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Thief is one of my favorite stealth franchises and the first two titles still hold up. The first game was undoubtedly groundbreaking for its time but I think Thief II is the better game simply because it centers on the strengths of the gameplay. It’s basically more of the same but eliminates the issues I had with The Dark Project – less focus on combat and monsters. Sadly, Looking Glass Studios, the developers of the first two games, struggled financially and shut down after the release of Thief II. After Eidos Interactive acquired the rights to the franchise, development duties of the next game were handed over to Ion Storm and a portion of the team that worked on it were ex-Looking Glass employees. The result was Thief: Deadly Shadows which received positive reviews but apparently failed to meet financial targets and was the last game Ion Storm developed before shutting down.
Developed by Ion Storm and published Eidos Interactive, Thief: Deadly Shadows was released for PC and Xbox in May, 2004. For this review, I played the PC version. I did consult the game’s PCGamingWiki page before playing and installed the Sneaky Upgrade unofficial patch which fixes bugs and improves compatibility with modern systems. The patch also comes with some optional mods, most of which I did not install because I wanted to keep the gameplay relatively faithful to the vanilla experience. But I did install the Thief 3: Gold mod which is included in the Sneaky Upgrade and one of its notable features is the elimination of “loading zones” in the levels.
Set in the fictional fantasy steampunk metropolis simply known as The City, the player once again assumes the role of Garrett, a master thief. After the Keepers ask Garrett to retrieve two artifacts in exchange for granting him access to Keeper prophecies, one of their Interpreters is murdered and Garrett is blamed. On a quest to clear his name, Garrett learns the true culprit is a monstrous creature in disguise with a plan to destroy the Keepers. I thought the plot was pretty good. I like how it continues the series tradition of putting Garrett in a bad situation with his back against the wall and once again, Stephen Russell delivers a great performance as Garrett.
One thing I think Deadly Shadows fails to capture is the same type of atmosphere as its predecessors. Don’t get me wrong, it retains the unique dark fantasy charm the series is known for but I feel it just doesn’t reach the same levels as the previous offerings. I think the tone is slightly off which I feel is related to the environments but I’ll get to that in a bit. However, one of the most atmospheric levels in the game is called “Robbing the Cradle”. Set in an abandoned orphanage and asylum, Garrett is guided around by the spirit of a young girl who wants to be set free and he must evade the reanimated bodies of former inmates. The way the level is designed can result in a lot of moving back and forth between areas which I thought was tedious but the atmosphere is on a whole other level. It conveys a creepiness that really isn’t found anywhere else in the game and as a result, stands out as Deadly Shadows’ most memorable level.
As iconic as “Robbing the Cradle” is, my favorite level is “Still Life with Blackjack” because it encapsulates everything I love about this series – sneaking and thieving. Garrett infiltrates a museum rife with loot and like most levels in the game, it’s a lot of fun to explore. I’m happy to say that much like Thief II, the gameplay in Deadly Shadows primarily centers on thieving and evasion. The big new thing here is being able to freely navigate the districts of The City in between levels. The City acts as a hub area of sorts with multiple districts connected by load points. The districts lead you to the different levels and also contain plenty of buildings and people to rob along with black market merchants and shops where you can sell loot and buy items.
While exploring The City is cool, after a while I found myself frequently rushing through the districts so I could get to the next level. The city watch among some other enemies patrol the streets and will attack Garrett if they spot him so every time you exit a level, you have to evade them again as you navigate the streets until you reach the location of your next objective and it just feels like the same thing every time. As you progress through the story, new enemies will appear which only makes getting around more of a slog. The districts contain numerous paths and routes to take but the in-game maps don’t pinpoint your location and it can be easy to get turned around. I frequently had to stop and consult the map to make sure I was going the right way.
The first thing I like to do when I fire up a PC game for the first time is go through the menu and configure settings. If I’m playing with a keyboard and mouse, which is how I played Deadly Shadows, I always set the controls to my liking and when I saw a key option for “Holy Water”, I admit I got a little nervous. Holy Water was used in The Dark Project to defeat undead foes and the monster levels in that game were not my favorite mainly because they focused more on combat which has never been great. It’s still not great in Deadly Shadows and the undead among other supernatural enemies do make an appearance in some levels but evasion is still the focus, thankfully. In general, you can engage enemies but it’s usually better to evade them. Sneaking around, exploring, and discovering secrets and loot are still the most enjoyable aspects of the gameplay to me.
Garrett still carries around a blackjack which can be used to knock out enemies but he can also engage them with a dagger. The bow along with most of the arrow types from the previous games return. The rope arrow is absent but you can acquire Climbing Gloves to reach higher elevations easily. They enable Garrett to climb certain walls and actually prove to be a fun way to get around. Most of the equipment in the game will help you navigate, evade, misdirect, and engage if necessary. You can temporarily blind foes with flashbombs, knock them out with gas bombs, lay down explosive mines, create slippery and even fiery surfaces with oil flasks, and throw holy water at the undead to destroy them.
