Instead, the appeal of Thief today lies in what Looking Glass Studios built around its game of virtual hide-and-seek. Although ingeniously designed, stealth is simple and roughshod, and those accustomed to the breadth and flexibility of more recent sneak 'em ups like Dishonored 2 and The Phantom Pain may find Thief's roster of flash-bombs and elemental arrows somewhat anaemic. But what was revolutionary in 1998 was improved upon from the sequel onwards. Thief remains for the most part a finely crafted stealth game. I may be alone in this, but I find that Thief's roughly-hewn polygons only serve to make its world stranger and more frightening.Īdmittedly, these reasons have little to do with the game's core premise. Many games owe a debt to it, but there's still nothing like the original. Instead, I want to tell you why you should play Thief right now. There are countless ways in which Thief could lay claim to being of the most important and influential games ever made. It's in any game where darkness is your friend, where you can lean around corners, or as a former Thief designer once explained to me, where you save the world 'by looking evil squarely in the crotch'. It's in the shadows of Splinter Cell, the air of Amnesia, the DNA of Dishonored. Yet just because you can't see something doesn't mean it isn't there, and if you know where to look, you'll see traces of Thief's legacy everywhere. But even if you found them, they'd probably say you're better off playing Thief 2. That's not to say it doesn't have its fair share of fans lurking in dark corners of the Internet. Thief's footprint is barely visible today, a world away from the fame of Grand Theft Auto or Metal Gear Solid or even Deus Ex.

As with so much else about Thief: The Dark Project, its legacy is wreathed in shadow.

Little thief game