How Thief's Stealth System Almost Didn't Work | War Stories | Ars Technica

1998's Thief: The Dark Project was a pioneer for the stealth genre, utilizing light and shadow as essential gameplay mechanics. The very thing that Thief became so well-known for was also the game's biggest development hurdle. Looking Glass Studios founder Paul Neurath recounts the difficulties creating Thief: The Dark Project, and how its AI systems had to be completely rewritten years into development.
Connect with Ars Technica:
Visit ArsTechnica.com: arstechnica.com
Follow Ars Technica on Facebook: / arstechnica
Follow Ars Technica on Google+: plus.google.co...
Follow Ars Technica on Twitter: / arstechnica
How Thief's Stealth System Almost Didn't Work | War Stories | Ars Technica

[@OtherSideEntertainment]

Fantastic visuals to go alongside Paul's narration. Thank you again for featuring us!

[@SlashBeetlejuice]

OtherSide Entertainment you guys are my fav and ive grown up with your games and its a dream to see the old looking glass people together again! Btw otherside sounds very much like looking glass reincarnate ;)

[@delatroy]

OtherSide Entertainment please make a legit another stealth game like Thief!! Noting else comes close to the immersion and art style of the originals.

[@althaz]

For your Thief cravings, check out the Dishonored games, they are superb stealth-based titles. They aren't as good as Thief as pure stealth games - partly because you become powerful enough that being found isn't near as scary as in Thief, but they are still superb games. Prey also has some pretty good stealthy gameplay, but is more of a spiritual System Shock successor.

[@pongisan3658]

I'm surprised I haven't heard of this studio until now, I've been a big fan of the original Thief series of games (The Dark Project and The Metal Age, Thief 3 was alright but that was Ion Storm). Can't wait for System Shock 3 :D

[@bobloblaw418]

dishonored comes *close* but doesn't make the grade quite :)

[@StealthDocs]

Great interview! Not a lot of Thief fans realised how demanding it was to create the first immersive stealth game.

[@BrokenArts]

Yeah they do, go check out TTLG.com. Thief fans hangout.

[@tenbeat]

BrokenArts Not all Thief fans know about those forums, and not all people on those forums know about the difficulty of this game's development. Probably 90% of people who played the original Thief, if not more, have no idea about the development of the game. By the way, Stealth Docs, love your channel.

[@BrokenArts]

Correct, not all no. But the die hard Thief fans, that I'm thinking of at TTLG, that have been there since the beginning, including myself. They do know. It was ground breaking. You're talking 20 years. Mind blown. Videos, any information on Thief, its been picked apart by many.

[@tenbeat]

BrokenArts A "Thief fan" is not necessarily equal to a "die-hard Thief fan." That's like someone saying "not a lot of Halo fans know this obscure fact from the novels" and then responding with "yeah they do." I get what you're saying, but you were so adamant about countering his comment completely that you spoke falsely.

[@hanseong25]

"One of our engineers, Tom, he had- a mental break..." me: oh no "... through-" me: aw yiss

[@onedaynoreason2572]

Loool

[@Rezorrand]

Almost got me at the same spot. :D

[@Jay_Sullivan]

He clearly paused in order to not say “down”.

[@hplovecraft1445]

Lol.

[@epictrollface51]

He was about to call out his boy for having a breakdown lmao

[@LettersofVerax]

Thief is my favourite series of all time; thanks so much for this!

[@gunstarheroine5173]

I wish this was an hour longer! I'd listen to him talk all day. What a fascinating glimpse into the process behind such a beautiful and innovative game. Thief made such a huge impact on me as a young teen that I still automatically revert to Thief's stealth mechanics in dreams 20 years later. It's a game that really gets into your mind and heart. Looking Glass Studios was an amazing hub of talent, and it's tragic the company had such an untimely end.

[@craigheartwell5142]

Please bring Thief back. One of my all-time favorite games - top 10 maybe top 3. Awesome all the way through.

[@MelhodRiperton]

First Game It was Dark Camelot (1996 Demo I guess) then the is The Dark Project (Prototype 1997) And Thief was Born 1998

[@peterbarlow7781]

I remember playing the demo of this over and over again when it came out. My brother and cousin would crowd around and we would each play through how we wanted. It was a truly fantastic experience! That first level set the tone for me and when I finally got hold of the full game I was super disappointed that it largely left its thief-like theme behind in favor of being more like a stealth shooter where you fought supernatural enemies. I didn’t get past the third level.

[@CryptonNite23]

I simply love the three Thief games. The story, the suspense... Everything. I really like to see a new Thief game in the style of the old games.

[@CocoaComa]

This made me appreciate Thief even more now. Wow. It's so complex! I'm so thankful they didn't give up!

[@mikemarkovich69]

More of these videos please. They have the same addictive quality as SummoningSalt's speed run videos. These could even be longer and I'd still watch to the end. Would love one on Star Wars Galaxies' economy PRE-CU. Keep it up!

[@lirasmusson5133]

An incredible game. I wish they made more stealth games.

[@FrostyZoob]

I love learning more about the "behind the scenes" of my favorite games. This is a great, well produced video! Nice job!

