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Thief scales UK charts, “smashes” first week sales of Deadly Shadows

Garrett lives in a clocktower now, see? Not sure why.

Thief is out of the shadows; here’s our Thief review.

Thief climbs UK all-format charts like just another clocktower. Thief ascends top spot thanks to inclusion of rope arrows. Thief bops Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 on the head before chucking its snoozing bod into a river, accidentally killing it. 

However you want to characterise it, a new Thief game is selling. This never happens. Somewhere on the peripheral of The City, a Keeper is fretting about the Balance of All Things.

Thief has been the best-selling boxed game in the UK this past week, according to the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40. Not only that, it’s the second best-selling UK number 1 so far this year – behind only FIFA 14.

Square Enix have the sparse release schedule of the new consoles to thank for the ranking: 75% of Thief’s boxed sales were for the PS4 and Xbox One – though that’s minus sales on Steam and other the digital distributors we PC gamers tend to frequent, of course.

Despite their regularly reinforced place in the PC gaming pantheon, Thief games have traditionally sold modestly, to say the least. For nu-Thief, the opposite has proven true: in spite of a relative pummelling in the press, its UK sales to date have “smashed” – UKIE’s own words – those set during Thief: Deadly Shadows’ first week ten years ago.

Have any of you lot contributed to that smashing? If so, what do you make of the game? Our Steve quite liked it in his Thief preview – but felt that much of its good was undone in its later acts.

Thanks, MCV.