PC User Reviews

Thief the dark project is nothing short of perfection. These games define what stealth should be: tense, atmospheric, and deeply rewarding. Garrett isn’t just a character, he’s an experience—every shadow, every creak, every careful step makes you feel alive in a world that’s brilliantly detailed and haunting. The level design is genius, the storytelling subtle but gripping, and the freedom to approach challenges your own way is unmatched. Even decades later, these games remain unmatched in stealth gaming. 10/10, without question.

the biggest levels ever,real labyrinths, very easy to get lost.Real classics.

The absolute godfather of stealth games. Still better than most even after 25 years. Love the dark and serious tone fantasy aspect. Loved the missions and fantastic audio. Some of the levels can be quite chaotic to navigate tho, so you might end up running around, hopelessly lost in the dark. Maybe that was the point? 9/10

Прошел оригинальный thief 1998 года. Легендарная игра, легендарная серия, жаль что погибла - не выдержала сурового накала капитализма. В современном мире людям нужно кушать кино и онлайн мусор, а не супер иммерсивный стелс в сеттинге дарк фентези и мрачного средневековья. Для 1998 года текстурки и технологичность ебейшая, ни одна консоль того времени бы с thief не справилась, огромные локации, иммерсивность нереальная. Сюжет и заставки по тем временам тоже дико топовые, иногда видно, что тупо снимали актеров, чтобы удешевить производство, но только лучше стало, меньше устаревает и очень атмосферно даже получилось. Однако, в этой игре худшая карта в истории видеоигр, ей можно только подтереть жопу, а это накладывается на гигантские локации, порой ты просто бродишь взад вперед по огромной зачищенной локе недоумевая куда идти. Управление тоже очень неудобное по современным меркам, игра нормально работает и со временем привыкаешь, но в те времена просто не умели делать в соответствии с нынешними нормами. Порой слишком душно + игра нереально пугает местами, хотя я уверен что ее вообще не хотели сделать как хоррор, просто так получилось. Но в целом качественный контент, по крайней мере я смог ее пройти без особых проблем, в отличие от thief 2013 года, которую я начинал 3 раза и просто не мог в это уныние играть. В 1998 году мне бы наверное сорвало крышу от thief, но сейчас игра не настолько впечатляет конечно - поставлю 7/10 со скидкой на время, но в 1998 году после прохождения я бы наверное визжал просто и оценка была бы выше.

I was obsessed with this game back in the day. However, replaying it again after 25+ years there are some things I completely forgot about. Issue 1: A lot of levels are built like big confusing mazes with no rhyme or reason to the layout. The real reason was, at the time, levels were small and were often built to be confusing on purpose to make longer gameplay. Issue 2: I forgot about all of the annoying non-human enemies you can go up against. By level 2 you start seeing zombies that are very hard to kill and annoying to sneak past and level 3 gives you weird lizards that spit clouds of acid that are everywhere in packs. I so wish they stuck to the human enemies with the fun dialog and voice overs to listen to. I was in love with the first level but after slogging through the next 2 I quickly lost interest. In the 3rd level if you make an easy fall into a watery cavern it can take you MINUTES to get back to the same spot, after battling through more enemies and that's only if you know the map layout. Lots of poor map design in some levels. The game is a classic that started a whole genre that games like Assassin's Creed owe their existence to, but some things just don't hold up today.

I loved this as a kid, was an amazing experience, sneaking and continuous thrill of being caught :)

