Thief (computer game)
| Thief: The Dark Project | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Looking Glass Studios |
| Publisher(s) | Eidos Interactive |
| Director(s) | Greg LoPiccolo |
| Producer(s) | Josh Randall |
| Designer(s) | Tim Stellmach |
| Programmer(s) | Tom Leonard |
| Artist(s) | Mark Lizotte Daniel Thron Robb Waters |
| Writer(s) |
Terri Brosius Laura Baldwin Ken Levine |
| Composer(s) | Eric Brosius |
| Series | Thief |
| Engine | Dark Engine |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | |
| Genre(s) | Stealth |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | 89.41% |
| Metacritic | 92/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| CGW |   |
| GamePro | |
| GameSpot | 9.1/10 |
| IGN | 8.9/10 |
| Maximum PC | 9/10 |
| PC Gamer (UK) | 90% |
| PC Gamer (US) | 90% |
| PC Zone | 9.0/10 |
| Computer Games Strategy Plus | |
| Next Generation |  |
Thief: The Dark Project is a 1998 first-person stealth video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. Set in a medieval steampunk metropolis called the City, players take on the role of Garrett, a master thief trained by a secret society who, while stealing valuable objects, becomes embroiled in a complex plot that ultimately sees him attempting to prevent a great power from unleashing chaos on the world.
Thief was the first PC stealth game to use light and sound as game mechanics, and combined complex artificial intelligence with simulation systems to allow for emergent gameplay. The game is notable for its use of first-person perspective for non-confrontational gameplay, which challenged the first-person shooter market and led the developers to call it a "first-person sneaker", while it also had influences in later stealth games such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Hitman.
The game received critical acclaim and has been placed on numerous hall-of-fame lists, achieving sales of half a million units by 2000, making it Looking Glass' most commercially successful game. Thief was followed by an expanded edition entitled Thief Gold (1999) which modified certain missions and included a few brand new levels, two sequels - Thief II: The Metal Age (2000), and Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004) - and a reboot of the series - Thief (2014). Thief was one of two games in the series that Looking Glass worked on, before it was forced to close.
Thief takes place from a first-person perspective in a 3D environment, with the game's story taking place over a series of missions, in which the player character is able to perform various actions such as leaning, crouching, swimming, climbing, running and fighting, amongst other abilities.Levels are largely unscripted, and allow for emergent gameplay; while non-player characters (NPCs) may either remain stationary or walk about on a patrol route, players have the freedom to choose how to get around them and the obstacles in a level's environments in order to complete specific tasks, such as getting through a locked door. In each level, the player is given a set of objectives to complete, such as stealing a specific object, which they must complete in order to progress to the next level; the player can choose to play on one of three difficulty settings before starting a level, which they can change between missions, with higher difficulties adding additional objectives such as not killing human NPCs or stealing a certain amount of loot from the amount available in a level, changing the amount of health the player character has, and changing how sensitive a NPC is to their environment. In some missions, players may find objectives being changed or new ones being added, due to certain circumstances they encounter, while failing a key objective or dying, will fail a level, forcing a player to either replay it or load up a previous save.
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