[@MrPantopantalones]

One of my all time favorite games. I still play T1-3 to this day. The fan missions on top of it are also amazing. Darkmod as well

[@gukonni]

I sure understand the difference between writing the code and having a mental model of it, and how the mental model is so important. You can stare at the screen forever, but if you don't have some kind of model you'll get nowhere. That model might not be the greatest at first. They evolve. A long time ago I remember working on a scroll bar, one of the most basic things you can do as a coder, and my first code was obtrusively long and halfbaked. It went through a couple of evolutions until the final moment when I had my eureka and the end result was only a couple lines of beautiful code. I can't imagine the ups and downs you professionals must have working for months and years so feverishly. And how you must share those things together, like a family.

[@rndmhandle4yt]

Dude, I want to know the story of how there came to be undead in these games. I liked the human levels. The undead ones shooting holy water with arrows, it always stuck me an odd design decision to include that.

[@_-0-_0]

Thief games are so awesome!

[@GregoryTheGr8ster]

I, for one, am sooo glad that they did not give up. From an economic standpoint, they should have called it quits. Continuing to pour resources into something that isn't working simply because you can't bear to give up on all the time that you have already invested is known as the "fallacy of sunk costs". It causes people to throw good money after bad. But sometimes, you don't want to think like an economist, you want to think like an artist. And because that is what Looking Glass did, they made Thief happen. I think that we all agree that it was one hell of an immersive experience. So were the Ultima Underworld games, for that matter. I could give Paul Neurath a big hug for them.

[@t_k_blitz4837]

There was a guy who worked at my school's library who had been plucked straight from this game. He'd stomp around the stacks, muttering to himself as he went, he acted *and sounded* JUST like the guards. He never knew how many times I'd whacked him with my imaginary blackjack...

[@gatomaru]

Thank you for creating my favorite game of all time!

[@pikkuadi]

Never clicked a recommended video faster.

[@michaelolson7626]

"Mental Break....Through." Good cover

[@SuperSpooky]

This video series is fantastic.

[@trjozsef]

Thief is the game ray tracing was made for, I would love to see a successor with reflections taken into account.

[@aliakbarsaleem8973]

love the game series it will be great if they make all of them again in HD

[@BenFortier]

I love these videos. So epic to see how these engineers revolutionize game mechanics.

[@amadeus8802]

You spawned a Genere Sir. Hats off!

[@KingLich451]

I absolutely love the box shape

[@yalkn2073]

New thief game is awful compared to thief 1, 2

[@the_undecidead]

We don't talk about that trainwreck. It's like the DmC reboot

[@gabrielmendonca7452]

@@the_undecidead why do you think the DmC reboot is bad?

[@the_undecidead]

@@gabrielmendonca7452 The series didn't need a reboot and the changes they made to the storyline are just awful to cringey. Gameplay was fine though (TBH).

[@josephikrakowskiwithflextape]

@@the_undecidead Gameplay was perfect for DmC and the visuals were great. The story and characters were really, really awful tho.

[@giorgi48508]

After 20 years im playing the trilogy again the hd mod and fan missions. My favourite game definitely.

[@TequilaCT]

Love the Thief games, any opportunity I get to hear or read on it's development im there. Great Video :)

[@kenhutch7727]

thief is the only game I replay! I would love to see the original with updated graphiccs not changing the game just making the scenes 3D.

[@Madrigos]

Ken hutch What scenes? Do you mean the cutscenes? I’d honestly keep the old style, it was so interesting and unique!

[@texmanro]

I would buy a remastered Thief 1 and 2

[@ivana.medina3126]

Thank god they solved it! One of the best games i ever played...

[@themoronbrothers9505]

I have a feeling if the guard caught him we never would have gotten thief. I think we need to thank the guard more than we know

[@jsveterans6949]

Great vid, ty, make more :)

[@jeshkam]

Next Thief game should be a VR.

[@isays]

I still don't really get what "the fix" was. "lead programmer worked mad overtime and rewrote it" isn't really a satisfactory description of a fix to a major problem.

[@kazaakas]

It's indeed not very defined, but here's what I got from it. The problem: The game's concepts were new and it had to be accessible. It wasn't because it was often not clear why the guard saw you. The fix: Inventing and fine-tuning the the equation of lighting, distance, alertness, noise, your movement speed and occlusion that determines whether the AI detects you or not. They had no norms to rely on, so that was actually very challenging to come up with. Possibly the earlier AI implementations weren't as sophisticatedly balanced between all these factors. In a way the light gem is part of this, because relying on ambient light for discovery wouldn't work if the player can't reliably tell whether or not they're lit up. Especially in the 90's this was much more of a technical challenge to get it right on all those maps.

