Eidos Montreal has stated via a community Q&A session that the upcoming title, Thief, will not feature an XP system. Daniel Windfeld Schmidt, lead level designer and Nic Gantin, game director, for the title remarked the decision to remove the system was made due to fan reactions.
When asked about the negative fans reactions to the “Headshot XP” seen during a gameplay demo of Thief during E3, Schmidt stated, “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.”
Cantin added, “It is more a design decision to add to our economy system and entice the player to steal more. But yes, the E3 reaction was right, rewarding killing like that was wrong for a Master Thief.”
The design of the game will focus more on having users steal, with Cantin stating, “The goal is to use gold to buy elements to progress, to encourage the player to steal. The player will be able to choose how to spend money, for more stealthy or more aggressive tools.”
Thief will be out on Feb 25, 2014 for NA and Feb 28 for Australia and Europe, for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.
