Thief

Thief is a reboot of the Thief series and throws away most of the lore - there are no Pagans, no Hammers and no Watchers. The game starts when Garrett, a master thief, is on a job with his former apprentice Erin. They run into a mysterious ritual from a faction loosely reminiscent on the Mechanists, and due to unfortunate happenings Erin falls right into the middle of it. Garrett blacks out for a year and awakens in the city which changed to a fascist regime in the meantime. Now Garrett has to use his thieving skills in order to find out what is going on (the common people are affected by a strange disease) and eventually stop the usual conspiracy.

The basic structure is similar to Deadly Shadows: There is a semi-open city hub structured into various districts. Just like in the predecessor, those are divided in loading screens and gradually open up over the course of the game. These can be freely explored until starting a self-contained mission at the designated point. Here lies the main difference to the previous Thief games: instead of sandbox levels, the design is completely modular and can be compared to the Clocktower level in Deadly Shadows. The set-pieces may be relatively open in itself and offer various ways to deal with obstacles or reach the next point of interest, but in the end they result in a choke-point of no return leading to the next area. Movement is also restricted because jumping is only contextual. Rope arrows make their return, but can only be used at a few designated spots. Except for a few minor climbing sequences, the whole game is in first-person.