Thief: Deadly Shadows - On this day

The Thief game series was considered revolutionary in its day. He put the players in the role of thief Garrett, delivering one of the first high-budget games designed around the mechanics of theft. However, although Thief stole the hearts of the audience, in the end, he did not get hold of large amounts of their money, so its creators went bankrupt while they were developing the third part of the series.

The then publisher Eidos Interactive bought the rights to the Thief series and commissioned the Ion Storm team, which was previously famous for the hit Deus Ex, to develop the third game. The new developers took over the concepts that the previous team had for the game but decided to use the new engine and bring the Thief series to consoles. Previously, Thief was exclusive to the PC, and the third part was originally announced for the PlayStation 2, only to end up on the Xbox console.

They named the game Thief: Deadly Shadows, not Thief III, precisely for the reason that they wouldn’t turn down a console audience that hadn’t played previous games. Significant changes have been introduced compared to previous titles, primarily the possibility of playing from a third-person perspective, as an alternative to the first-person view, which until then was the standard perspective. Although the game still had a mission structure, the protagonist Garrett could walk around the city between each mission, steal its inhabitants, and exchange stole items for better equipment and gadgets that he then carried on missions. 

Although the gameplay was faster and with more action, progress was made in terms of hiding, or stealth systems. Deadly Shadows introduced dynamic shadows, and took sound reliance to a new level by making the player's actions louder or quieter depending on the material he was moving on, the presence of doors and windows in the rooms, and the architecture of the room itself. In other words, enemies could hear you from the next room if the door was open.

Thief: Deadly Shadows was a well-known story of a well-rated game that was not commercially successful. After poor sales results, the development of the sequel, which was planned, was canceled, and the Ion Storm studio, which worked on the game, was closed. However, the series resurrected once again - in 2014 in the Thief reboot. That part picked up the weakest marks in the entire series and after that, we never heard or saw Thief again.

Currently, Thief: Deadly Shadows is available in a PC version on Steam and GOG, and is currently at an 89% discount.