Thief developers Eidos Montreal have announced that they have removed the games XP system after mixed reception from fans.
The system came in for a good deal of criticism from fans after the E3 gameplay demo saw main character Garrett gain XP after getting a headshot kill, with other rewards being offered for similar actions.
The reason behind the criticism is that fans felt that the game was straying a bit too far from the core aspect of Thief’s gameplay: to steal things in a stealthy manner.
In a blog post, Game Director Nic Cantin said he felt the XP system was “reducing our motivation to steal. The main goal of a thief should be to gain loot. Garrett is already the Master Thief, so we saw no need to have XP as a core mechanic.”
“We shouldn’t judge how the player wants to achieve their goal, only reward them for achieving it.” Lead Level Designer Daniel Schmidt added.
The two said they keep an eye out on the fans opinions on things like this: “Fans might be surprised how often the devs go to the forum to see how things are perceived in the “real world”. This feedback is extremely valuable to us, so as you can imagine, the consistent reaction to the XP system was something that indicated we needed to revisit some design decisions.
“The E3 reaction was right, rewarding killing like that was wrong for a Master Thief.”
Instead of the XP system, upgrades will now be accessed through spending gold to return to the importance of stealing, including the upgrades previously unlocked through XP.
Thief will be available on 28th February on PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
[Source: Eidos Montreal]
