By John Walker on May 12th, 2009 at 1:53 am.
After the announcement of Eidos’s Thief 4/Thi4f sparked some controversy over the replacing of letters with numbers in game titles, and after some suggested that perhaps E may not equal 4, we decided to delve a little deeper to see what other titles Eidos might have coming up. Read on for this world-breaking, possibly slightly untrue news.
Battlestations: Pacific may not have been released yet, but that doesn’t stop us from revealing this world exclusive lie about its unplanned sequel.
A tenth Tomb Raider may not have been announced, but we know it’s coming, even in Square Enix’s hands.
And finally, while Deus Ex 3′s logo has previously been shown, we can exclusively reveal that it will definitely soon be updated.
12/05/2009 at 01:55 Psychopomp says:
WHAT IS THIS I DON’T EVEN
12/05/2009 at 02:07 Thants says:
So much l33t, it makes me feel like I’m 15 again. Who wants to watch Hackers?
12/05/2009 at 02:12 solipsistnation says:
I want to play a game called TOMB ROIDER.
RAWR.
12/05/2009 at 02:12 Pags says:
Good show.
12/05/2009 at 02:15 Saul says:
Wow, if Eidos’ controversial THI4F logo was intended to get the internet buzzing, it certainly succeeded. Two posts on RPS, and they haven’t released a single detail about the game!
12/05/2009 at 02:17 Adam T says:
74472 20 47732083 1 2477 3739 5340 17!
12/05/2009 at 02:18 lumpi says:
DEU3 EX… lawlz
12/05/2009 at 02:22 Dead Fish says:
Heh, love it! All of those dumb marketing moves should be called out like this.
12/05/2009 at 02:25 D says:
Thats quite some photoshopping gents.
12/05/2009 at 02:35 Frank Austin says:
Classic. I knew you guys would deliver on this one.
12/05/2009 at 02:37 Real Horrorshow says:
So I’m the only one who doesn’t find all the Thi4f jokes funny or even cared about the “THI4F” logo in the first place?
12/05/2009 at 02:38 Tim says:
Liking the comedy, along with Alec’s declaration that we should only trust RPS. Keep it up.
12/05/2009 at 02:53 Mad Doc MacRae says:
The DEU3 EX one looks pretty plausible.
12/05/2009 at 02:56 nabeel says:
Battlestations Patooific.
12/05/2009 at 02:56 PaulMorel says:
I can’t wait for 44444!
12/05/2009 at 03:02 Oak says:
It’ll be hard to top 44443.
12/05/2009 at 03:02 bigburpco says:
Oh god I giggled like a little girl.
12/05/2009 at 03:04 Alex says:
Not enough game use the absolute value brackets in their titles.
12/05/2009 at 03:11 PleasingFungus says:
@Alex: You mean the pipe?
And regarding the post itself: excellent.
12/05/2009 at 03:11 Sam C says:
Next up, a preview of /-*|H@lf-Lyf4 3|*-\: 1337 4dition!!!1one
12/05/2009 at 03:17 sinister agent says:
I have very limited tools at my disposal and am rather tired, but what the hell. Horribly crude mangle-o-tron done in paint, of all things:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3605/3524346392_56473edca4.jpg
12/05/2009 at 03:42 Muzman says:
The sequel we’ve all been waiting for
(may or may not make any sense)
12/05/2009 at 03:48 Sam C says:
@Muzman: I hope the Boston Post means “defuse”, either that orthe convicts are going to spread the bomb around until it’s less concentrated? ;)
12/05/2009 at 03:50 Muzman says:
Heh, Yes that’s it. Also I was too slack to find a Guardian banner
(fixed. less haste more speed, mother would say. or is it the other way around)
12/05/2009 at 04:00 Gladman says:
Deux Ex? That’s not a game.
I like Tomb Roider
12/05/2009 at 04:31 JKjoker says:
yeah, Tomb Emo Roider, a new hip look at the battered old hag that just refuses to sit down and went all dark eye liner on us, they might even pull a Spid3rm3n
12/05/2009 at 04:55 Clockwork Harlequin says:
I’d love Tomb R101der. Assuming it’s a reference to 1984?
12/05/2009 at 04:57 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
I was dyslexic enough not to notice the number in the logo until today.
And I was silly enough to attempt to pronounce it.
