting paid. Garret's response: "It's not about the payment, it's what I do." *sigh* The game begins w/ you on a job w/ a reckless young Thief that you taught - a little brat named Erin. Torturous dialogue whenever she appears in the game. It's painful. Fair warning: The writing is bad and the story is atrocious. It's like they went to a community college Amateur Writing class and found Stephenie Meyer and James Gunn there and hired them. Erin is the all-in-one female character: comrade, emotional foil, damsel-in-distress, antagonist. Remember all the things you love about the original Thief games: complex maps w/ multiple routes to success, Garret's snark and sense of humor, overhearing Benny the guard, Pagans and their dialect, Hammerites w/ their inquisition-style religious fanaticism, Mechanists and their lispy leader, Keepers and their Swedish brand of neutrality, Mages and their weird echoey mantras, gas-spewing burricks, undead, bugbeasts, spiders, craymen, ratmen, exploding frogs, swimming, flooring that gave you away, mission briefings, cutscenes neatly happening before or after a mission, the euphamistic word "Taffer".... it's all gone! Garret is now just a humorless prick in a city of humorless pricks. The game does, for some reason, retain vestiges of Thief lore that it otherwise doesn't bother with. Erin has a spiky club she calls "the claw" that she made. The game goes out of it's way to make a big deal about it. Garret tells her the claw is holding her back - that it's loud and she doesn't need it. Pretty soon Garret has possession of it and guess what? Turns out he loves it! This despite the fact he has a grappling hook he could use, but for some reason almost never ever does. And thank goodness that the architects of the city thought to put strategically placed ugly metal grates wherever you need to climb to. Lucky that! Wherein the first 3 Thief games you used a blackjack to club people over the head and knockout; now you use it to bash people in the eye during takedowns and as your weapon of choice when going toe-to-toe with sword-weilding guards. You heard me. The lightgem was simple and elegant. So they borked it and added a terrible "shroud" effect to the system, because... well... they hate us, or never played the original games. This entry sees the return of the rope arrow, but unfortunately you can only use them in predetermined areas. Also, you can't retrieve them. That's okay though, because the game is linear and the joy of exploring is absent anyway! Speaking of arrows: you get 3 variants of the plain arrow, one water, one fire, one explosive, and one called choke. Why they felt we needed 3 plain arrows and 2 incendiary, but no moss or gas arrows is puzzling. Why even bother having the rope arrow when Garret has a grappling hook? A tool you only see him use in cutscenes and a couple times during the scripted console-boy climbing sequences. These sequences, btw, are pointless. There is no gameplay actually happening - you simply follow a series of pipes and grates to your destination. There are no puzzles or enemies to worry about - it's like they threw them in just to be able to tick off a checklist. The item system: new items include wire snippers to disarm traps, a pry bar to open windows, and a wrench to open vents. Arrows don't have their own world model and instead are represented in game by what looks like a bagged lunch. You can pick up food, but it also looks like a bagged lunch instead of, ya know, food. Oh, and Opium. Garret takes Opium. It helps him "focus". That's a great message for the kids, huh? Items can be found, but they can also be bought. I thought it funny to find the merchant from Resident Evil 4 moonlighting here as a guy dressed like a flasher eager to show off his goods. The merchant also lets you upgrade your skills via special items. Yes, they've RPG-ified a game that in no way needed to be RPG-ified. You can no longer jump or mantle wherever you'd like, assumingly because the developers are massive d**Kheads. You're going to hate going through windows by the end of the game. You pry open a window, climb in, once inside you turn around - window is closed and you have to do it all over again to get out. Going through vent grates is also annoying. Opening drawer after drawer in a dwelling may be tedious, but even worse is this new peek mechanic which you will accidentally engage when searching for items in desks and cabinets. The developers thought Thief gamers had it too good with simple lean keys, so now we have to press a key (the same key used for just about everything else) that causes you to become glued to corners of walls and furniture until you press a separate release button. Pointless mechanic. Speaking of pointless: the game now has quicktime events. Going through a window, squeezing through a narrow space, and certain sections of game involve a bit of button mashing. FOR NO REASON. The graphics are lovely, if you enjoy the black-on-grey Tim Burton motif in EVERY single map. The sound is abhorrent. You will hear guys from across a room like they are right next to you, and yes this will drown out some cutscene dialogue. Forget about the glory days of having to lean against doors to hear what's in the next room - standing in the road a ways down the street is just as good. My favorite sound issue is when dialogue from an NPC isn't finished before they start talking about something completely different. The lighting system is also flakey. I've been spotted in pitch black - and I've seen enemies find bodies hidden away in the shadows like they were clear as day. The AI is just as broken - sometimes they'll get stuck in place and refuse to do anything more. I've had numerous "daydreaming" AI encounters that would make ghosting a mission imposssible. The missions are mostly linear romps with singular paths and they all contain story cutscenes or action sequences, because nothing says "immersion" like having control of the character taken away from the player. Oh, good luck navigating the City hub - I can't imagine anyone living in such a crazy circuitous mess. Good Lord, I could go on. It's just awful.Show moreShow less
45.5 hours at review623 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.