[@DFX2KX]

@@kazaakas Exactly. Basically: The AI as it was first written was of a completely different kind then had been made before: Certain features which are now standard and hardware-accelerated (such as vertex and compute shaders for doing occlusion calculations quickly) didn't exist at the time. The AI, from what was said here, seemed to have had a hell of a time with state-control (patrol, alerted, search, combat, ect) because of the sheer number of variables that had to be taken into account. If I had to make an educated guess: The AI Thief was using at the time was assembled in chunks and duck-taped together during development (You'd be surprised how many very polished games are absolute spaghetti under the hood), The guy probably said 'look, this thing is a mess-fine-tuning values with it in this state is never going to produce consistent results. We know what we need now, let me redo this as a singular component with math that takes everything into account from the get-go." You'd be amazed at the change you can get when you say "I know the arguments this function will get, and I know exactly what the return should be-let's redo all of the innards to get the same data, just with better code written in a single go" It can quite literally be a game-changer even if the data it outputs is the same on paper.

[@hanniffydinn6019]

Yeah, but does anyone really innovate anymore ??? There's nothing new these days...just retreading stuff already done but with better graphics.

[@dorlaretz5901]

nah

[@wafl7212]

While I don't think they truly live up to the immersive sims of the past, Arkane's games do make attempts to push unique concepts. Not to mention indie games doing anything they want.

[@DeyvsonMoutinhoCaliman]

The first 3 thief games were masterpieces of stealth that to this very day could not be repeated (it is a shame that abortion of a game got to be called Thief 4). I'm not a fan of stealth, but I think any person that play one of those will recognize some level of atmosphere, AI and level design very ingeniously put together.

[@woszkar]

1998 was a very good year.

[@Bloodsaber64]

thief 2014 left me pining for thief TDP. Wish I could have made the story arc for it before they ran it into the ground.

[@tabby842]

I relate to this 100%

[@kiwas11]

Thief had the coolest box

[@TBC256]

So this game happened only thanks to him being spotted on a surveillance camera and not being noticed by a security guard?

[@burrito270]

3:30 lol why'd he shoot a broadhead arrow at the torch

[@nispelsm]

It was actually a common method to distract a guard so you could slip past.

[@askewpropane5633]

MORE!

[@Leispada]

back when 1.5 years was still feasible for a AAA vertical slice

[@palchristianandersen9086]

Thief's shadow mechanics is the secret sauce that made it satisfying to play as a stealth game. People often complain that it's not very realistic, but as a gameplay mechanic it makes total sense. You know exactly what the rules of engagement are, and it gives you some leeway to survey a room instead of just waiting behind an obstacle until you hear a guard pass by.

[@Anomaly188]

Plus it pushes the Dark Engine's technical achievements (variable dynamic lighting,) to the forefront by integrating them into the gameplay.

[@TuffMelon]

Obviously this is a response to a 3+year old comment, but I'd honestly take this 'not very realistic' mechanic over the literally unrealistic mechanic way too many games these days have, where enemies have no peripheral view and we see things in third person. All too often I find most games these days are about trying to work out where the flaws in the AI are and exploiting around it, rather than establishing the mechanics and using them to your advantage.

[@drkissinger1]

I always justified it in my head as being much darker than it appears to the player (being mostly preindustrial and all) and Garrett just has extremely good vision.

[@ArvelDreth]

Exactly. Irl you wouldn't know exactly how well hidden you were from others but in a game that kind of feedback is necessary to make it fun.

[@npc_blob1609]

@@drkissinger1 well the default gamma settings certainly are dark enough that it'd be plausible for you to be invisible when you can barely see the game on modern displays. So when you crank it up and lose the high contrast with a brightened image it's easier to forget.

[@SlyBeast]

As for immersion, this game puts many, many modern games to shame. You'd think we'd have come farther than this. Taffers...

[@sohm]

The problem is the culture of gaming. You have fans you have developers, and you have a middle ground. Games like this come out from the middle ground. That barely exists anymore since most studios that produce passion projects get swallowed by publishers who then shut them down after they fail to do it again with deadlines and constraints that didn't exist before. Games like this sacrificed little environmental and cinematic things that aren't necessary for the overall experience without sacrificing gameplay and story.. Modern games focus on the experience and cinematics of the game and sacrifice the gameplay. Thief 2014 is a perfect example. You can't jump, fall from a ledge or do almost anything without a context cue. That, to me, made me feel like I was tremendously limited. Thief 1 is full control. Thief 2014 made me feel like I was watching the game more than playing it.

[@KuraIthys]