1998 год бы рассветом жанра стелс и отметился некоторыми знаковыми проектами, но первый «Вор» занимает среди них особое место, по крайне мере в моём сердце уж точно. Большинство игр этого жанра выполнены от третьего лица – человечек бегает по экрану и эффектно избегает врагов, камера демонстрирует нам его приключения со стороны. Таким был и MGS Solid вместе с Tenchu, по-своему крутые игры, но у «Вора» иная перспектива, это стелс от первого лица и эффект присутствия тут глубже. Разработчики прекрасно понимали все неудобства такой перспективы в контексте жанра, поэтому в игре прекрасный звук, который является отдельным измерением, в котором игроку предстоит ориентироваться. Нередко придётся слушать бормотание стражников, определять типы поверхности по шагам, да и просто наслаждаться атмосферными звуками тёмного, стимпанковского города и его окрестностей. И конечно «Вора» отличает иммерсивность – ощущение присутствия и взаимодействия с игрой напрямую. Здесь можно каждый факел потушить, смыть кровь водяными стрелами, самостоятельно проложить путь через огромный уровень, пророй, находя неожиданные решения с помощью верёвочных стрел и не только. Наконец, самостоятельно вырубить стражника прицельным ударом дубинки по голове со спины, а не нажатием кнопки «стелс убийства», которая всё сделает за тебя. Скупые подсказки помогут понять направление, но дальше полное погружение в процесс, где никакое кинцо и нагромождение скриптов мешать не будет. Эта игра даёт особенный опыт стелса, поэтому даже сквозь года вызывает восхищение как выдающийся представитель жанра.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

The first thiefs were the best. This game series is basically 10/10 sneaking and thieving. The factions and characters are more well thought than you'd imagine.

Top notch stealth action. You don't need another setting. Top horror experience cause of the horrifying sounds. You won't be able to play it until you're 100% ready. Gameplay: combat mechanics 7/10 stealth 10/10 atmosphere 10/10 Gameplay as ****: 9/10 Story 9/10 Graphics 8/10 Sounds & music 10/10 . Looking Glass magic * * *

Thief is one of the best video games ever made, that got lost in the shuffle. Things that make this game so brilliant are pacing and gameplay. The story is immersive as well. But for 1997 this game impacted MANY video games and although it is considered to be a masterpiece today, i think more people should play this game. The game feels a bit outdated but i think that is not an enough excuse to not experience this great video game.

You better go and make sure you've got a set of taffin' headphones, taffer!

It was one of the first great stealth FPS games released for the PC. 1998 was the year that 3D gaming really became the standard and the game uses it to its full potential. The game is very story-driven with cutscenes between levels. The AI is a bit broken with sometimes the enemy is oblivious to you and sometimes it knows exactly where you are. The graphics were good for the time, the sound and music was amazing. It really has a nice atmosphere. The UI is very outdated and the movement is a bit stiff. The maps can get a bit Mazey at times which is a big negative for me. The second half of the game is pretty bad

Thief didnt age well in my opinion: The AI is very bad, sometimes it is even unrealistic and disturbs the immersion. The graphics engine is outdated, even with HD mods. The levels are big and complex, so you get lost often, what is frustrating. The map is not very helpful. The controlling is uncomfortable,if you search for an item in your inventory. **** beginning of the game is great: perfect atmosphere and great setting. It is a great idea to play a thief exceptionally and not a hero again. in addition stealth games are interesting instead of the 38237rz32th shooter. Anyway I prefer Splinter Cell.

My most favorite game of all times! A wonderful combination of stealth, adventure and some horror elements with one of the best, unsurpassed atmospheres. Imho, this game just lack any possible flaws, all its elements are where they should be. The story isn't the main focus point of this game, but nevertheless it's great. I love the fact that even the dialog between two guards that you can overhear at the beginning of the first mission isn't there just for some funny speech but is connected to the plot. The pure stealth missions are interchanged with ones where you get to do some action, levels set in human environment are interchanged with ones set in some weird places with terrible and dangerous creatures. Thief: the Dark Project is a perfect game by any standards possible. I would recommend it to anyone except, of course, for people that don't like stealth at all.

This and Thief II: The Metal Age are the best stealth games ever made. Other Thief games have nothing on them. Especially not the crappy Thief 4, that totally butchered the brilliant concept of the original games

A masterpiece. A fundamental part of the Golden Age of the Immersive Sim triunvirate (alongside System Shock 2 and Deus Ex). Redefines what immersion in a game should be.

this is my childhood! spend endless days and nights with it back in the days.

Amazing game. It's 2018 and they have not made a game competes with Thief yet.

Thief 1 is a MUST if you like stealth games. The game (although it has 12 missions) can take hours and hours of time to go through. the levels are realistic, the story is great, the graphics are good even though this game is old and the sound design is on point. This game has absolutely now flaws.

