Thief™ Gold

you play as thief and you have to steal all the thief gold, expert mode is the best because it really makes u feel like thief gold 8/10

No widescreen support.
Graphics look like ass as if someone had a paint enema and sharted all over the place.
Voice acting sounds like an old Xbox 360 COD lobby.
Keyboard turns the camera. Some black magic, voodoo shit.
Requires way too much TLC.

TL;DR

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Somehow this old game is still the best stealth game out there. great audio gameplay and story!

get tfix community patch and start playing

One of the most fun games I've ever played both the vibes and gameplay is great. 100% recommend to anyone into stealth games.

If you're a fan of stealth games, this is the grandfather of the genre, and you owe it to yourself to give this a playthrough. While it is a bit dated, and you do have to do some tweaking with the files to get the cutscenes to work, the gameplay really holds up even today.

If you can get over the graphics, you'll be treated to a creative gem that inspired a genre. I personally love the crunchy look but I get it if you don't. There are numerous guides on improving the textures.

When it comes to the gameplay one of my highlights were the arrow types. Water arrows to snuff out torches, moss arrows to cover up your footsteps, rope arrows to ascend above. The game is suprisingly intuitive and there were only a handful of moments I had to look something up.

I personally recommend playing this on Expert as it gives you the full experience. It forces you to be frugal with your resources and clever with your non-lethal takedowns. That being said, if you want to quickly get through it or get frustrated with the stealth, you'll still have a great time on Easy. All in all, it's a great game, it's cheap, and it's worth at least watching a playthrough.

+

First played this in 2023. Atmosphere, Story, Voice Acting, Movement, Level Objectives and overall feel are insane. Mind-blowing to think this was released so long ago, ahead of its time and some aspects still outshines games released today. A must experience masterpiece.

i love solving puzzles as intended and not gentle clipping through walls

I have had Thief sitting in my games library for over a decade, never felt like playing it and looked at screenshots and what not and thought it quite rough on the eyes. Presently, I watch a video on Youtube telling me how i can improve general resolution and a few other things with a quick mod and were off to the races. And ive got to say that for a game that came out in 98' this game is really impressive. Big sprawling maps, great dialogue, many useful tools, the satisfaction that comes with pinching alot of loot that in term feeds your economy for the next mission. I am about 9 missions in now and its been a game that if i have had a spare bit of time in the last couple of days, i have been choosing to play this. It very much reminds me of System Shock 2 (also made by looking glass) and thats not just because it runs on the same engine but just the details in these games and that general open ended nature to mission approaches. The game is at its best when your dodging the guards (in my case mainly bopping them over the head with the blackjack) or even pickpocketing them from just out of their sight in the darkness, Thief is really good at communicating how it all works and can in some ways put alot of modern stealth games to shame.

Certainly a game I am glad i finally gave a go to play and with a few minor tweaks runs great on a modern OS.

I liked Garrett's hot voice, that's about it...

Iconic stealth game!

What a great game! I really love the stealth genre. This game has so good gameplay and interesting story. I liked the cinematics between the missions. Only thing that i didnt like was that i lost a lot. Many of the maps have bland designs making it difficult to differentiate between places i have been to. Overall though, i would give it an 8/10. Favourite mission must be Return to the cathedral, and worst is thieves guild.

final boss is the f@cking level design

I love taffing around

The father of stealth games!
For it's age it's still really impressive, the levels are huge and the sounds are amazing. Way ahead of it's time.
It can also be a bit silly at times, so you just need to laugh it out.

Note - Installing TFix is recommended!

I can't believe Gabe Newell was DEVESTATED by this game's win of "Game of the Life Time" Award by NerdzGamerz Website.
We love you Gabe, where ever you are <3 <3 <3.

Really good game. I would think it's fair to call this series the older brother to the Dishonored series. Industrial revolution aesthetics meets fantasy horror, there's a huge variety of levels to explore and enemies to encounter. The few levels you do revisit are used well. The campaign was at that perfect sweet spot in length.

Waaay ahead of its time.

This isn't a D&D licensed game, but I'm going to use a D&D analogy to explain what you're getting into.

In D&D...

* level 1 characters could impact things locally.. like cleaning out a goblin cave
* level 10 characters were establishing guilds, and impacting whole towns & countrysides
* level 20 characters were impacting provinces & continents
* level 30 characters were impacting the world and the planes of existence beyond

In Thief Gold, you play Garret, who's basically a level 20 to 30 Thief in D&D terms that just wants to be left alone to do easy level 1 to 10 thief jobs. You know, loot a fat noble person's castle, then kick back with the spoils. A sort of "he's paid his dues, and reached the top of his game, and now wants to take it easy being a bad-a** amongst sheep" type thing.