It's the loss of the middle ground I suppose. You have indie developers, but by virtue of how that works, and the budgets (and later sales figures for most projects), such games are restricted to what can reasonably be created by 1-2 people, or at most a team of under 10 if it's a particularly successful indie studio. Add onto this that many of these games are projects that have dev periods of 3 months or less. (quite a few much longer as well, but that's a different situation usually), and the results are quite creative, but very limited in scope. Then at the other extreme you have the large publishers and the AAA development teams with budgets in the 100 million plus range, and teams of 300-1000 people... Great, but the funding model of such games demands sales figures in the tens of millions, and the publishers, as a result are very risk averse and push a lot of 'focus group' crap onto devs, or otherwise force them to tack on stuff just because the publisher thinks it is a bullet point on the marketing slides that could improve sales. What we've largely lost in the modern world is the middle ground. The game that isn't some independent dev's passion project, and isn't some huge high budget craziness, but has a team of say 30-40 people working on it and a budget more in the range of 10-15 million. Granted, the nature of modern technical expectations hasn't helped either. Wing Commander 3 and 4 both set records for being the most expensive games ever made in 1994 and 1996 respectively. How much did these games cost? $5 million and $7 million. And most of this was caused by lots of live action video with B and C list celebrities, which don't come cheap. (in that light, the actual budgets are surprisingly low) Sure, we have to take into account inflation, and a rough ballpark estimate for that is you can more or less triple the budget, but that's still only into the 15-20 million range. And remember these aren't low or mid budget titles - for the time period these are THE MOST EXPENSIVE GAMES EVER MADE. A more typical game budget for a high profile game through most of the 90's can be said to be about 350,000 british pounds. (apologies for mixing units, but this is going off old magazines that I had access to, and those come from a variety of countries.) roughly converting to US dollars gives about $700,000, and inflation pushes that up to the equivalent of about $2 million in modern terms. That's your AAA budget for the 90's. Your extreme high profile 'expensive' games. You can sort of see what's happened here from that alone - the cost of working with modern technologies has been somewhat crippling, and of course, standards are higher. Once upon a time having voice acting at all was considered a crazy and rare feature. (and frequently those voice 'actors' were just the devs themselves messing around.) Yet nowadays a modern game is generally expected to have voice acting as a matter of course, and not just cheap, amateur voice acting, no, professional voice acting, with all the costs associated with that. So, the workload just for keeping up with technology has gotten heavier, the expectations are a lot higher for what is considered a 'standard' feature... And thus the costs have gone way up. What happens when things get more expensive? The people funding things get more risk averse. And of course, it makes the middle ground much harder - because the indie developers can get away with all kinds of 'primitive' things that would probably get laughed at in other contexts - we've given them that leeway because we know they have next to no resources. The AAA devs are expected to throw everything they can at a game, with costs associated with doing so... But we don't really have the leeway for the middle ground - if some developers were to try it, they'd find themselves compared to AAA stuff, and of course, that likely doesn't look too favourable. It's too polished and high end to get the consideration that indie developers get, yet there isn't enough money or development manpower to compete with the AAA development teams... We really need to find some way of getting our medium sized developers back... Those are the ones that can balance taking a risk vs creating something of a fairly decent scope... The large devs can't take risks, and the small ones lack the resources to do anything ambitious. But... It's hard to see how we can recover that middle ground that's been lost.

[@narcoleptic8982]

One of my favourite things about the original Thief was the maps. Hand-drawn, incomplete, hard to navigate by, and amazingly immersive.

[@narcoleptic8982]

John Anon I never was any good at any sort of level design. Hammer editor is beyond me lol

[@tgraz6751]

The original Thief on pc was way ahead of its time!

[@staggabob]

9:08 "Our lead programmer Tom...he had a bit of a mental break..." Having worked for some years in the games industry I wasn't expecting the next word to be "through" :P

[@unvergebeneid]

Haha, I haven't worked in the games industry but my brain also autocompleted this to "breakdown" =D

[@PhirePhlame]

It sounds like game development may not have been such an inhumane human-mill back then as it is now. These days, that spark of life could probably only be found in indie games.

[@CaleTheNail]

@@PhirePhlame the guy literally described Tom putting HIM SELF thru crunch.

[@TonyPajamaz]

He was going to say breakdown but stopped and corrected it before it came out. Working 14 hour days for weeks would make me kill myself.

[@angmordagnithil7127]

His story about the guard really does explain why Thief and its sequel are two of my favorite games of all time. It really does capture the visceral sense of being someplace you're not allowed and the tension of trying to hide. I just wish the interview was longer. I could listen to him talk for hours about the creative process of building the game. I'd love to know where the inspiration for the art design, the writing, the game's factions, and the storyline came from. Damn. I guess it's time to reinstall.

[@Altair2000]

Angmor Dagnithil one of the looking glass employees took a vacation in Europe and took a bunch of pictures of old cathedrals and archways. I think that's where the concept art got it's general structure

[@da8171]

You are not alone. Would love to see more of these interviews and videos on the old Thief games. I can easily say that Thief is some of my best gaming experiences

[@painovoimaton]

Exactly my thoughts on it. The games have a pricelessly great atmosphere. Truly unique.

[@TheGosslings]

Agreed. That really is the secret sauce that makes this experience so visceral. Thief was magical.

[@ahlamhossain7906]

Same here. It's one of my all time favorite

[@SJ23982398]

When games were not made by market research hacks.

[@KenTWOu]

Actually market research hacks were the first to suggest making a stealth game like that. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b6a0dnWJnMuSmbcm53s

[@tophan5146]

@KenTWOu Thanks

[@v44n7]

@@KenTWOu thanks for sharing!

[@RhysClark97]

@Wish Master still not made by them now so point doesnt stand at all

[@shinluis]

Csősz Máté they are really not This talk of dont of elect them in the first place is complete nonsense and absolutely impractical. Individually we have zero say for anything that happens systemically and they will happen whether i like it or not. I dislike shlooters, never bought one, never played one, but they are the market trend today and will continue to happen until people in general get tired of them, independently of what i do.

[@benjaminramsey4695]

If Thief was released today with updated graphics but the exact same gameplay, story, controls, etc, it would work well in 2018. It was that far ahead of its time.

