Hear ye! This month marked the 25th birthday of Thief: The Dark Project. While not as infinitely mutable as other 90’s icons like Doom (which just turned 30, and can be played on a pregnancy test), stealth gaming’s grandpappy has maintained an enduring appeal and influence, especially for those more inclined to sneaking than slaughter. Buckets of digital ink have already been spilt examining this legacy, so I won’t dive into the weeds of a hagiography. What I want to highlight is a major event that marked the 25th anniversary – one that makes today as great a time as any to explore Thief’s still-thriving mod scene.
Notable: After a quarter-century, stealth fans were gifted a new, 10-mission Thief campaign called The Black Parade. Pitched as a prequel to the first game, it features a new protagonist, new story, and new heists, built by some of the most lauded modders on the scene. More notable still: The team lead is Romain Barrilliot, a fan-turned-pro designer at Arkane, where he, alongside other former Thief acolytes, iterates the immersive sim tenets in their patented im-sim laboratory. Mostest notablest? One of Thief’s original designers, Daniel Thron, joined The Black Parade’s team – and simultaneously released a new Thief short film, featuring the original game’s voice actors.
]]>Some developers spend their careers inching towards their dream job, leapfrogging between roles in a grand strategy game of their own making. Others, like Randy Smith, simply show up on their first day and find they’re exactly where they’re meant to be.
“The approach that Looking Glass had to creating games was pretty unique,” he says now. “Even to this day, there are few studios who have that same ideology and mindfulness in how videogames are made.”
Thief: The Dark Project had a great director, in the form of Greg LoPiccolo, who later became a pioneer in the world of music games with Guitar Hero and Rock Band. And before him, Ken Levine had laid down the cobbles of Thief’s setting, defining its noir-ish tone before heading off to work on System Shock 2. Yet Looking Glass games weren’t driven by a singular 90s auteur. In fact, the very absence of ego in the studio’s culture meant its many “bright stars” were happy to adhere to a shared vision.
]]>I was a little afraid of returning to this one. Not because I knew it'd mean returning to The Cradle, even though I was very intrigued to see if it would still work. But because I once scored it 90% in a magazine, and I really didn't want to be wrong. What if I'd been caught up in the hype of reviewing a massive title from one of the best ever developers? Then I'd feel silly.
]]>It has happened. The day spoken of in legend. After two years, I am finally to be set free of the Curse Of Steam Charts. All its taken is entirely leaving my job in four days time to end this purgatory. The only decision left is to whom I shall pass this vexation. That, and how to avoid mentioning the actual games for one more week. And this time I've come up with a self-indulgent doozy.
]]>It's the weekend, or at least after work-hours for most on a Friday, so might as well pick up something to demolish your free time. Square Enix are running a rather nice sale on Steam for the weekend, cutting 50% off the price on most of their bigger games, and slapping deeper discounts on a lot of more obscure stuff, including their old Eidos catalogue. Check out the sale page here, and peruse below for a couple oddball recommendations (and some boringly normal stuff) from me.
]]>We don’t expect much of a typical video game map. As long as it guides us to our destination (and perhaps looks pretty while doing so) most of us won’t waste a second thought on it. And yet, maps can be much more than tools that make our way from A to B a little more convenient. Some games reject the notion of maps as a tacked-on extraneous layer, and instead treat them as an integral part of their world. These maps can tell us something about their world and its inhabitants that goes far beyond topographical information. Rather than creating distance between us and a game, they root us more firmly in it.
]]>Thief: The Dark Project still stands out as one of the most compelling stealth games twenty years after release. Huge levels packed with treasure and secrets, and no radars or sensors to help -- just your senses, intuition, and maybe a badly drawn map.
While later games in the series were a bit ropey, the first two Looking Glass-developed ones are still actively supported by the Through The Looking Glass forum community. Think of it as a metaphorical vault of riches to nab, except the riches are mods and the owner wants you to have them. Here's a choice handful of mods to get you playing Thief Gold and Thief 2: The Metal Age polished up, and padded out with some big new sneaky adventures.
