Diversamente dalla demo mostrata all’E3 non saranno presenti scene in tempo reale in Thief. Una dichiarazione di Valerie Bourdeau e Daniel Windfeld Schmidt, lead lever designer di Eidos Montreal, rilasciata in una sessione di Q&A sul blog di Eidos Montreal esclude l’implementazione degli ormai sfruttatissimi quick time events, scene in tempo reale che implicano la pressione di uno o più pulsanti in serie. Ecco la domanda in un utente e la risposta, piuttosto decisa, di Valerie Bourdeau:

razorstealth: You mentioned QTEs in the last Take 5. How are you planning to implement these so that they don’t break immersion?

Valerie: Oh, I want to answer that one! I was hoping someone would ask. Easy, we’re not implementing them. To begin with, there were very few instances of QTEs in the game; in fact there was only one in that whole hour-long E3 demo. However, given the strong reactions it evoked in the press and the community, it was an easy decision to do away with them entirely. So we’re not doing it. No quick time.