Development
Thief II began development in January 1999. During the early stages of production, the team set up regular "movie nights" for inspiration. The films they watched included The Third Man, Metropolis, M and The Phantom of the Opera.
Thief II was announced in May 1999, as part of a development agreement between Looking Glass Studios and Eidos Interactive to create four new games in the Thief series.
The game utilizes the upgraded version of the game engine, the Dark Engine, used in System Shock 2. It supports 16-bit color, more polygons in character models, larger textures, color light and weather effects. Other changes include an increase in the number of AI behaviors, some guards raise an alarm rather than try to fight, and their awareness levels will increase if they see something out of place. Items have been upgraded or introduced, such as a remote camera and flares. Supernatural enemies such as zombies were mostly removed.
Cooperative gameplay for up to four players was originally announced but this did not appear in the final game. One planned gameplay mode, dubbed "Theftmatch", saw players on opposing teams racing to steal the most in an NPC guarded building.
Read more about this topic: Thief II: The Metal Age
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“The American has dwindled into an Odd Fellow—one who may be known by the development of his organ of gregariousness.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)