[@wildstoo]

Thief (2014) ensured that, for now, the Thief franchise is dead. Why did they reboot something that still works? Hubris.

[@lakie92]

They tried to adapt an old game to the mainstream market, in the process losing the original fans mostly. Another victim of people who joined the videogame industry for profit and don't really understand the market

[@GraveyardTricks]

lakie92 another victim of misinterpretation and don't really understand the new game

[@TheDrLeviathan]

This is somewhat off topic, but I was running through Crysis the other day and that game (aside from its rather stupid AI) feels like it came out yesterday. We really haven't gotten past Ultima Underworld, Crysis, and Thief in many areas. That's pretty sad.

[@GepardenK]

+lakie92 Yeah they "tried" to adapt the mainstream marked but what they really did was turn away from it. Modern slow paced stealth gameplay with the same five or six guards walking in a circle for every 'stealth-puzzle room' you enter is really boring and was never taken well by the mainstream anyway. Even good games like Deus Ex Human Revolution or Dishonored suffer from tedious stealth gameplay despite being good at delivering the stealth fantasy thematically and through action. Thief 4 would have had a much better chance with the mainstream if they used the more fluid "explore while tiptoeing around guards" gameplay of the classic thief's.

[@gregorixo]

High fives for Tom the engineer for rewriting the AI!

[@Trandul]

Tom Leonard, he also worked on HL2 and Portal.

[@fep_ptcp883]

@@Trandul credentials of a legend!

[@EliseOfTheValley]

The original thief series is hands down the most amazing stealth series ever

[@casperado666]

Well i personally preferred Hitman Codename 47

[@NotRamee]

casperado666 that’s more sandbox

[@Ceb773]

@@casperado666 Hitman Codename 47 is extremely rough around the edges. Thief is a classic for a reason, whereas the Hitman franchise, beloved as it is, the original game (codename 47) is mostly forgotten. My top stealth games are definitely Thief 2 and Blood Money, though. Can't count the hours I've poured into those 2

[@larrypage2793]

Better than splinter cell?

[@josephikrakowskiwithflextape]

i prefer mgs and hitman. Nowadays even dishonored. Don't get me wrong, though. Thief games were absolutely amazing.

[@mooferoo]

Thief 1 & 2 are my two favourite games. I still play them through each year.

[@JarlFrank]

Ever played some of the fan missions? There are literally a thousand of them around and a lot of them are really, really good!

[@mooferoo]

I tried a handful back in the day but i guess i picked the wrong ones and didn't enjoy them much. Are there any essential ones people recommend?

[@JarlFrank]

Some of the most well-liked ones are: The Seven Sisters by Lady Rowena - pretty much one of the best FMs ever made, must play Ominous Bequest and Broken Triad by Eshaktaar (BT is a sequen to OB, they're both great) Godbreaker, a recent-ish campaign (about a year old now) by Random Taffer with an amazing swamp level, and a really cool city level after that anything made by skacky, this guy makes great classic Thief 1 style city missions, except much larger. Very atmospheric. Endless Rain is his best. In the same vein as skacky's missions are those made by Melan. Try his mission Disorientation, it's amazing - very vertical level design.

[@slyfoxx2973]

We thieves hang out here. www.ttlg.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=100 That's the Fan Mission forum addy. Check the stickies for all the info you need to get started. In short you'll need to make sure your Thief install(s) are patched and current. Then you'll need to install one of the Fan Mission loaders. Then you'll just have to grab a few missions. A search should yield many many threads of people discussing favorite missions. It's very easy, free and there's many of us around if you've got a question. I personally would start with a nice gem of a mission..."Ominous Bequest."

[@mooferoo]

Thanks man. I really appreciate it :)

[@Abelhawk]

My best friend had Thief when we were kids, and I never actually played it myself till I bought it on Steam last year. I absolutely love the stealth system and it's amazing how well it's aged.

[@masumasumasu]

hope you played thief 2 the metal age afterwards. imo improves on everything Thief 1 was good at plus A super good story with a super badass and unique antagonist

[@masumasumasu]

not enough thiefery and too much crazy fuckery in my opinion. but still a very good game I agree on that @Lord Bafford

[@masumasumasu]

@Lord Bafford Yeah Cathedral was really great and you could cut through the atmosphere thats true. Still like Karras as an antagonist more. the narcissistic genious/madman with a plan to destroy all organ life. really loved the way they told his story. never really showing him (until the end at the chamber) but still managing to make you fear that guy was a stroke of genious if you ask me :). like I said, im not really disagreeing on you that Thief 1 was great. just a taste thing I guess

[@masumasumasu]

@Lord Bafford bought it but never really liked the new graphic style of the game. watched a lets play to enjoy the story which was still very good.

[@Sengrath2986]

Extra maps and community mods are also good.

[@Broformist]

Easily one of the very best games ever made. This was very interesting to hear.

[@GoodOldMusicC64Amiga]

Looking Glass one of the best studios ever

[@Munden]

More War Stories! I was very skeptical of Ars' foray into video content at first but the War Stories series is a great start. I want to hear more War Stories, and maybe ones that went badly.

