1998 video game

Thief: The Dark Project is a 1998 stealth video game developed by Looking Glass Studios and published by Eidos Interactive for Microsoft Windows. Set in a fantasy metropolis called the City, players take on the role of Garrett, a master thief trained by a secret society who, while carrying out a series of robberies, 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". Its mechanics were influential on the immersive sim genre as well as 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. It is regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time and helped popularize the stealth genre. Thief was followed by an expanded edition entitled Thief Gold (1999) which modified certain missions and included a few brand new levels. The series continued with two sequels: Thief II: The Metal Age (2000), and Thief: Deadly Shadows (2004), as well as a reboot of the series, Thief (2014). Thief was one of two games in the series that Looking Glass worked on before its closure in 2000. A remastered version of the game, published by Nightdive Studios, is scheduled for release in Winter 2026.

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