12/05/2009 at 06:09 DBeaver says:
comments spawn article. interesting
12/05/2009 at 06:24 Twist says:
My favorite so far:
Left4Garrett
http://ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1853701#post1853701
12/05/2009 at 07:04 Required says:
1 = l
2 = z
3 = e
4 = a
5 = s
6 = b
7 = t
8 = B
9 = g
Yes, in your unlimited superiority over 15-year-old “h4xorz” you might believe l33t is about replacing random letters with random numbers. Well let me tell you something: it ain’t
12/05/2009 at 07:04 solipsistnation says:
Holy cow, Left4Garrett has made me snarf my evening beer right out my nose.
12/05/2009 at 07:12 MC says:
How to pronounce it? Thiaf? Thourf?
12/05/2009 at 07:36 Wulf says:
Now that I think of it, how does one pronounce Eidos? Perhaps the name of their own company is indicative of their challenged approach to English. I had never considered this before today.
Sorry Ee-Yii-Doss (?), I’ll never be able to look at you the same way again.
12/05/2009 at 07:39 Rosti says:
I hope Tomb Roider contains a rage mechanic and tigers. Rargh!
12/05/2009 at 07:43 Duoae says:
OMG! I laughed so hard! Thank you, John, you made my day!
12/05/2009 at 07:48 Lady Bobz says:
DEU3 EX, where the hands of stupid approach genius o’clock.
12/05/2009 at 08:02 Über Nerd says:
Next to the Sh*t trailer of Dragon Age, Thi4f is acceptable.
12/05/2009 at 08:10 Alex Norris says:
“Tomb Rioider” just sound like the Devonshire version of a famous video game.
12/05/2009 at 08:36 Clockwork Harlequin says:
Wulf: I think it’s pronounced Eye-dos. (Not sure where I heard it, so maybe I’m completely wrong).
12/05/2009 at 08:38 rob says:
Thifourf has the worst logo since Sesevenen
12/05/2009 at 09:00 Jazmeister says:
What about ThIVf? That’s, you know, uh…
12/05/2009 at 09:06 Gap Gen says:
Mafiia?
12/05/2009 at 09:14 Mr.President says:
Yes, yes you are.
I, for one, am intensely outraged by this unprecedented alpha-numerical bait-and-switch. The game has been ruined for me forever.
12/05/2009 at 09:16 Ian says:
@ Real Horrorshow: Yes, it’s just you. We all lead empty lives.
12/05/2009 at 09:24 Andy M says:
Just be glad it wasn’t T.H.I.4.F. Alternatively, marketers might eventually decide to make efficient use for all those little dots as binary for an easy-to-use sequel ticker, with a dot for zero and a dash for one:
T.H.I.E-F
T.H.I-E.F
T.H.I-E-F
T.H-I.E.F
Video game marketers are the true pioneers of our time.
12/05/2009 at 09:27 MonkeyMonster says:
Thorf?
12/05/2009 at 09:28 Paul Moloney says:
Maybe Eidos will buy some assets from 3D Realms:
“It’s time to blackjack taffers and chew bubblegum. And I’m all out of gum”.
(Cue picture of a knucklehead in a black cloak smoking a cigar.)
P.
12/05/2009 at 10:04 AndrewC says:
THIEIVES.
12/05/2009 at 10:25 Rei Onryou says:
@AndrewC: So they’re going to announce a new multiplayer mode because “its what the fans were asking for” and release the teaser trailer to Marilyn Manson’s Fight Song?
12/05/2009 at 10:33 Paradukes says:
DEUS 3X works fairly well…
12/05/2009 at 10:43 Gap Gen says:
Maybe they should call it Heift.
12/05/2009 at 10:49 Markoff Chaney says:
1 4ppr0v3
12/05/2009 at 10:58 Irish Al says:
I don’t give a shite what it’s called, I’m just glad it exists.
12/05/2009 at 11:42 Taill4f4r says:
Will this continu4 until w4 know all th4 d4v4lop4rs, th4n pr4s4nt a list of th4ir nam4s with l4tt4rs r4plac4d appropriat4ly? Th4y should also do that in the cr4dits.
12/05/2009 at 12:15 shinygerbil says:
I can tell by some of the pixels.
etcetera.
12/05/2009 at 12:51 The Fanciest of Pants says:
This looks shopped I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in my time.
12/05/2009 at 12:55 jalf says:
@Required: Perhaps you missed the joke? Take a close look at the Thief 4 logo, and you’ll see why Walker is substituting random letters for random numbers, rather than following conventional “l33t spelling”
12/05/2009 at 13:13 l1ddl3monkey says:
Max Payn3, STALK3R, Call 6f Duty, 2pore, Residen7 Evil… Not difficult is it?
This is a trend that concerns me greatly.
