All I need is a good defense, ’cause I’m feeling like a criminal.

In true fantasy fashion, this concludes a trilogy of posts which will eventually have one more sequel. The past two were about why I loved Thief II; this one will be about why I can barely stand Thief III, and I’m leaving things open for some eventual commentary on the first game. After a break.

First, for the record, I know it’s not called Thief III, but Thief: Deadly Shadows. The studio’s refusal to use a numeral -one of their many attempts to appeal to new players by avoiding the appearance of a sequel- is only one of the silly naming issues that plague the series, starting with the pleasantly literal title (after I finish Thief, I may play a couple of rounds of Violent Guy, or even load up Puzzle Solver for old times’ sake), continuing with the vague subtitles (in our house, we cut to the chase and simply call the games Thief: The Dark Problem, Thief: The Metal Problem and Thief: Deadly Problems) and inevitably cumulating in Eidos’ much-giggled-over, probably not-even-serious decision to call the next sequel Thi4f. So I’ll stick with “II” and “III,” if that’s okay with you, and let our respective gods sort it out.

I also know I’m in 2004 right now. I was in 2000 earlier; we’re still moving forward.

So here you are, making a sequel to a beloved duo of aging PC games. You know they already have a dedicated fan base, but you want to expand your audience; you’re also doing a console version this time, and you’d really like to streamline this game -a relic of the late nineties, with its massive nonlinear levels- into something that’s both comfortable on a console and appealing to people who aren’t familiar with all the mythology. How do you do that?

Apparently, you change your steampunk noir to something that is, at least spiritually speaking, a fantasy RPG. And that means -for our first Deadly Problem- derailment for the main character. This sounds strong, but the transition from a noir hero to an RPG hero is more drastic than you’d think, and a character derailment can be devastating to a game so driven by a certain kind of wish-fulfillment.

See, noir heroes are essentially passive. They’re highly competent characters, but the Man is always in their way; he needs their services, but he won’t give them a home. In Garrett’s case, he spent most of the first two games being ushered from one mission to another by political forces far beyond his control or understanding. His egoism, empty wallet, disdain for others and surprising naivete left him wide open to flattery, unlikely financial offers, and other obvious manipulation.

Whereas RPG heroes are essentially active. In fact, they always have to be the most active characters in any room; the only ones brave and smart enough to take the risks and make the hard decisions. Now, it’s not impossible that Garrett could be an RPG hero. He’s enormously charismatic and well-drawn for a game protagonist – but those standards are not high; outside a system where the reader/viewer/player is expected to do serious imaginative work, he’s still largely defined by what he does. That means an easy re-definition. And he wants his independence badly, which could very easily lead to a more dominant plot role (especially if he snaps from frustration, as he already sort of does at the end of Thief II).

My problem is in the execution. For sneaky, downtrodden Garrett to be believable as an active hero -while remaining vaguely recognizable as the character we know- the game has to use some narrative tricks that rarely come off well: surrounding him with characters more passive than himself, and stretching his existing motivations too far. It’s true that the Keepers are deadlocked by definition, and that Garrett at the end of II is strongly motivated to find out what they know and how he can push things in a favorable direction. But when it comes to the scenario where the game lost me -the Keepers are meeting; Garrett is with them; he proposes a plan which is briefly considered and then ignored; he sweeps out, coldly saying, “you’re forgetting something: I don’t take my orders from you”- you’ve gone too far; you’ve re-cast the character.

It’s not because what he does is out-of-character (though its consequence is shockingly so). This kind of instinctive “you’re not my dad!” sulk is part of his accepted pattern of behavior, especially regarding the Keepers, and he even did something similar at the end of Thief II. The difference was that -unless someone failed hard- the II storm-off was not presented as a heroic moment, but as Garrett simply flipping out, being irrational. His alliance with Viktoria and her priestesses, despite their ugly past, had been solid and productive, even friendly; he left solely to preserve his independence, missed the fight, nearly ruined everything, and only came back to save the world because his friend pleaded with him. If this was meant to reflect well on him, I’m missing something, but that’s precisely why it was good storytelling: the game kept you empathizing with the character even as he acted idiotically.

This worked, I think, because Garrett’s character in Thief II is (once again) about a specific kind of player wish-fulfillment. You’re burnt-out, you’re broke (at the start of the second mission, Garrett bemoans his brutal landlord and his recently dashed dreams of retirement); everyone runs all over you; you have no physical advantages over other people, and you have a lot of difficulty dealing with them in conversation. Your only solace is knowing you’re the best at what you do. In other words, the game valorizes, though not beyond reason, the kind of person who might enjoy playing it.

Whereas Garrett’s character in Thief III is about another kind of wish-fulfillment: telling your dad off. Being the only person who ever gets anything done around here; the only one who’s ever right, who takes the risks — but mainly telling your dad off, because you are not a slacker, and you do have self-control (the Keepers actually totally do accuse Garrett, in nearly so many words, of being a slacker and having no self-control).

Besides (Thief III continues) – your real friends appreciate you. All you have to do is leave the house to know it. All the other criminals are your buddies; they think you’re brilliant – the women throw themselves at you; the men pretend to be you to impress the gullible. (Contrast to Thief II, in which you had more realistic contacts – friends, respectful and less-respectful co-worker types, and guys who’d sell you out without a second thought). Anyway, you’re the fucking best at what you do, and that’s not just a consolation, that’s what you are.

