Want a real challenge in Eidos Montreal’s Thief? Reckon you can sneak and pinch your way through the game without a single hiccup? The studio has revealed how far you can tweak Thief to your sadistic liking.
Every part of the UI can be turned off and on, with gameplay difficulty also customisable from only saving at checkpoints to any screw up meaning a restart from the beginning.
Classic, Legendary and Ultimate Thief Mods are what offer a real challenge for gamers. These supplement the more traditional easy, normal or hard settings.
The UI can be completely stripped out or just have certain elements removed to clear away the screen clutter, which means that navigation (markers, mini-map) can be removed and even loot highlighting disabled.
Depending on what difficulty mods you activate determines the score multiplier you’ll get during your playthrough as Garrett. The three higher tier difficulties are as follows:
Classic Thief Mods
* Chapter Save Only: manual saves and checkpoint auto-saves are disabled.
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No Focus: the use of Focus is completely disabled and no Focus Points are earned.
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Stealth Takedowns Only: you cannot perform combat Takedowns and Takedowns from above.
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No Reticle: no aiming reticle is displayed when drawing the bow.
Legendary Thief Mods
* Specialty Arrows Only: only Blunt, Water, Fire and Rope Arrows are available.
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No Resources: food (health) and poppy flowers (Focus) are not consumable.
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It Hurts Not: if you take any damage, the mission is failed.
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Expensive Tools: the cost of arrows, tools, food and poppies is greatly increased.
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Slowed Movement: running and walking speeds are reduced.
Ultimate Thief Mods
* Iron Man: if you die or fail a mission, you lose your game and must restart from the beginning.
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No Upgrades: non-critical upgrades are disabled.
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No Kills or Knockouts: if a human or animal is killed or stunned, the mission is failed.
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No Alerts: if a human or animal detects you, the mission is failed.
A full explanation of the UI/gameplay customisation is available on the Eidos Montreal blog.
Thief releases on PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One and PS4 February 25th in the US, 28th in EU.