It became an ”easy decision to do away” with the mechanic following the backlash, which has also seen the withdrawal of an XP system for Garrett. No swimming will feature.
The team also revealed more about the ‘hardcore’ difficulty when modifiers can be switched on and off to provide more of a challenge for those who want it.
”If Garrett went swimming, he would probably freeze to death. Pneumonia is no laughing matter in a world without antibiotics,” joked Lead Level Designer Daniel Windfeld Schmidt in the dev blog. ”But seriously, most of the game happens inside the City in an “autumn” setting, so water wasn’t a big theme for us. It exists mostly as shallow puddles, which cause noise depending on the player’s speed when they walk through them.”
How does Eidos Montreal plan on QTEs not breaking immersion? ”Easy, we’re not implementing them.”
”To begin with, there were very few instances of QTEs in the game; in fact there was only one in that whole hour-long E3 demo. However, given the strong reactions it evoked in the press and the community, it was an easy decision to do away with them entirely. So we’re not doing it. No quick time,” concluded Eidos’ Valerie Bourdeau.
Thief releases on PC, Xbox 360, PS3, Xbox One and PS4 in February 2014.