Thief Gold has great stealth mechanics and good level design. For its time some of the concepts were revolutionary and many of them still hold up today. Fun features include hiding in shadows, different amounts of noise generated by walking/crouching on different surfaces, and ascending vertically through use of rope arrows. Stealth attacks do more damage, which can be rewarding, though occasionally they would not work and instead do normal damage. Ability to save anytime is very useful to create your own "checkpoints". Combat can feel clunky, blocking is actually less effective than walking backwards or jumping to dodge attacks. Most levels are well-designed and fun to explore and find secrets/loot, however a few levels are maze-like and can be frustrating. The map has no player-marker, it just highlights the area where you are. Some mission maps are very difficult to comprehend. Cash and items are not cumulative but vary from mission to mission, so looting everything doesn't have much benefit. Bought for $1, played 26 hours (replayed some missions), great stealth game, highly recommended.

Thief: The Dark Project is not only one of the greatest stealth game ever conceived, it is also undoubtedly one of the best games ever made. Excellent and authentic sound design, emotive voice acting, with level design handled by Ken Levine, the director of SystemShock and BioShock. And his work on the game definitely shows, because the level design is great. Sure, the graphics are admittedly abysmal by today's standards, so this game is therefore not for everyone, but if you like stealth games or games that execute good tension, give this game a shot.

Any time spent playing Thief is time well spent. Other games put through the test of time fail, but Thief stays at the top with one of the best atmospheres in gaming & the amount of different playstyles you can play with. Sure, it's graphics & models may be outdated, but you can fix that relatively easily with a simple mod or two. If you're going to play this game, good luck, you're in for a masterpiece.

Thief along with Metal Gear shaped the stealth genre and to this day still nothing can rival this first person stealth game... You are placed in huge mission areas and its up to you to use your wits and problem solving skills to over come each and every obstacle Garrett(MasterThief) faces. Thief Gold has an incredible amount of depth partly because the man who is behind Bioshock had a big influence on this game. On a side note the visuals in this game can be somewhat bland but in my opinion that is no reason to bring the score down since there are so many amazing modders that keep this game running with the big boys even today. R.I.P Looking Glass Studios

It's a "pure stealth" action game in medieval fantasy setting. Usually you can't kill even 2 enemies in an open fight, if they attack you at once. So, you need to sneak from behind, stay in the shadows, extinguish lights and so on. The stealth genre basically started with this masterpiece.

One of the greatest and classical masterpieces of all time! Thief: The Dark Project or Thief: Gold, developed from the now defunct company Looking Glass Studios puts you in the Steampunk Victorian times, with creepy music, great atmosphere (believe me this game scares me to bits!), great story line and great voice acting! The only problems I encountered with the game is that its too confusing to get to somewhere, and also the first time I got it, it was poorly optimized, so I highly recommend if you are using an up-to-date PC, to download an unofficial patch which fixes some of the problems like cut scenes not working, bad resolutions and poor quality. But set aside all these problems, and you have a perfect stealth masterpiece. Stick to the shadows at all costs!

The first and easily the best of the Thief games, The Dark Project follows the snide yet consummate professional thief Garrett as he engages in a heist with the payday of the lifetime. It's a simple and well told tale of someone biting off more than they can chew. Garrett's ultimate heist takes him to a variety of locations in the City ranging from mansions, prisons, tombs, and the churches of religious fanatics. The experience never seems to get stale as you sneak through dark corridors, avoiding detection from your enemies while stripping the place of valuables. There are a few missions that don't hit their target as effectively as they should, otherwise this is probably one of the best and influential stealth games in history. A must play for fans of the stealth genre.

The first game of the groundbreaking Thief series. Dark and haunting and full of the undead. Scary and engaging. The missions are hard but rewarding. This is a must play and own.

For its time and even now, Thief the Dark Project is a masterpiece in stealth games. Despite the obviously aged game engine, the game is very immersive and atmospheric with some exceptional writing. The stealth is obviously Thief's main strength: finishing a level undetected without killing anyone is immensely satisfying. Thief does have it's gripes: the game burdens itself with too much zombie and burrick-killing which did little more than make the game punishing at times. The Dark Engine also comes with a couple of annoying quirks; namely slippery movement and fiddly inventory management. These issues however, do little to make Thief any less of a classic.

This game is one of the greatest classics I ever played fun, great and funny voice acting. The game engine is perfect for a thief game, great level designs and characters.

