Thief
Halfway through Thief: The Dark Project, the setting remains a confusing mish-mash of concepts and designs. The developers packed their creation with a catalog of features, and covered it with a theme commonly labeled steampunk. This genre can be referred to as the three Ms; medieval, magic, and machines. Thief becomes an overwhelming mixture of these features, but at first seems to only embrace its medievality. The other two components are introduced gradually, but without explanation. Because Garret lives in a world with magic, he (and the game) see no reason to be surprised about its inclusion, but the player will be rightly astonished by the number of unexpected mixing of genres. Yet, while the setting at first appears to be an everything and the kitchen sink sort of construction, the detail spent constructing it allows it to solidify midway through. The question remains, does the time used for the setting detract from the creation of a proper plot?
The opening cut scene, the tutorial,
and the first mission emphasize the medieval nature of Thief,
and deny its other Ms. The player learns about Garret early life.
Abandoned by his parents, he was raised by a secretive order called
the Keepers, who are skilled at remaining unseen. But by the first
mission, Garret has left the Keepers, and uses their teachings of
stealth to pursue a simple, carefree career of theft.
Mission one is a straight-forward
break-in of a lesser noble's house, with only a few bored guards, and
it doesn't set any expectations for the future. Garret's reason for
the theft is to earn enough to keep paying his rent. But the second
mission (Garret sneaks into a Hammerite prison, to rescue a friend)
includes zombies, giant spiders, and poison spewing giant lizards.
Incidentally, Garret makes a cynical, snide remark before mission two
about how some people think the caverns beneath the prison are
haunted. Since everything Garret says has the same mocking tone, its
difficult to understand which meaning he intends; some people are
stupid to believe the undead are real, or someone has warned him
zombies are in the caverns.
After the second mission, The City
quickly expands to include electric lighting, ghosts, wizards,
complicated machinery, and possibly demons. These developments
enlarge the world of Thief, but do so at the cost of an
intriguing plot. After seven missions Thief has nothing to say
about Garret or a larger story, except that Garret needs money. Each
heist he performs is done for this reason alone, and each theft is
unconnected to those prior.
In addition to the steampunk motif,
Thief includes an expansive political history. The City is a
battleground for three factions: the Keepers, the Pagans, and the
Hammerites. Each faction's background and beliefs are chronicled in
cut scenes shown in-between levels. The
cut scenes include excerpts from each faction's important texts.
The Pagans worship a deity named The Trickster and embody nature,
while the Hammerites worship the Master Builder and idealize
technology. These two factions run the city openly, while the Keepers
work in the shadows. They strive to balance the other two, and
contain an ancient and powerful evil.
While the City, the history, the
factions, and the three Ms imbue the setting, Garret's story is
sparse. Aside from the brief introduction and his disarmingly
charming voice, the player knows nothing about him. Amid the grandeur
of the established background, the player as Garret robs a series of
unimportant Lords, so he can pay his bills.
Yet as the game approaches the
midpoint, another possibility is unveiled. While it would be
unconventional, its possible the developers intended this strange
dichotomy. They intended for the first half to be exclusively about
world building, without the distraction of a story. But having
completed this, they then spend the second half with a plot able to
utilize the detailed background they have built.
In mission eight Garret is hired to
enter an ancient part of the City, walled off from the rest, and
steal an artifact called 'the Eye' from an abandoned Hammerite
Cathedral. The payoff for Garret is the ever elusive security of a
payday. But during the mission disturbing information is revealed to
Garret. The Cathedral is guarded by strange ghouls, who seem like
protectors rather than the usual decaying undead. After sneaking
around, Garret determines there is no viable entrance, but through a
window he glimpses 'the Eye' and it speaks
to him:
“Comes a man to rescue me? Poor
man. The Keepers have sealed the door and only they know how to open
them. Cross you the bridge to the grotto of the Keepers' Sentinel.
Stand you on the pedestal, and illuminate the statue with fire. Then
you can discover the secret of the Talismans.”
After listening to
this speech, a sensible man would abandon the quest. Without
listening to it, a reader might think this reaction unreasonable. But
the voice of the Eye is a horrible rasping, soul shaking sound, and
when it says “poor man”, it is not referring to Garret's economic
status, but the torture he will undergo by freeing the Eye. He will
be the cursed soul who will suffer the full wrack and ruin of his
mistake.
Yet the remained of
the game may be about the Eye, Garret's quest for it, and the
consequences of his actions. Whether this is the way the story
progresses, or if it returns to unrelated heists, will have to wait
for next week.
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