Thief’s New Third-Person Mode Explained

The Thief series has been a first-person game since the first release all those years ago–Eidos Montreal is mixing it up a bit with their upcoming reboot, however. In an interview with Stevivor, Director Nicolas Cantin revealed the reasoning behind the decision to include certain third-person moments in the game. Cantin went into the thought process of the team as to the view mode:

We have third-person sequences in the game, but it’s still about 98% first-person. We realized that, yes, some sequences – not a lot though – work well in third-person. You can see more of what’s around you. It doesn’t happen often, but we still feel it’s an important part of a Thief game.

“In the beginning, we tried that a little bit; it was easy to try with the Unreal engine to go into third-person. But, we quickly realized that the most important thing in a Thief game – for it to be immersive – is seeing what you’re going to steal; seeing what’s around you, rather than seeing your character.

Garrett is really cool and we’re really proud of him, and I think that’s why we’ve gone third-person in some brief scenes so you can see that.

Call me old-school, but I would prefer to keep Thief in a first-person view–it makes everything a little more real and immersive. Once you pan back into a third-person view, everything becomes a little less personal, like you are playing in someone else’s body.

Thief will be hitting PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on February 25th.