If the execution had made more sense, Garrett’s increased autonomy could have been a logical character evolution. But since you’re being asked to relate to being Garrett in such a completely different way -to see him as an opportunity to feel bold and well-admired, rather than empathize with him as a slightly idealized version of you- the game doesn’t seem like a logical offshoot of its predecessor. The character doesn’t connect with his past self, even though he’s still voiced by Stephen Russell, a fifty-foot-tall man who intones into a microphone implanted directly in his throat as he fondly gathers the player into his giant lap.

It doesn’t help that there’s also been a huge sideways turn in the worldbuilding. I mentioned that one of the things I liked about Thief II was that it reproached bad moral decisions with pathos rather than punishment, and III does that too, but not as well. The pathos tends to come in the form of being told off; killing is no longer inherently horrific. This is mostly because they take your sword away, and now you can only kill by backstabbing people, which is quick and quiet and doesn’t give you a sense of the weight of what you’re doing. Sure, it was silly for a thief to carry a sword in the first place, but it’s a damned videogame; if I can suspend my disbelief that Garrett can carry an infinite number of goblets, than I can suspend my disbelief that he can carry a sword.

The world is also different in more concrete ways. Many of the interesting trademarks of the Thief II universe -the things that would’ve signaled this as a sequel with the same traits- are missing: the mixed-gender guards (with the interesting sense that the female ones were particularly zealous and brutal, moving into a newly open field and eager to impress); the rapidly modernizing city; the long, claustrophobic underwater sequences; the sense of dangerously supernatural, rather than controllably magical, forces at work.

Now here Garrett is with magic gloves that let him scale walls like fucking Spider-Man. He also drowns on contact with water, and dodges a conga line of interchangeable dudes in chainmail. And it really is jarring that, suddenly, most women in the everyday world are wenches of some kind. The only women whose response to you is asexual are the lone female criminal and the over-50 set (who are also, for some reason, all British).

I realize that to explain all this, I need only return to my mantra of “the game was trying to appeal to new players; it had to take a more conservative turn” — but why does this have to be so? All players were new players once, and somehow the Thief series still has a fan base. Even if you have to Year Zero it, what’s to stop you from using elements from the older games, given proper explanation? Where, for example, is the Mechanist technology from Thief II? It wasn’t all destroyed in the end of the game; it had been installed all over town, the whole society was rapidly technologically evolving — but nobody alive now has the savvy to fix it. Omitting it is not just an inexplicable worldbuilding decision; it’s a great missed opportunity for atmospheric decay. Robots in growing disrepair, inexorably dimming electric lights, perhaps even some trouble with Garrett’s mechanical eye (whose continued perfect functioning is beginning to mystify me).

But the real punch in the face of Thief II is the changes in the City. This, even more than the changes in Garrett’s character, even more than the backslide into medievalism, is what kills the noir.

I know that people complained about the breaking-up of the city levels -with those awkward portals connecting them- to accommodate the Xbox’s memory. This alone is a problem, but the real issue is simply that the City is not big enough; not dark enough; insufficiently inhabited. In the second game (where you essentially parachuted into all your missions) it was a hellish, organic maze, dark and unpredictably guarded, with defined public spaces, squares, courtyards and varied, accessible roofs; in the third (where you have to hack through the town on your way to every mission, and therefore see the entire world, such as it is, every day) it’s a low, bright area which is plainly trying to appear organic, but doesn’t, because you always remember one of those damned mystic-smoke transition points in your immediate past and anticipate one in your future, and also because it looks like fucking Hogwarts. Why does the light sparkle? Why is the sense of scale gone? Where are the squares and alleys? Why does this city have no public spaces, no market, financial sector, and almost no commerce of any kind?

Especially that last. Virtually the only transactions that take place are in thieves’ stores. Explain that whole idea if you can: purveyors of illegal items maintain clearly marked storefronts; the ubiquitous cops never enter their unlocked doors. Sure, you had a screen to buy water arrows in II as well, but I always assumed -I don’t know- that you got them in the backs of bars from guys called Creepy Pete. Or from seedy, well-hidden storefronts that posed as antique shops. Or something other than a Mae West impersonator behind a single counter with five items on it.

Honestly, you shouldn’t even have that much focus on how you get your water arrows. The more that happens, the more the player wonders what the ever-loving fuck water arrows are.

I realize that I’m leaning way too hard on Thief III, just as I was slightly too gentle on Thief II – I’m willing to forgive a lot of flaws for a believable world, and I’m very unsparing when disappointed. If I were a little less focused on character and a little more focused on technical strength, I think I’d have a very different (and much kinder) perspective. It might also help if I finished the game.

Related:

I liked this take on the Thief series, looking at it specifically as a trilogy, and discussing its “strangely life-affirming” nature.

This article on Ken Levine -the force behind Bioshock, and apparently heavily involved with Thief as well; I know so little about development, Christ!- is a great contrast to my Thief vs. Bioshock post on morality systems. He’s comparing the same games (though the first rather than the second Thief), and also with an eye toward their portrayal of morality and religion, but through a completely different lens. It’s worth reading just for the point about writers using Bioshock as a universal negative contrast, of which I stand justly accused.