It seems as though the Thief reboot that is in development at Eidos Montreal might be on the rocks due to a number of high-level departures from the team and various office politics. This report comes from Polygon, which has heard that conflicting visions for the game are the main reason for the departures.
Allegedly, the press demos took upwards of 10 months of development time. A demo level that took place inside a brother reportedly featured "Cinemax-level" sex sequences that many animators were uncomfortable creating.
Perhaps the most telling thing about the development of the Thief reboot comes from this bit of insight.
Footage that was shown off to event goers at GDC 2013 was initially going to be shown to the public. However, this idea was also scrapped due to "internal unhappiness" over the quality of the footage captured.
Even with these revelations, Eidos and Square Enix are still planning to show the game publicly at E3 2013 in June.
The lead and senior design roles were fluid, with some team members departing after less than two years. According to one source, each new lead and senior designer would come with a new vision for the game. Old ideas — including stages and mechanics — would be rebuilt or scrapped. In March of this year, the same month as the game's publicity push on the cover of Game Informer magazine, Lead Game Designer Dominic Fleury left the studio.
Sources emphasized the high level of talent and enthusiasm of team members, many of whom came to work on Thief because of their love of the franchise. Those same sources cited team politics and conflicting visions as cause for many departures and setbacks.
Sources emphasized the high level of talent and enthusiasm of team members, many of whom came to work on Thief because of their love of the franchise. Those same sources cited team politics and conflicting visions as cause for many departures and setbacks.
Allegedly, the press demos took upwards of 10 months of development time. A demo level that took place inside a brother reportedly featured "Cinemax-level" sex sequences that many animators were uncomfortable creating.
Perhaps the most telling thing about the development of the Thief reboot comes from this bit of insight.
The current version of Thief barely resembles the initial concept, says a source. The vertical slice doesn't load inside Thief's current heavily modified version of Unreal Engine 3. Many programming tricks were necessary to run the current demonstration, like turning off non-playable character AI — the engine has trouble when too many characters are on screen.
Footage that was shown off to event goers at GDC 2013 was initially going to be shown to the public. However, this idea was also scrapped due to "internal unhappiness" over the quality of the footage captured.
Even with these revelations, Eidos and Square Enix are still planning to show the game publicly at E3 2013 in June.
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