[@tauceti8341]

Just got abs. addicted to these war stories myself. Whan an awesome find!

[@Rickety3263]

Ditto. Some of the titles tho border on clickbait, or at best, miss the creator’s underlying stories

[@Duskets]

"A game that almost didn't happen because the guards kept misbehaving." I TOLD YOU LOT TO QUIT TAFFING ABOUT

[@ganeshscott5360]

Long live Garrett, Master Thief! And don't forget old Benny the taffer-guard either ;-P

[@Dominuzzz]

Thank you for this wonderful insight on the best stealth game ever made. What an amazing engine back then, utilizing the sound, light and shadow to create immersive gameplay mechanics. I hope they can do it again after Underworld Ascendant and System Shock 3!

[@ChesterChi3]

I'm really happy for you, and Imma let you finish, but Splinter Cell is the best stealth game of all time !

[@icyjiub2228]

Heresy. Chaos Theory and Thief 2 are brothers.

[@noahleach7690]

And imma let you finish but dishonored do

[@Foxysen]

Aw man, he didn't explain what was the big AI rewrite about, just "it made a lot of sense". Thus learned nothing.

[@hw8991]

Yea a big let down. I can't understand how Ars could miss this huge hole in the story.

[@GepardenK]

Probably too extensive for a interview like this. The end goal was the same so it's not like the AI behaved differently in-game (except that it worked) - the rewrite was probably about coming up with a clever way to handle AI routines logically.

[@Foxysen]

Right, to my knowledge he is creative director and he views it from higher game design level and management level. That doesn't really interest me, I wanted more lower level "how they did it", that would be for me actual lessons to learn there. Not to the point of pseudo-code, but still. But he probably doesn't know or remember that, wasn't his job, right.

[@GepardenK]

Yeah that wasn't his job. It was a coder who fixed the AI

[@OtherSideEntertainment]

The guards had a lot to keep track of: their route, the soundscape, their "vision cone", when to pursue and when to drop, entering combat state, alerting other guards, etc. Some of the AI rework was as simple as spreading the guards out so they wouldn't overlap as often, or "dumbing them down" by letting them hum songs and talk out loud to alert the player that they're nearby. You would expect a whistling guard who's meandering back and forth to be "bored and distracted", and less likely to spot a shadow moving quickly along a wall, right? ;) While it may seem obvious now, it was one of the ways players could excuse the less alert guards' behaviors, and we wouldn't have to be too picky about their reactions to player input.

[@lelxrv]

Thief: The Dark Project - my single most favorite-st game of all time. Thank you, Looking Glass Studios, for this masterpiece.

[@ScytheriaReborn]

Dark Project - still the best game ever made after 20 years. Great video too!

[@theintern2960]

The Thief series is one of my all-time favorites, an excellent blend of ideas and talent. The gold standard for all future stealth games that few games have even come close to matching.

[@SoFarSoGoodSoWhat14]

Chaos Theory, MGS V and the new Hitman trilogy come to mind, but I would love to see a new light and sound stealth game with modern tech, it's a real dead genre unfortunately :(

[@eugenemurray2708]

@@SoFarSoGoodSoWhat14 Alien Isolation, where the AI alien can track you down via your breathing into a microphone.

[@treetopsamuelson488]

His story of giving his 10 year old sneaking expierience to the player is EXATLY what Miamotos 10 year old self experienced exploring a cave and it led to zelda. I really think that if a person has a visceral experience when their around 10 and then they are able to turn it into a game as an adult it will lead to a great game.

[@marlboroml2894]

That is so autistic to say it blows my mind

[@illmitchjax]

@@marlboroml2894 because your mind is very small.

[@Krystalmyth]

I got molested as a ten year old. Wonder how I can make a game about that.

[@MementoMoriGrizzly]

​@@Krystalmyth Degrees of Lewdity

[@vanmichael6517]

Really interesting concept... thanks for sharing

[@followingtheroe1952]

"We need to rewrite the entire AI system" *footage of garret murdering the guards* such clever editing lol

[@Jakkaroo]

And most first person games still don't have anywhere near this depth and sophistication in physical presence in the world, sound modelling, or basic AI. It's very frustrating :

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

Sound modelling of modern games is actually really good. The issue is they don't use it. In terms of just presenting the sounds to the speakers modern games do quite well, but they very rarely use that same data they've got going for them in actual game-play, it's just cosmetic. Kind of like how in non-stealth games they have pretty lighting but it has no effect on actual gameplay, it just there to look nice. This poses a bit of problem when there should be overlap because the most advanced lighting and sound stuff is generally locked up in graphical software packages that are specifically designed for visuals, so it's difficult to get at the raw data to use for other stuff. Basically it's a bit of a common issue and oversight in the modular method of game design in modern times. All the development into this sort of tech went into how to make it look and sound right to the player, and the actual mechanical side for use by AIs generally gets reinvented every game, with varying levels of success.

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

One of the many problems that has arised from the culture of splitting the graphics and game designers into different categories.

[@andrewbrennan7291]

Thief I & II still going strong with a great community over at ttlg.com.

[@JohnGaltAustria]

It's been 20 years and Thief is still my favorite PC game. Thank you, Mr. Neurath (and team) for this.