However, the DM decided his high-level character needed to get involved in world-ending drama. The veteran thief is forced to become a reluctant hero. But, he's never above a bit of petty larceny along the way.

If you can look past the aged graphics, and just focus on the game play, you'll find a real gem here. After you're done with the main campaign, there's a ton of Fan Missions you can d/l and play. Some are one-off missions. Others are multi-missions campaigns.

Latest multi-mission campaign I played was The Black Parade, which is a 10 mission fan-made stand-alone campaign that fills some of the story gap between the events of Thief Gold and Thief 2. It's an absolutely fantastic love letter to the Thief series, and demonstrates the amazing skill of the Thief modding community.

And, of course, once you're done with Thief Gold, you should get Thief 2: The Metal Age. It's same engine, graphics are a tad better. Has even more Fan Missions, including the T2X one that expands on things after Thief 2.

If you're feeling daring, you can then get Thief 3, which was made using Unreal engine. So, it has better graphics. Unfortuantely, the dev studio had to crank it out pronto or risk going under. So, while they initially meant for it to be a PC game that also ported to Xbox 360 that would allow it to have large levels and such, they dev studio had to dumb it down for original Xbox. This created a very small, cramped level design. Thief 3 has an interesting story, but feels like a stumbling point.

And, if you're REALLY feeling adventurous after that, you can try to Thief reboot, which has an edge-lord re-imagining of Garret that didn't quite catch-on with the Dishonored fans, and sort of ticked off the established Thief fans (esp, since they replaced Stephen Russell, the original beloved voice actor for Garret).

If after Thief 2 you want to stick with old-school style Thief, then check out The Dark Mod. It's a stand-alone fan project based on the Doom 3 engine. It's a free download/install, and there's a ton of fan missions for it. Plus, it's in constant development and polishing / optimization.

Still a great game, but now it is even better because of a full game mod called Black Parade.
Think of it like the game between Thief 1 and Thief 2. A full release with cut scenes and all, but also built with higher requirements than T1 and T2 combined. A easy task for modern computers, but it also makes the levels so complex and amazing you will find yourself enjoying this mod more than T1 and maybe T2 storyline.

If you liked any of the Thief games. Get Thief Gold and Black Parade full game mod.
While older gamers will get by on nostalgia in context of the graphics. Younger ones will be drawn in by the atmosphere and gameplay they have only heard myths about. The levels are so complex and that maps are sparse that exploration is like no other game out there, period!

What you need:
1. Thief Gold, the game.
2. Offical/Unoffical fan patch that fixes critical issues, but also give modern resolutions etc.
3. Enable the mod selector that comes witht he game (basically remove a ; in a text file)
4. Download for free Black Parade and install it in a mod folder as a zip file.
5. Configure everything as you want (important: configure sound via going through all the options to get the EAX enabled. Otherwise sound travel, hallway, distance etc, wont work and that is a key aspect of why the thief games are good).
6. Play the game via starting the mod selector and play Black Parade or vanilla with a single click.

Game won't run. Steam says it's running but I can't even find the app in Task Manager,
Installed the TFix patch and it didn't help. I guess it "ran" in the background for hours so now I can't return the game.
Too bad because Thief was one of my favorite games back in the day.
Steam shouldn't sell games like these that obviously won't run on newer PCs. Look it up, everyone is having problems with this game.

A legend.

very fun. I sneak, I steal, I eat your meal.

Fun game when you can manage to navigate it--no minimaps or objective markers here. Honestly, the retro roughness can be interesting to experience--having to actually use your brain to accomplish your goals is a nice change of pace, even if a few of the "gold" maps are excessively labyrinthine. It's also just cool to play the first proper 3D stealth game.

Setting aside the retro pedigree of Thief, the game genuinely has great audio design and really cool worldbuilding. Sardonic, world-weary, "just getting next month's rent" Garret is also a surprisingly good character considering the standards of video game writing at the time. Actually, make that video game writing period.

Timeless Masterpiece.

best stealth game of the 2000's other than splinter cell: chaos theory

super duper good

The first Thief type game. A fun and technically impressive game, featuring game mechanics that are not nearly as well done in other stealth games. The way sound and light works in this game is much better than any other game I know.