]]>The original Thief is one of the first games I remember playing. I was at my mate’s house, because he had a proper computer (and one of those old school mice with the little ball in that you had to take out and blow on if it got stuck). I remember doing the tutorial; being taught to hide in shadows and avoid the light. I was eight, and didn’t get much further than that until years later.
]]>There are few things as momentous in the gaming calendar as Games Done Quick charity speedrun marathons, and the full broadcast schedule for this June's upcoming Summer Games Done Quick event has just been published. Many of the world's weirdest, most diverse and implausibly skilled players will congregate at the end of June to raise money for a good cause (in this case, the increasingly important Médecins Sans Frontières), and systematically tear dozens of games into tiny, glitchy shreds over the course of a week of non-stop speedrun showboating.
]]>I have this clear memory of playing the first Thief, crouching against the wall in a dark stairwell as a guard walked closer. I held my breath until he passed, hidden in a shadow inches away. The games in the original Thief trilogy were all about light and darkness, with a “light gem” at the bottom of the screen to indicate whether you were really in the dark, reducing the guesswork created by the oddities of first-person bodies and your own screen settings. It's an obvious idea more stealth games should borrow.
A a lot of things from the original Thief games didn't become standard in the genre, and even the 2014 reboot/sequel didn't pick up on some of them. For that we have The Dark Mod [official site].
]]>If you're examining floor textures in Thief: The Dark Project, you're not paying enough attention. Stop staring at that cobble and watch for the guards strolling across it, taffer. Still, given that the game is old enough for a metal dealer's license, I can see why you might want to freshen it up - teenagers can be an awful lot.
Many moons ago we peeked at the first release of the Thief Gold HD Texture Mod, a fan project giving the game a shower, a haircut, and £50 in H&M vouchers. The mod has now reached version 1.0, making more prettier than ever.
]]>Well now, here is a brilliant little surprise. Who'd have thought the best game set in the Thief universe this year would be an itsy bitsy isometric Ludum Dare 29 entry? Maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but Beneath The City really is a smart (though sadly brief) execution of a really fun idea. In short (but undeniably stout), it's a real-time turn-based stealther set in Thief's City. Each time you dash in any direction with a lithe tap of an arrow key, so too does every guard on the map. There's also light sources to account for, water arrows to fling, and a mystery to partially unravel. Garrett - the real Garrett - would be proud.
]]>We tried to play Thief: The Dark Project and chat about it. Honest! But Twitch, the purple scab of a service, wouldn't cooperate with one of the most storied series starters in gaming history. It's almost like I shouldn't have expected a 15-year-old game to be compatible with a crazy space-age cyberfuture streaming platform, but no, that's just ridiculous. At any rate, today - for real this time - I will be joined by former Thief: The Dark Project director Greg LoPiccolo and longtime Thief series designer/Thief: Deadly Shadows director Randy Smith. Expect stories from the dank depths of the first three Thieves’ development chambers, inside info on what could’ve been, and opinions from series vets on Eidos Montreal’s reinvention of their storied stealther.
This will be a pretty special episode, so make sure to tune in. We're kicking off at 2 PM PT/10 PM GMT. A little late, I know, but come on: only amateur thieves skulk around during the (UK) day.
Update: We're done! It went quite well, all things considered. Watch the full thing below.
]]>This week's episode of A Game And A Chat is very special. Very special indeed. For one, I've got two whole guests this time - namely, former Thief: The Dark Project director Greg LoPiccolo and longtime Thief series designer/Thief: Deadly Shadows director Randy Smith. Yes, it is time to talk (and play) all things Thief. Classic Thief, nu-Thief, and everything in between. Expect stories from the dank depths of the first three Thieves' development chambers, inside info on what could've been, and opinions from series vets on Eidos Montreal's reinvention of their storied stealther. This is one you absolutely should not miss.
We'll be kicking off at 11 AM PT/7 PM GMT. Tune in below.
Update: We're having some technical troubles. New kick off ETA coming shortly.
Update 2: No end in sight to the technical issues. We're rescheduling for the same time tomorrow. Apologies to everyone for what was, frankly, an unmitigated disaster.
Update 3: I finally got Thief working with Twitch! So it's a lock: tomorrow at 11 AM PT/7 PM GMT. This will finally happen.