[@GMCecil4]

i could listen to the devs talk about this game for the next year even if it was a story about them ordering pizza, this is one of my most favorite games to ever exist it's one of the few games i play though every year or so since it's release. this game will always be installed on my PC.

[@ffrreeddyy123456]

This team is the reason why we now have stealth today. Wow, thank you for making it so great. A lot of things take so much time, but you all added great aspects of the stealth system right away! It’s really fun to do all those things now days too, but I’d like to see some more of these original ideas come to life. If you think about it I’m doing what these people thought I’d have fun doing in games now days. So why not have a new idea, like this one, that is fresh?

[@unvergebeneid]

I would love to see more technical descriptions of both the breakthrough on that AI system and on the sound propagation. Sounds like quite an achievement to accomplish this on such old hardware.

[@somekindatube]

Paul Neurath you are a hero. I've never had such an immersive and enjoyable experience as Thief 1 and 2 and I really doubt I ever will.

[@DelmiraVesna]

Thank you so much guys for seeing this through and not giving up! I havent played Thief 1&2. Im from the later generation who played Deadly Shadows and the Thief reboot. But these games would not come to be if not for your pioneering work! Thank you again!

[@Curt_Randall]

I have so much nostalgia for Thief. It gave me the most memorable gaming experiences I ever had. The stealth, sound, dialogue, enormous levels, and sheer imagination was ahead of its time. Pity the game did not receive more recognition that it greatly deserved.

[@ahmad1080p]

I can't imagine how my life could look like if thief wasn't made, it's a masterpiece, better than those overrrated game of the year titles.

[@hajjibarbara2900]

Loved Thief. God, I can't believe that it's been 20 years.

[@dzezonja3558]

My one and only and forever favorite game. It’s sad how the franchise went down the drain. Eidos really was too confident with their last game overdoing it with mainstream game mechanics and totally modernized and out of place world for thief. Thief 1 and 2 are my all time favs as well as Thief 3, love the color scheme there and immersion sadly that’s where it all ended. I’m so glad we have modders still and The Dark Mod project where we can still enjoy the classic. My hopes won’t die ever though to see another real Thief game with up to date graphics.

[@ehcmier]

Tom Leonard, if you somehow see this comment, thank you!

[@tomleonard9591]

Much credit goes to project director Greg L., who said had the courage to say yes and then helped build the archetypal stealth test map I used to build and tune.

[@t_k_blitz4837]

@@tomleonard9591 Since I'm too excited to do a web search, please tell us, what were the changes that you envisioned and implemented?!??

[@lecutter9382]

You guys should do an interview with Jordan Thomas about how he designed Shalebridge Cradle in TDS. That is still one of the goddamned scariest places ever created in gaming.

[@Haze1434]

So glad it came out well in the end. Thief I and Thief II are my favourite games of all time, bar none. I must have played each 5 times over by now, and currently still go back and play a lot of fan missions and The Dark Mod also. Amazing stuff.

[@ThinkGizmo]

video is awesome.

[@KevinGeneFeldman]

If only they would make this type of game today. I HATE modern stealth with its video gamey environments and its video gamey enemy types and its totally unnatural path systems with stealth based on ducking behind short walls and crates. Whats worse is they are so uncommitted to the stealth genre that they always offer this option to play it like call of duty, "oh you COULD play it stealthy down this stupid defined path OR you could pull out this bazooka and blow everything away, its all about choice", no its not all about choice. Your choice destroys the elements of the game, it dilutes it and loses the core vision of being a stealth game. You no longer hide in the shadows and knock out guards and hide your evidence, instead you hide behind a TOTALLY NATURAL short wall and then press X to pop into 3rd person and watch this long drawn out repetitive takedown animation. Instead of pressing your attack button which attacks in all instance you press it, you have contextual commands and you have to wait for it to activate so you can watch the games animator take out that guard for you. Its hot garbage, todays stealth games are the absolute worst, a gumbo soup of the worst game design and corporate self consciousness.

[@KainRazielMT]

Well said man. The first thing that came to my mind when reading this was Dishonored - you COULD sneak, but with all those weapons and abilities, you were practically unkillabe. So what are you supposed to do? Roleplay that you are weak and vulnerable? Sure, the ending was affected by how many people you kill....that means if you wanted the good ending you had to waste time knocking guards out which was insanely boring. Looking Glass Studios invented the stealth genre and to this day no game I know of even comes remotely close to it. Not to mention the Thief of 2014 which is just a big middle finger to people who posess a functioning brain.

[@XxTheIKINGxX]

MGS V and 3 had amazing stealth, the harder difficulties of Alien: Isolation forced you to sneak and its stealth was great, Amnesia: The Dark Descent had great stealth - we had Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory back in 2005. Stop this idea that no good stealth games have come out since Thief 2. The genre is definitely plagued with terrible games and there aren't a lot of AAA developers gearing up to make a stealth game but we have and will continue to get superb stealth games, you just have to wait and see.