Outstanding game with a new way of playing for action-based titles. The hide and sneak way of achieving one's goals are really adding to the great ambiance of this world and demands something completely new from the player. The story begins in what seems like an authentic historical setting and as the story unfolds, things take a turn for the weird. This game combines so many fascinating ideas and manages to tell its story flawlessly.

I was lucky enough to play this game when it was released. Still one of the best game out there. This game had everything: charismatic main protagonist and villains (Garrett, Viktoria, the Trickster etc.), a great new engine (Dark Engine which featured new alpha blending, texture filtering and lighting techniques... all quiet revolutionary back than). Great game and level design (It was designed to be largely unscripted; events, instead of being pre-defined by designers, occur naturally.) Great gameplay (Thief focused on stealth and evasion from a first-person perspective, and not full frontal action.) Atmosphere (The game takes place in a metropolis called "the City" which has been noted to contain elements of fantasy, the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution.) Cutscenes (They were partly animated, partly made with live actors and motion capture technology). Even today the Thief series is the ultimate stealth game in gaming history. The stealth system was very new when the game was released. The player had to rely on the environment to avoid being detected. Shadows could be used to avoid notice; a monitor on the heads-up display (HUD) indicated the player character's visibility level. The player could lean, crouch, climb, swim and run, among other actions. Surfaces caused varying amounts of noise; for example, carpet is quiet and ceramic tiles are very loud. Enemies were reacting to these factors, and players could manipulate these element of gameplay to distract NPCs etc. Go play Thief:TDS than go and play the rest of the series.

It should tell you something that, 14 years after its release, Thief: The Dark Project still inspires awe and devotion in its fans. Story, voice acting, and level design don't age; if they're great at release, they're great forever, and so it is with Thief. All that remains to review is the technology, and this is where this game and its sequel, Thief II: The Metal Age, really shine. Even the best-conceived and -executed games of the late '90s put their advancing age on full display, with the exception of Thief, and here are the reasons: (1) After all this time, no game has made better use of sound. With headphones or surround-sound, you can literally close your eyes and know where every conversation, grunt, footstep, dripping fountain, and crackling torch are located and how far away they are. The sound design of Thief remains simply astonishing, and it's a critical part of the gameplay; you navigate through the sprawling levels and enthralling missions as much by sound as by sight. (2) Similarly, the use of light and shadows remains unsurpassed. (3) The NPCs have superior AI compared to most games, then and now. Their actions and reactions are varied, complex, and extremely sensitive to how visible you are, how much noise you make, how far away you are, whether you have a weapon drawn, how long you've been in hiding after once being spotted, and so on. And they talk like real human beings! I'm not sure there was a single line of repeating dialogue in the entire game. (4) Finally, the graphics, though limited by the technology of the day, remain surprisingly fresh because of the Dark Engine's unique, angular building blocks. Characters and environments are constructed from skewed polygons that make up for a lack of resolution with a slightly weird distortion, as though you're looking through a kaleidoscope, or perhaps on an extremely low dose of acid. That's not a perfect description, but suffice it to say that Thief looks quite like no other game. Thief IS like no other game. You can buy it cheap these days, and if you love gaming and are open to an experience that challenges your mind more than your twitch reflexes, it is absolutely worth the price.

The whole Thief trilogy are classic games. I recommend that you buy all three in a bundle. I don't think these games will ever wear out. The graphics are good, sound is very good and re-playability is very good. I'll never forget when I first heard the 2 ole guards talking about going to the bearfest and the underslung cheek spikes. I had to just stop and laugh. These are truly the Best sneaking, blackjacking games that have ever been produced or for that matter ever will be . The entertainment value of these games is much more than you can imagine. I hope these 3 never go away.

What an incredible series. Thief was so different in it's time. And even now games are still catching up. With a sound system built into the entire that rivals modern games, an intriguing and dark story, and tense gameplay that changes the way you play games - thief is a hallmark of excellence.

Be aware of the walls, thief. They see everything.

