Nightdive Studios is modernizing Thief: The Dark Project without replacing the elements that made the classic so memorable in the first place. A new weapon wheel and several interface updates could make stealthing through its dangerous missions much smoother, while the original keybinds will remain available for players who still have them committed to muscle memory.
About halfway through Nightdive’s video on remastering Thief: The Dark Project, producer Daniel Grayshon casually mentions that pressing 4 brought up water arrows in the original game. That made me realize just how many shortcuts from Thief’s arsenal I still remember: the reliable blackjack was on 2, rope arrows were on 8, the get-out-of-jail-free flash bomb lived on F6, and that is only the beginning.
“As with a lot of Nightdive games in the past, we’re not looking to change the core experience of the game,” Grayshon says. Studio head Stephen Kick makes the same point later, explaining that the team takes comments under the trailer insisting that nothing has changed as a compliment. If the remaster looks the way people remember the game looking, Nightdive considers that a success.
The Classic Controls Are Staying, but the Weapon Wheel Could Make Garrett’s Tools Much Faster to Access
Thief’s controls were undeniably due for some improvement, though. “The first thing that I wanted to do for the game was introduce a weapon wheel,” Grayshon says. In the original, whenever I could not remember the shortcut for a gas mine or some other item, I cycled through my collection of tools by pressing Tab, and a wheel could definitely make that part of the game easier.
“I think that will make a great deal of difference when it comes to playing the game, and getting through those tricky situations where you’re being approached by someone and you’ve got to lockpick through a door really quickly, but you don’t have to cycle through your pockets to find your square-toothed lockpick or your triangle-toothed lockpick. You quickly open the weapon wheel, you throw the mouse to the left to get the square lockpick, or you throw it to the right to get the triangle lockpick,” Grayshon explains.
Kick jokingly takes the opposite position, acting out a desperate search for the right piece of equipment before asking: “Did you think for a moment that that was part of the original design, that as a thief you’d have this bag of just stuff?”
“If you want to do that, you can totally do that if you want,” Grayshon replies. “Not taking anything away. If you fancy the convenience, it’s there for you, but we’re not forcing you to use it.”
That is exactly what players want to hear. I am glad the option will be there for those moments when I cannot remember which key brings up moss arrows and do not want to accidentally equip a brightly burning fire arrow that immediately gives away my position. Even so, I will still press 4 to pull out water arrows, because that shortcut is apparently permanent muscle memory now, and I will probably remember it long after I have forgotten the names of all my loved ones.
Source: PC Gamer