Update 4: This feature is cursed, clearly. A scheduling issue has come up, so we're doing this tomorrow at 2 PM PT/10 PM GMT. A late, spooky night show for Thief. Kinda makes sense I guess.
]]>Here at the RPS retirement home for weary writers, our memories are often akin to a swirling sea of confusion. Just yesterday, I was watching the trailer for Peggle 2 and thought it looked terrible. I realised that Peggle the first has come to resemble a Jackson Pollock gallery retrospective in my mind's eye. How strange then that our collective memories of Thief were lucid and strong. Looking Glass' masterpiece is more than a memory though. Astonishingly, fifteen years after its release, the fan community has continued to work on the game and a modder going by the handle Bentraxx has released a Thief Gold HD Mod. It looks gorgeous and there's a full changelist and video below.
]]>Fifteen years ago to the day, with some variance depending on where in the world you lived at the time, Thief: The Dark Project, went on sale. It is one of the games that continues to define the possibilities of first-person architecture and also an example of interactive storytelling that has endured over a decade and a half without being fully tapped. Some of the lessons that the team at Looking Glass laid out in their masterpiece has influenced a great deal of gaming. Other parts, like the Thief himself, appear to have gone unnoticed. Here, we remember and celebrate the brilliance of The Dark Project.
]]>Update: done, and suitably shamed. Videos below.
I have never played Thief: The Dark Project.
Please stop hitting me.
(I have played Thief 3, at least).
In about half an hour, I'm going to play it at last. Would you like to watch? Join me, live-ish.
]]>With Thief 4 bearing down on us like a robber with a toothy smile, we thought it might be interesting to go back to where stealth began: the creation of Thief. Joe Martin stole away with this report.
There's a line I had wanted start this article with. It is a line from the ironic finale of The Neverending Story and it would have been an obscure reference to the fact that before it was The Dark Project, Thief was originally called Dark Camelot. It was: "Beginnings are always dark".
I can't use that line, however, because if you go far back enough you eventually uncover Thief's beginning wasn't dark at all. It was red.
]]>Edit: cos there are various theories flying around below about my perceived intent in posting this, I shall clarify my own feelings. I would really like to see contracts between publishers and developers more commonly include an arrangement whereby key (and ideally, but rather less plausibly, all) creatives on game projects continue to see some post-release royalties, as is the case in some other entertainment and publishing industries. That so many old games are being (apparently profitably) rereleased lately highlights this disparity. That is all.
There's obviously a very good chance you already know this, but just in case: when a developer is bought out by a publisher, it's usually the case that they then don't see any ongoing royalties from the games they make for them, or indeed for any existing intellectual property that was swallowed up as part of the studio acquisition. It's standard practice, knowingly agreed by both parties during the dark deal some studios made to ensure immediate financial viability and larger project budgets. But what it does mean is that a great many of the PC games we regularly celebrate around these parts are no longer bringing in any money for their creators, despite still being on sale. Whenever we excitedly see an old classic appear on Steam or GoG (such as Thief last week), chances are very high that whatever we pay for it goes purely to the publisher and the download service. And while it may well be right that these bodies profit from projects they funded and distribute, it's sad that the men and women who toiled over that game's creation won't see another penny from it.
]]>Now that my initial excitement has waned to a deep, purple coloured throb in the centre of my soul, the stark reality of GOG.com's Thief port has settled in. It runs, which is the big step up from my original version, but it's not widescreen, the resolution is stamp sized, and it's a bit grimy. Fret not, lovely Taffers, for I'm about to tell you how to make it work. And it's ridiculously simple.
]]>I can't believe that writing about a 14 year-old game is getting both me and Adam so excited (He: "This is the best thing ever!”), but Looking Glass's genre-defining classic Thief is now available to download on Good Old Games. I'm downloading it right now, Taffer.
]]>With the announcement of Thief 4 (Thifourth) this week, it seemed an apposite time to go back to the very beginning and remember why this series was so special. Armed with a commission from Eurogamer, I snuck back to 1998 to play Thief: The Dark Project once again. It begins:
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