UPDATE: Roy also stated that the continuation of the Thief franchise hinges on the success of the new game. The team are pulling together to provide the very best game they can in hopes that it can become an established franchise that will continue through the next generation.
“If people don’t like this game, I doubt we’re going to have more. I don’t want to have another ten years between this game and another one. I want to make sure we’re going to [be able to continue] to work on this franchise, so we must succeed on this one. (the decision to bring back the series) is not just a short-term decision. That’s why we decided to make sure we’re going to have all the tools on our side to give you the best gaming experience possible.” – Stephane Roy
The producer of Theif, Stephane Roy, recently revealed that the Playstation 4 version of the game will almost be on par with the PC version. However the PC fans will also receive a “special feature” which he didn’t go into too much detail of, however it seems likely that it will be some high end effect that only the very best PC graphics cards would be capable of.
“For Thief, everything started on PC. So for example, all the interface, the menu and stuff like that, we want to adapt it [for next-gen consoles]. But for a visual aspect – especially for a game like Thief – it’s not a question of pushing more polygons, [or] now I can have 200 enemies at the same time and not just 100 enemies. So on our side, it’s more a question of gameplay, the movement, stuff like that. I think with the next-gen, yeah visually speaking, with the high-end PC and next-gen it’s going to be really, really close, honestly.” – Stephane Roy
Now although the game should be almost graphically identical from PS4 to PC, there will of course be some extra edge for the PC version. Outside of the extra anti-aliasing option and various filtering techniques PC gamers will of course be able to apply, it seems the PC version will also benefit from some other high end feature which is yet to be revealed, as Roy said:
“Maybe we are going to push a special feature with the PC because of working with the video card and stuff like that,” he continued, “but it’s not like 10 years ago where the difference was huge.” – Stephane Roy
Roy also confirmed that despite being a next-gen title, the game will be running on a modified version of the Unreal Engine 3 rather than the engines next gen successor, Unreal Engine 4. This doesn’t really come as a huge surprise given that Thief will have begun development quite a while before the Unreal Engine 4 would have been available. Also it’s worth noting that the modifications made to the engine will most likely push the engine closer to the realms of what it’s successor is capable of.
Thief will be releasing at some point in 2014 for Playstation 4, PC and other currently unspecified next-gen console(s), although no date has been set yet we will probably get more concrete details at E3 in June.
In the meantime, here’s a whole bunch of new screenshots for you to mull over.
