The first-ever trailer for the new Thief is finally here, but something – or someone – is missing.
After years of waiting, the first real look at Eidos Montreal’s take on Thief has arrived and I’m really not sure what to make of it. For one thing, it’s very brief and dark, so it’s hard to really get an eye on what’s happening. But it also seems rather heavy on the action – which, to be fair, isn’t entirely surprising, given how difficult it is to make straight-up stealth gameplay interesting in a teaser.
One thing that fans of the franchise will notice straight away, however, is the absence of Stephen Russell, the man who gave memorable voice to Garrett, the game’s central character. Garrett is still the protagonist of the new game, but it would appear that a new voice actor has been handed the reins. Knowing the Thief crowd as I do, I suspect this will not go over well with an awful lot of them.
The sword-dodging ninja thing is a bit alarming as well if you come at it from that perspective, but as one disinterested observer put it, “It’s a CGI trailer with no sneaking in it,” and it’s a bit early at this point to start getting too wound up. Besides which, it’s been nearly 15 years since Garrett debuted in Thief: The Dark Project; that’s an awful long time in the world of videogames and like it or not, things change. Somewhat ironically, it’s also been 15 years since David Hayter first put voice to Solid Snake, and his release from that franchise led me mere hours ago to describe Garrett as “inextricably tied” to voice actor Stephen Russell. The universe works in mysterious ways.
