Some might have a lot of loud floors so you would want to take more moss arrows to soften your footsteps on those surfaces, others are particularly well lit so you need more water arrows to extinguish the torches, and so on. The levels, which are designed in such a way as to allow replays to have an altered journey through them, may encourage a player to prioritise a certain gear purchase when they play again, or if they save themselves into an impossible situation and have to restart anyway. The kicker is, you only have one chance to use your gear - encouraging the player to experiment and try different ways of overcoming or circumventing the guard arrangements and security systems. This is provided at the beginning of each mission, and you can add to it with the loot you picked up in the last level. These can be used to create new paths - there is a water arrow that can be used to douse torches, creating new patches of shadow for Garrett to skulk through, and rope and vine arrows that, once embedded in a surface, will unspool a length of rope or vine to climb up and gain higher ground. This includes mines to use as traps, either lethally or not, flares to light up darker areas (this is an extremely gloomy game at times), and most significantly arrows with elemental properties. Garrett does have access to a range of tools and equipment. The result is that when playing the game, you could close your eyes and know what surface you are walking on.ĭo note that although I am mostly not discussing the story, there will be complete spoilers for how the missions themselves play out - and those levels are arguably the most joyful discoveries you will have playing this game, so fair warning if you haven’t tried this 20-year old classic yet.Ībilities that change how you move through levels My source for this is the fandom wiki, where you can also look at some of the various audio environments. Eric Brosius and the sound team worked with the Dark Engine to give different areas or “room brushes”, different acoustic properties. The game employs genuine 3D sound, simulating the way real noises bounce off surfaces in its game world. You also make different levels of noise depending on what you are walking across. Being aware of where you are, where NPCs are, and where you have observed they are likely to be, is key to playing the game.
Combined with this is an NPC scheduling system that, well before The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, would have guards and other characters moving around levels of their own accord on patrols of varying routes and complexity. The key mechanic of these games is the light gem at the bottom of the screen that dims or brightens depending how much light you are stood in and how fast you are moving - as you play you become accustomed to paying attention to this constantly as it will inform how well guards can see you. The levels are built in such a way as to encourage expression via different routes and optional areas and objectives, so that players can still find their own “path of least resistance” within the more prescriptive abilities open to Garrett. As far as being an immersive sim goes, this is more about different approaches you can take with the qualifier they have to be stealthy, and about a simulation and engaging realisation of the game world you inhabit. Garrett is pretty fragile, and sword blows from the startled guards will knock his health down at an alarming rate.
Unlike some other immersive sims where players can generally eschew stealth in favour of a violent approach, direct confrontation and combat is very challenging. This is a design-first game, which likely contributes to its stately pacing and structure.
THEIF 2 VIDEO AMBUSH SERIES
In contrast to the first game, where the story came first and levels were created to support it, for Thief II the team designed a series of levels and wrote the story around them. The horror atmosphere of the original is largely absent though not entirely, but as far as creating a simulation of being a thief with the tools to rob from the rich and pay the rent, the design of the environments and objectives is nearly spotless. The second game features almost exactly the same gameplay and player abilities, but sees the lead character Garrett more focused on breaking into mansions, banks and other well-guarded locations around the series’ steampunk The City, as opposed to delving into tombs and fighting off monsters. These are first person games where the objective verb is to infiltrate, and the best approach is usually to avoid combat while focusing on lockpicking and looting. This is the 2000 sequel to 1998’s Thief: The Dark Project, which was a stealth-based immersive sim from Ultima Underworld and System Shock creators Looking Glass Studios. Despite one almost fatal flaw in its final mission, Thief II: The Metal Age contains some of the most purposefully crafted and well-designed levels of any game you could hope to play.
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