Hey there TTLG,
This is Randy over at Ion Storm Austin. When Looking Glass closed I signed up as the Thief 3 project director. But you probably heard all about that. I finally found the time to post here to give you folks an update on how things are going. And since Thief 3 has been in pre-production for a few months now, I actually have some stuff to say.
The team is coming together really nicely. You probably heard that we’ve got Emil Pagliarulo, Thief 2 designer, and Lulu Lamer, Thief and Thief 2 person (QA, Associate Producer, etc.). Emil is a designer on Thief 3, and Lulu is our Associate Producer.
In addition, we’ve got a couple of very talented artists who worked on Deus Ex – Rob Kovach and Terry Manderfeld. We also hired Kevin Daugherty, an industry pro who once worked at Digital Anvil.
Our lead programmer is Ian Dunlop, formerly from Acclaim, and a veteran of both PC and console programming. Also on board is Paul Tozour, an expert at game AI, who comes to us from Microsoft Games.
On the design side, we also have Nate Blaisdell, who worked for Looking Glass in the past and went on to Irrational Games for a while. And, as you may have surmised, we are fortunate to have Terri Brosius as our writer. Yes, Terri was the voice of Shodan and Viktoria. She was also central to creating the cutscenes and fiction of both Thief games (along with lots of other people who deserve credit, but I don’t have the space to name them all here).
Alex Brandon is the lead audio guy for Ion Austin and was a primary music guy for Deus Ex. He’ll be leading the Thief 3 audio effort.
Chris Carollo and Alex Duran, former LG programmers, are also here in-house to keep us honest (they’re working on Deus Ex 2). And a bunch of former LG people have expressed interest in consulting, in a playtest/feedback capacity and in some cases even more.
And, of course, we have the great fortune to be working under Warren Spector in the Executive Producer role. If it weren’t for Warren, Thief 3 would be in production at some other company, and quite possibly none of us would be working on it.
We have a few more positions to fill before our team is complete. Interest in working on Thief 3 has been very high, so we are psyched and confident that our team will just keep getting better. In particular, we’re looking for designers, and you can check out a post in Developer Announcements if you are interested in hearing about the job opening.
It’s great that Thief 3 is at Ion Austin. Working in the same culture with the guys making Deus Ex 2 is really fun, and I’m sure that each team is going to benefit from the insights of the other. Get ready for some awesome games. Of course, neither game is coming out right away, so you might want to find some other stuff to play in the meantime.
As I mentioned, Thief 3 is still in pre-production, which is going well. The designers and artists are currently cranking out top-notch material for an internal art demo we’re working on. No, you can’t see it, sorry. We’ll probably release some screen shots when we’re comfortable with what we have, but don’t hold your breath. It’s looking very good so far, and we’re also doing some R&D to figure out new ways to make it even better.
The story is also coming along. We basically picked up where we left off at Looking Glass and are developing the continuation of the Thief and Thief 2 fiction as was sketched out back at LG. It’ll be a while before we release any details, but I can tell you that the story is going to be really cool and answer a lot of questions you may have had about Garrett and the world of Thief.
Similarly, the game design is a development on the work that was started at Looking Glass. Terri and I were the lead designers when Thief 3 started at LG, so that just figures. We’re thinking about mission ideas, enemies, powers, features, framing elements... all that good design stuff. We’re writing a lot of documentation.
The work on the programming side is the usual pre-production thing of creating development plans and analyzing technology, along with supporting the art demo efforts. There’s going to be plenty of programming work for this project!
Thief 3 may have experienced some changes to place, personnel, and technology, but our team is dedicated to bringing you an authentic Thief game. Thief 3 is going to have all the immersive stealth gameplay, the deep story, the rich atmosphere, the realistic simulation, etc., etc., etc., that you knew and loved from Thief and Thief 2. It’s also going to have great developments and innovations. Heck, we wouldn’t know how to make a Thief game any other way. That’s why Warren hired us. So rest easy.
That’s about all I have to say for now. I’ll try to give you guys updates now and then and maybe occasional special treats. Thank you for your continued interest and support, which as always means a lot to us!
See you later!
- Randy
