Thief development team had hurdles to overcome when designing its combat

Thief's senior producer Stephane Roy has told OPM that combat in the game was a challenge for the team at Eidos Montréal.

Speaking with the site, Roy said that early in development, the studio play tested the series' original style of fighting original style of direct fighting, and found it didn't work.

“A lot of people, a menagerie of people, told us okay, ‘it doesn’t work. Ten years later, that type of gameplay doesn’t work’, said Roy. “I don’t know if you remember with the previous game? Let’s say I’ve been detected; it was really, really tough to survive. You know? It was unforgiving. Game over."

The team then tried to do something different, but the hurdle to jump was the fact that Garret is a thief, not a soldier, nor is he a killer. Therefore, the team had to come up with a combat mechanic that let you fight back, without detracting from Garret's character.

“How do we design something [so] that you will feel you can protect yourself, but at the same time I don’t want to see you going into the middle of the garden, into the light, and [unsheathing sword sound] 'come on, man!'.

“Don’t try to kill them, just try to push them or make sure they are disabled. Don’t finish the job, just get the f**k out. How we used to play games ten years ago and how we play games today is different. So that’s why we are supporting this new way to play”.

Thief will release on PC, current and next-gen consoles simultaneously in 2014.