Thief VR: Legacy of Shadow Announcement

[Epifire]

So out of the blue this just dropped. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uG3E9BDdoak



I'm honestly pretty impressed this was the direction they went with. A return to form in the traditional feel of the genre still is desired but I think there's a lot of room for a good Thief VR experience.

Thoughts?

[chakkman]

If you liked Thief 4, and own a VR headset, and don't mind that the protagonist, all of a sudden, is a woman, then it should be just what the doctor ordered.

If you care about the original Thiefs, or TDM, then it's probably something you never needed.

[Epifire]

Yeah, it's a sorta wild decision to bring back a dead franchise as a VR only title. Would be nice if it does good enough for them to consider a standard keyboard and mouse follow up. I loved Half-Life Alyx as a VR title but I'm very aware of just how much the traditional gameplay had to sit on the sidelines to make it work.

Best case scenario, is that it sells good and renews an interest in the franchise. Worst case is we just get a stinker of a fence sitter and our beloved series is no more dead than it was before. I'm optimistic but I'm certainly not holding my breath here either.

[New Horizon]

Uhm, that's Stephen Russell's voice at the end of the trailer if I'm not mistaken.

[Epifire]

47 minutes ago, New Horizon said:

Uhm, that's Stephen Russell's voice at the end of the trailer if I'm not mistaken.

Indeed it is. It would seem that HE is now The Eye. 

[Bikerdude]

Hmm, its litterly the much hated thief4 game engine with the very restrictive movement shoe horned into VR... If a modder makes it noVR like was done with HlAlyx then maybe.

[ChronA]

I think this has some promising signals. For one thing let's acknowledge that, after the Thief 4 reboot failure, it can't have been easy to get this thing made. The first reboot was a studio mandate project, clearly designed by a committee of brainless marketing execs to chase the proven Deus Ex HR buyer market. But who is the target market for this game? The legion of VR equipped Thief fanatics--all ten of them?

No. This looks to me like it could be someone's passion project that somehow bubbled up through the studio system. Notice also that this one is far more naratively daring than 4. Firstly they are not trying to gaslight us with a fake Garrett. Instead they are actually trying to do a woman apprentice as teased by the ending of Deadly Shadows. Secondly, while it's easy to joke about Garrett becoming The Eye, that is actually a really interesting way of renewing the cycle.

In the original trilogy The Eye was an enigma. It had no real explanation in either of its appearances.  By transmuting the old protagonist into the new equivalent of that enigma, all the events of the previous games become legendary, and that lends the new story an opportunity for mythological gravitas that Theif 4 never had.

Does that mean I expect it to be good? Hell no! The record for recent female led soft reboots of male led franchises is terrible. And making good stealth games is hard at the best of times. But there is the possibility. It seems like they are trying to learn from the sins of Thief 4. If they can thread the needle with the new protagonist, making her genuinely suffer and struggle without becoming pathetic, and get the gameplay right... Maybe.

[Airship-Ballet]

8 hours ago, ChronA said:

If they can thread the needle with the new protagonist, making her genuinely suffer and struggle without becoming pathetic, and get the gameplay right... Maybe.

I'm beginning to wonder if you creeps fuckin hear yourselves when you speak.

 

To give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just choose language poorly and mean you hope she's not a Mary Sue, doesn't her suffering and competency depend on player input?

Edited June 6 by Airship-Ballet

[JackFarmer]

3 hours ago, Airship-Ballet said:

I'm beginning to wonder if you creeps fuckin hear yourselves when you speak.

After reading this you do not have to wonder anymore.

Hhowever, Starker handled the situation quite well. 

 

[freyk]

Double topic.

See also topic:

https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22754-thief-vr-legacy-of-shadow-announcement/

[ChronA]

13 hours ago, Airship-Ballet said:

I'm beginning to wonder if you creeps fuckin hear yourselves when you speak.

Uh... A suffering protagonist is kind of core to the whole Thief narrative formula.

Observe: Garrett starts as a starving street urchin, then graduates to professional freelance burglar struggling to pay his rent while every guard, warden, guild thief, and hammerite in the city is gunning for him. It finally looks like he is going to catch his big break if he can just complete a series of harrowing, supernaturally charged heists. Then surprise! His patrons transform into a couple of eldritch demons and rip his eye out of his head! Congratulations, guy who just wanted to get rich and retire, despite your severe injury, you get to go into literal hell and save the world pro bono. Aren't you having fun yet? (And yes for the slow people in the audience, you are having lots of fun, but the character isn't. And the fact this hyper-competent character is clearly struggling in this situation is part of what makes you feel like such a badass roleplaying him.)

Shall we continue to games two and three?

 

And for the record, in this case it is not even about being a Mary Sue; because Garrett IS a huge Mary Sue. It's about having a story with character motivations and conflicts. Changing the sex of the protagonist doesn't change the fundamentals of good narrative.

Honestly I feel like the real misogyny is that as soon as a woman is put in a life threatening situation and doesn't act like it's a lovely walk in the park, some people get a reflexive ick reaction. But what do I know? It's not like I've been spending the last several years of my free time writing a mythological fantasy novel starring a (completely non-eroticized) young female protagonist, and agonizing over how to calibrate the amount of danger she is exposed to and her reactions to it. That would be crazy.

[Airship-Ballet]

56 minutes ago, ChronA said:

Yeah TDP is supernatural noir fiction, which often goes in for a protagonist suffering for their flaws, usually arrogance. TMA is not the same story at all, nor is TDS. Since you're 1/3 there and there's barely any plot revealed in that trailer, I fail to see why it doesn't warrant an eye roll when you claim a female thief needs to suffer and struggle without seeming pathetic in order to be a valid character. I also have a hard time believing you'd be saying that if it was another guy, no matter how many young females you 'calibrate' into your writing. You're weird, you sound weird, I don't know what to tell you. I guess don't sign off on that note or it sounds like you're fixating on gender to an unhealthy degree.

 

At any rate, new Thief gud.

Edited June 6 by Airship-Ballet

[peter_spy]

54 minutes ago, ChronA said:

Aren't you having fun yet? (And yes for the slow people in the audience, you are having lots of fun, but the character isn't.

That is not true, Garret is having fun along the way, even in the last mission intro, he says with a smirk: "I've never robbed a god before". The suffering part is something you interpreted way too much. If you want to see female protagonist suffer, Burial at Sea pt. 2 says hi. Otherwise, its a very weird choice of words.

[woah]

I've always wanted Thief in VR, did not want Thi4f in VR

[taffernicus]

wh wh whyy soo suddden? 

i hope we get new dishonored 3 and new deus ex announcement outta nowhere like this !  i hope that will be a new trend. Totally unlooked-for 

Edited June 7 by taffernicus

[Epifire]

On 6/6/2025 at 9:56 PM, woah said:

I've always wanted Thief in VR, did not want Thi4f in VR

It most certainly wont play like a traditional Thief game but it really could be a lot of fun if done right.

One of the things I realized about folks doing the Half-Life Alyx mod for keyboard/mouse, is that the game REALLY isn't built for that. Spatial controller based puzzles are one thing but just the overall gameplay pacing would feel terrible outside of that medium. As most enemies and interactions in VR need to be much slower paced.

I hope it's decent. I'm not holding my breath but this is a pretty good (VR based) company behind this development. I don't know how well they'll really "get" this community or universe but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[taffernicus]

It seems that the hammer symbol and pagan symbol are making a comeback in nuthief, has the thief 4 universe actually reached the “separation of church and states” phase?