I really thought 2 Fast, 2 Furious was a bit of marketing genius in as much as I didn’t, at all, and actually believed it signalled that we had finally reached a level of dribbling inanity in the entertainment industry from which there would be no return; this opinion was of course cemented in place by the release of Get Rich or Die Trying which I thought was a Scary Movie style spoof on hip hop culture like CB4 but was actually a serious film – who knew…
My point – after all that digression – is that franchises and stupid naming conventions are the sort of things that appeal to the same sorry retards that like stuff like 2Fast2Furious and I wish the mainstream guys would fuck off with this continuing dumbing down of entertainment or at least restrict it to churning out movies full of stereotypes and stop cross contaminating the gaming market.
12/05/2009 at 13:25 Doctor Doc says:
Left 4 Dead did NOT make these silly names OK again. L4D was also silly but it made some sense. Thi4f does not, it’s just dumb.
12/05/2009 at 14:07 Persus-9 says:
Left 4 Dead was a homophonic replacement, those are sort of ok in my book, it also has a fairly good double meaning that they turned into a triple meaning by using puntastic box art. Win.
Driv3r was dumb but a valid l33t replacement of 3 for e and so also sort of ok from a suitably liberal language perspective but awful from a marketing perspective because there’s nothing less cool than an uncool person trying to look cool. Fail.
Thief is 4 for e and now we’re into a dark unexplored region of trying and failing to look cool while violating the rules of l33t, breaking the minimal rule set required for intelligibility. Epic fail! Thank goodness it’s only a working title.
12/05/2009 at 14:19 Subject 706 says:
Tomb Roider : A fighting game set in an old tomb. Power up your roid meter to perform special R01D M0V3S that devastate your n00b opponents!
Sorry, if that was shit, couldn’t resist it.
12/05/2009 at 14:43 Lucas says:
They sure didn’t try very hard. Why not Thie4 with a backward 4?
12/05/2009 at 14:59 Alaric says:
Who cares. Really. It is difficult for me to imagine the level to which a human being had to sink before they felt offended by something of this nature.
12/05/2009 at 15:18 DMJ says:
Actually I’m finding it difficult to imagine the level to which a human being had to sink before they didn’t feel offended by something of this nature.
It smacks of shoe-horning in a number because “games with numbers in the middle of a word sell better according to market statistics!”.
The sort of person who came up with this would probably use the word “product” instead of “game”.
12/05/2009 at 15:27 jalf says:
@Alaric: Offended? Who’s offended? I just think it’s funny that they misspelled their product’s name during the big unveiling.
12/05/2009 at 16:22 Nick says:
I’m not sure which I found more amusing, the people who didn’t get it, the humourless people moaning about it being posted or the post itself. Winner!
12/05/2009 at 17:16 MeestaNob! says:
@DMJ
“Thief 4ranchise.”
12/05/2009 at 18:16 John Walker says:
More offensive than Driv3r was their NOT using DrIVer for the fourth game.
12/05/2009 at 18:37 ACESandElGHTS says:
Let’s put the blame squarely where it belongs, and that’s on David Fincher’s brilliant motion picture “Seven.” Or, as IMDB and half the world likes to call it, “SE7EN,” which doesn’t make any god-damned 7ense at all.
We REALLY should’ve put the hammer down on this garbage with that steaming pile of a movie “Independence Day,” aka “ID4.” Huh? ID4? Way to confuse A) Americans who are questioning where ID1-3 are and B) the rest of the world who don’t care about the significance of the number four. Really, really a desperate, awful naming convention that should’ve been buried alongside a million E.T. carts just outside of Albuquerque.
Now is the time to channel Howard Marion-Crawford and his single, bile-filled and oft-repeated, word of condemnation from Lawrence of Arabia.
OUTRAGEOUS! OUTRAGEOUS!
Stop the madness. It’s not 1337. It’s not cool, not in the slightest.
12/05/2009 at 21:00 JoeyjoeJoe says:
ROFL!!! Bravo to writer.
12/05/2009 at 21:19 Pod says:
Tomb R-lol-der?
DrIVer is a beaut. And of course unmber 5 could be DriVer, or drVr in this day and age
12/05/2009 at 21:35 Taill4f4r says:
DriVer’s pretty drivey.
But Driver 6 is DriVIer…
Shameless. I know.
12/05/2009 at 22:58 DMJ says:
@MeestaNob!: I’ll shake your hand for that. Before I bludgeon you to death for the exact same thing. Naturally.
13/05/2009 at 00:23 sinister agent says:
DriVer’s pretty drivey.
But Driver 6 is DriVIer…
Shameless. I know.
7/10
13/05/2009 at 20:55 Nalano says:
Tomb Roider:
Solving the double mystery of Lara’s bust size AND aptitude for outlandish athleticism.