Some interesting new features include the faction system and upgrades or magic abilities. There are multiple factions in the world of Thief like the Keepers, Hammerites and Pagans and in Deadly Shadows, there are things you can do that will affect your relationship with the Hammerites and Pagans. Your standing with them can make getting around The City easier or more challenging. As you progress through the story, Garrett will receive some upgrades or abilities, some of which are for the sole purpose of improving his relationship with a faction like, for example, the ability to destroy Rust Mites which improves his relationship with the Hammerites. One of the more significant abilities lets you interact with Glyphs which are invisible to non-Keepers and grant you access to new and/or hidden areas of The City.
I kind of wish the upgrade system was fleshed out more and featured more benefits to the typical gameplay like faster lockpicking, limited use of temporary invisibility similar to the potion in Thief II, quieter footsteps, and other things along those lines. Maybe unique and exclusive faction abilities that are only granted after reaching a certain status and are lost or not available if you align with the opposing faction. I feel a system like that could have increased the game’s replay value.
The game will take you to a lot of different locations with plenty of loot to steal and items to find and you do have to visit the Black Market to sell loot. It’s no longer done automatically like in the prior games. The environments are designed in a way that there’s often multiple ways to reach a destination. As you navigate around evading people, guards, and monsters from time to time, you should keep your eye out for secret areas that house goodies. In typical Thief fashion, it’s easy to get sidetracked exploring and lose focus on what you’re supposed to be doing. Sometimes you’ll have to eavesdrop on conversations and read notes found in the environments to learn where you need to go and/or what you need to do. Everything you learned in the previous games still applies here. Successfully getting around and evading enemies will mean staying quiet and hidden.
I do like that Deadly Shadows is a little faster-paced than the previous games and one cool new feature is that you can switch between the first-person and third-person perspectives and in first-person, you do have full body awareness. I preferred playing in first-person because I found it to be more immersive. I also found the world, itself, to be somewhat immersive. You can enter a lot of buildings, people walk the streets of the city and interact, you can steal valuables from them, and on more than one occasion I witnessed NPCs fighting each other. If there’s anything that pulled me out of the immersion it was getting stuck in a jumping or landing state from time to time, rendering Garrett unable to move properly, and the AI pathfinding. On more than one occasion, I noticed NPCs struggle to navigate the environment, unable to get around objects and/or walk into things.
One thing I think is odd is the size of the levels compared to those in the previous games. Most of them are big but they don’t all feel big if that makes sense. Same with The City. A lot of environments feel more claustrophobic here. Don’t get me wrong, many levels and buildings contain multiple floors, there’s plenty of routes and ways to get around and explore but for some reason, the environments feel smaller in scale to me. I can’t confirm if they are physically bigger or smaller than the environments in the previous games but they definitely feel smaller to me. The City districts are kind of weird because you get to explore portions of The City in the previous games and in Thief II in particular, there’s two levels that place you on the city streets in a large map with a typical grid-style city layout – essentially a large maze of streets and buildings. But the way it was designed, it felt like an actual urban environment. The districts here convey a different type of feeling to me, more intimate so to speak and less urban. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but it does set a certain tone that’s different than the previous offerings.
Deadly Shadows released several years after Thief II and the improvements in technology definitely shows. While this is indeed the best looking game up to this point, I feel the aesthetics aren’t quite as good as those in the previous games. It’s another reason why I think the atmosphere is not on the same level. Regardless, the environments are well detailed and improvements were made to the lighting and audio design. Audio is still a crucial part of the gameplay and once again, the audio work does a phenomenal job at conveying information. On the technical side, I’m happy to say I did not encounter any major problems and the game ran smooth.
This wasn’t the first time I played Deadly Shadows but is the first time I dedicated serious time to it. I think my previous efforts lasted less than thirty minutes. So this was the first time I beat the game and I actually really enjoyed it. I don’t think it’s quite as good as its predecessors but it is a worthy follow-up. It’s very obvious the developers were trying some new things. I think the more open-ended nature of The City feels like a natural evolution of sorts even though progression is still linear. In the end, though I enjoyed the levels more than The City districts because I got tired of running back and forth between them, evading the same guards and enemies, and taking the same routes and seeing the same shit every time. Each level is different than the last and the gameplay is still traditional Thief for the most part. I enjoyed navigating around the various mansions, buildings, caves, and museum quietly moving in the shadows, stealing loot and getting lost while exploring. That’s the best part of the gameplay and always has been.
I would absolutely recommend Thief: Deadly Shadows. I do think it falls a bit short of its predecessors but the gameplay and technological improvements are all for the better. I just don’t think the developers were able to capture everything that made the previous games so great. But it has more to do with the atmosphere and tone than the gameplay. Ultimately, I think it’s a great stealth game and a worthy entry in the series. Definitely check it out.