[@2012Parag]

XxTheIKINGxX Agree with SC Chaos theory, alien and Amnesia BUT as far as Mgs is concerned, I'd like you to watch this - m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJDGhKytrtp4h9k

[@liquidhalo]

You should try the Styx games, they are fantastic for sneaking

[@FuchsiaShocked]

Great video, unfortunately marred by adverts every couple of minutes which break its flow and remind me why I should never watch KZbin on mobile where I have no adblock facility.

[@EstrangedEstranged]

I accept ads even if they ruin the experience. Nobody has to make wonderful videos like this for free.

[@ZazuYen]

Thief changed how I looked at games. Those guard footstep sounds are ingrained into my brain because I spent SO MUCH TIME just sitting still in shadows waiting... waiting for that gap in their patterns so I could sneak into the next area undetected. That was an epiphany for me, I remember realizing that I was short on breath, on the edge of my seat, every muscle tense, having the a great gaming experience, and my character hadn't even moved an inch for minutes. I was having a great experience not doing anything! Now THAT is immersion. Hearing that he was trying to recreated his experience and the feeling he got sneaking into a basement and almost getting caught, that makes total sense. The most successful games, I believe, are trying to create experiences. Not just adrenaline rushes or jump scares or the Skinner-Box feedback loop, but full on experiences.

[@justice_1337]

I was never into Thief 1 or 2 but I still played them some and ya they truly were amazing. Rope Arrow pretty crazy for a game back then if you think about it.

[@razorree]

That was THE BEST game ! especially with Aureal A3D technology (not stupid Creative stuff), that allows you to hear enemies behind, above, below, in front of you ...

[@icyjiub2228]

The game actually has built in sound portal stuff that works regardless of audio backend. In the latest version of Newdark, the real trick is to set up OpenAL soft with HRTF. Then you get EAX reverb + Thief's sound portals + HRTF that will give you the sensation of direction (including up and down)

[@thoughtcriminal3843]

To this day the best experience I ever had with any game was playing Thief with 4.1 speaker surround sound, closing my eyes and actually be able to roughly visualise the environment and guard locations from the sound alone. something I've never experienced since.

[@razorree]

i've just install Thief Gold and Newdark, i was able to turn on OpenAL in the audio menu, is it enough? or should i configure something else ?

[@whitefantom]

I was actually introduced to Thief because TDP came packaged with my Creative SB Live sound card back in 1999. So yeah, it worked just fine with Creative cards back then (it requires some extra steps nowadays, but it still works fine on my SoundBlaster ZX even today), and had it not been for buying that Creative card 20 years ago, I might never have even heard of Thief.

[@razorree]

in fact, i play Thief1 again now :)

[@OMM-bo9fr]

I love T1&2. and I love LGS for making them a part of my world. T3 wasn't quite the same, but it was still good. Now there's just bland reboots. LGS were artists.

[@nispelsm]

The thing that made Thief 3 stand out for me was the story of the Keepers, and of course, the Shalebridge Cradle. That mission was a masterwork.

[@goaway5297]

And they still get can't stealth right to this day. Amazing they achieved what they did when they did.

[@dannygelbart6827]

WE NEED MORE THIEF GAMES.

[@Chayat0freak]

Paul Neurath's games made my childhood

[@dongorham2893]

Thief came out during the time of early surround sound. I had my first game applicable experience using sound in Thief. In total darkness , because the guard was whistling , I knew exactly where he was to sap him with my black jack. A whole new level of game play. Never forgotten.

[@Epinardscaramel]

4:13 OMG I remember that swimming pool! I spent a few hours on that map, putting EVERY ITEM in the pool :D Good times.

[@Plutonia001]

That's why I can't stand the Bear Pits now. You don't know what you've missed. They just don't make bears like they used to.

[@DurkMcGerk]

Killer bears!?

[@TheDrLeviathan]

Pfft. I'm surprised you like this game. "Ooh, the blood! It just turns my poor tummy!" :P

[@CV1129]

"You want stealth? You should a been there years ago! Tell ya, the games then, they were something to see!"

[@Plutonia001]

"Something to see"? That's ironic considering that we're talking about stealth. :D

[@Plutonia001]

Shut up you taffer!

[@sablesanctum]

The only game that appreciates the importance of sound for immersion.

[@bigstevie01]

Silent Hill 3 had some incredible sound design, but in a decidedly more scripted way.

[@lugbzurg8987]

Ever play Splinter Cell? Heck, even though it's not Stealth, Doom utilized this to a high degree.

[@-nuclearwaste3593]

games from back in the day were very fond of sound immersion. It all went down hill when aurial vortex sound cards were taken over by Sound Blaster and everything started going digital/stereo vs hardware-accelerated/surround

[@augustvalek]

Dead space has also a phenomenal sound design

[@WeeklyComedian]

...the ONLY game???

[@Gamer2k4]

Normally I like these "War Stories" videos, but this one was underwhelming. "We tried to make stealth work, and it didn't for a long time, and then one guy fixed it in under a month." There wasn't really any exploration into WHY the systems didn't work, like the Ultimate Online one, or a description of a clever solution, like the Command and Conquer one, or a focus on a particularly significant roadblock, like the Dead Space one. ("The problem was stealth" is, to me, far too general, like saying "The problem was shooting the guns" for a game like Doom.)