I whole-heartedly join the chours: a timeless classic; THE most immersive game I have ever played (besides perhaps System Shock 1/2 and a little less Deus Ex 1); if you have never played it you are missing out on an incredibly stunning style of play; as another reviewer mentions, if you do want to remedy such a short-coming (as serious an offense as this is :) get the Gold version on ebay - it is exactly like the original just with a few excellent missions added; if you want to read more, go find my Thief 2 review i just wrote; what i do want to mention here though are some of the things that make this game so outstanding: (1) the immersiveness of its atmosphere and the Thief universe - sure, crysis is eye-candy, but this is the real immersion deal! because of the setting (sneaking and looting combined with the player's weak offensive abilities) and the excellent programming, you will use your senses much more than in any other game - you need to pay constant attention to lighting, visual cues, and sounds made by you and others in order to stay hidden and avoid trouble; and the fresh story with its twists and turns (including a betrayal that costs you dearly and your attempt at revenge) makes this a novel and great experience; what's more, the sequel - Thief 2 - IMO greatly expands on this by making the Thief universe even more bizarre with its mechanist enemies and setting (2) (may not apply to all) the outstanding localization work - i own the german version and the voice acting and translations are unbelievably good - the exclamations made by guards chasing you are sometimes outright funny and if i didn't know any better i would have thought that the game developer was a german company (3) the outstanding fan community - humdreds of fan-made missions were made and are still (mostly) available - some even surpass the original missions in quality while others give the game an entirely new twist (and satisfy any cravings for just running around and slaying foes) (4) where Deus Ex offers (often simplistic) alternative ways of getting to the same goal, this game offers entirely different styles of playing the game - ranging from weapons-first approaches to ultimate sneaking (ghosting, Lytha's way), this game can be replayed in many different ways; (5) one of the very few games that i have ever played that really make me miss my experience of playing it for the first time - i remember the nerve-wracking atmosphere of trying to stay hidden; and then all of a sudden there are the moaning zombies! and later the spine-tingling rattle of the haunts and their infernal 'join us, joins us now!' if you've ever played Thief, and you're still not on ebay right now, then i don't know how to help you ;)

what a perfect game! i love all the Thief series! atmosphere, story plot, game play... everything is perfect! even though i started Thief 2 first in 2010, it was great

My first love affair with a computer game. Thief is a masterpiece on every level, Warren Spector has crafted a chilling yet humble experience that overflows with charm and unique atmosphere unlike any other.

Phenomenal game considering when it came out. One of the most interesting and unique atmospheres in gaming even over a decade later. I would give this game a 10 if the a.i. was better. A.I. is one of the key ingredients in stealth games considering you have to analyze movement and patterns of behavior to be successful. The a.i. falls short compared to modern games, but it's impressive for it's time. Few games have left me with as much satisfaction after completing a level. Not only is it satisfying, you get to watch awesome cut scenes and mission briefings. Anyone who likes stealth oriented games should check this game out.

Pure stealth was relatively untouched before Thief came out, and it's a testament to how good it is that it's now almost a genre of its own. Incredible atmosphere, ambience and suspense make this one of or even the greatest game I've ever played. It encourages you to remain a sigh on the wind, a flicker of darkness in peripheral vision, an anonymous, undetected shadow. Combine the low fantasy, pseudo-mechanical medieval backdrop with the tense, nail-biting gameplay, and the result is an utter masterpiece. Play it properly and they'll never even know you were there.

One of my favorite games of all time, along with the sequels. Thief brought a breath of fresh air to 1st person 'shooters'. It has to be the best stealth game series I have played to date. You sneak around and hide in shadows and either knock people out or put an arrow in them. Your missions are almost always to get into someplace and steal something. And the storyline is just awesome. It's way better then that joke **** "Assassin's Creed"-- which I discovered was nothing close to what Thief was. I have yet to find any game that matches Thief in style. I found a website where a group has made an open source game that is like Thief (but it is buggy yet and relies on fan-made mission). Recently I read that Thief 4 is being worked on, but so far no release date! I only had one part of the game that I didn't like, and that was where they put zombies in the game. It wasn't that bad, but I like going up against people that seemed to have some intelligence not some mindless walking goon that made a noise when it saw or heard me-- but thankfully it was only in one part of the game so I can't really complain that much about it. Overall the entire series is just fun to play, and I recommend it to anyone that is tired of mindless shoot 'em ups that have weak or no story lines.