Is thief challenging?

I play a lot of stealth games and I love a good challenge. I'm thinking of buying Thief. What I'm looking for is a stealth game with smart ai and the ability to complete the game without having to knockout any enemies. Does thief with custom settings deliver on these points?

The custom settings certainly make it feel like the older Thief games (which were *amazing* stealth games).

You'll be able to play through it with challenging AI and no knockouts - or I guess so, judging from the 6-ish missions I played.

The main problem with being super-amazing at the stealth gameplay is that it'll clash a bit with the storyline, since Garrett in Thief 2014 is a clomping idiot in all of the cutscenes. :p

Eh, this game wasn't that great. The AI lapses a lot, the level design is linear with maybe a few pointless rooms in between, and the sound design is horrible.

Designing a Great Stealth Game can be very difficult.

The customability in terms of difficult definitely makes for a challenging game.

Ironman is probably the most challenging

i love splinter cell stealth gameplay and have only played the thief:deadly shadows xbox game.

my questions for all of you who know your thief and stealth game stuff is: how long is the game? how is the a.i. on the easiest difficulty vs the hardest? is the hardest difficulty the only meaningful stealth/advanced a.i. choice? linear or semi? collectibles and/or stuff to upgrade/improve? how is the hud options? anything new and innovative?

I could see it being relatively challenging so long as you rely on checkpoints instead of quicksaves. It's certainly far harder than Dishonored was. The AI is decent on the hardest difficulty, and complete garbage on the lower difficulty settings. It has a pretty decent length--far more than most big-name games, and will probably last you 20+ hours, especially if you're playing on hard. It's a semi-linear game; you have to reach one location, but there are different ways to get there. However, there's less room for improvisation than in the older Thief games. There's stuff to upgrade, and the HUD can be completely removed (at least on PC). Nothing new or innovative really. It's a decent stealth game with some poor design choices (too many context sensitive buttons instead of dedicated buttons--not having dedicated lean buttons was a huge oversight imo).

The original is a nearly perfect stealth game. Haven't played the second but the third is also really great (although a lot of people think otherwise so take that as you will). Can't comment on the new one though. I'd say find a way to play the first.

It´s challenging if you disable all the aids,waipoints and such that´s for sure but it´s still easily the worst entry in the series,the first two games are still by far the best,especially Thief 2: The Metal Age wich is pretty much the gold standard for the stealth genre.

as a stealth fan i wouldn't recommend anyone pay more than £5-10 max for it.

the only thieves were eidos for attempting to charge £45 for it... amirite folks?!

Play Thief 2.. and the Dark Mod…and fan missions.

Perhaps if it had some co-op.....

@udubdawgz1: I did it on Normal difficulty and completed all the side-quests in 17 hours. There aren't many main missions. Thief 2k14 is a neat game, but it's flawed. The sound design is especially bugged. It's cool, but doesn't quite get there. Worth trying.