A classic fun game to play, full of darkness, mystery, and a great plot!

I got this game because I liked the footstep sound effects.

I racked up 9.1 hours on this game because stealth games are the most satisfying genre to finally "get" for me.
good game, can't wait to play again!

There are a few things that impressed me with this game, mainly the stealth component. No game has achieved this level of stealth gaming until then. The entire dark atmosphere of the game really fits well with the whole story and gameplay and even graphics (which looked good back then) . The music and sound also match very well with the whole formula and the cutscenes are brilliant.

It's probably not the game of the year, but it is somewhere around there and I can see how this game has inspired future gaming in many aspects aside the stealth factor.

I am amazed there is no remaster developed yet.

pretty good, some annoying levels though and they are too long.

I think i missed this one in 98, I was playing half life and still playing number munchers and 5 1/4 floppy games. Playing it now, with the terrible keybindings and really wonky stuff going on I must be missing something. The first thief I played was on OG xbox and while I appreciate the nostalgia, next to other games released at the time it isn't standing up to the hype for me. I'm ready to admit I'm wrong if someone wants to share a modern keybinding cfg with me or tell me I'm retarded, but this is just hard to get into.

The year 1998 is the cornerstone of stealth games with Metal gear solid, Tenchu and Thief that basically invented the prototype of stealth mechanics Which all sneaky games follow till this day.
With all that being said Thief is a timeless masterpiece that Aged like fine wine, you will be surprised by the gameplay if you never played it before and I would recommend that you at least experience its greatness for once in your life. A solid 10/10 must play experience.
BTW please use TFix before you play the game and use FPS controls for the smoothest experience!

Overall score: 7/10

=> If you're here, then the game has at least piqued your interest, so you'll probably be willing to look past certain flaws that come with age. I guarantee you'll have a blast if you accept the game as it is and take your time with it!

=> PROS:
- GRAPHICS - love 'em. It's that crisp, charming early 3D modeling that I am a sucker for. But this is an acquired taste, so be warned!

- SETTING - a truly unique mix of medieval and steampunk that grabs your attention right away. Never seen these two settings meshed together, and Thief Gold does it beautifully

- WORLD BUILDING/EXPOSITION - suitable to all players. If you don't care about the lore, that's cool. You'll still get the basics of what's going on. If you ARE interested, the lore is great and is there for you to discover

- ARSENAL - Garrett gets a wide array of tools/weapons to play with. You can approach levels in many different ways

- LEVEL DESIGN - the levels that are unique are well designed and make you want to explore them

- DIFFICULTY SCALING - done perfectly. Instead of arbitrarily strengthening your foes as the difficulty increases, the game simply adds more objectives for you to complete. Hell, I'd recommend Hard for your first playthrough.

- VOICE ACTING - 10/10, superb/charming for all characters, even the guards. Especially Garrett

=> CONS:
- (For some) GRAPHICS - charm aside, they are pretty dated and can be repetitive at times. My advice: go in with adjusted expectations to avoid being disappointed

- STEALTH/AI - by far the worst con. Understanding the stealth/detection 'rules' can be infuriating. It takes a while to understand how the AI works and what constitutes being invisible/visible to the enemy. Even after the first missions, don't be surprised if it doesn't work like you thought it should. I actually rage uninstalled the game during the first mission because of this and gave the game another try later (and loved it).

- SETTING UP - the game is old, so you gotta install a couple extra things to get it working as it should. Watch MandaloreGaming's video for more info

- BACKTRACKING - a couple maps are recycled for some missions and can get boring once you encounter them the second time

- COMBAT - if you get into combat, which should be rare, good luck lol. The parrying mechanic is janky and infuriating. Honestly not worth mastering; you're a thief, after all

- GENERAL JANKINESS - sometimes you'll get stuck on terrain for no good reason. You also won't be able to climb things that would otherwise seem climeable

Great immersive game, easily one of my favorites now. Somewhat steep learning curve and TFix mod needed for widescreen support, among other things. I used TFix with no game-play or graphics enhancing mods (except for widescreen). My first play-through was ~40 hours. I loved that you can get parts of the story by paying attention to what NPCs are saying and by reading the notes left around.
The game has had a big modding community so there are plenty of fan missions if you're itching for more. I, so far, haven't played any.
Overall, just a fantastic game.

Still a great game, definitely get the Tfix patch, and get the FM (fan made) installer, play some fan made missions like "Thief 2X" (requires thief 2) and "the Black Parade".

Thief Gold is an absolute masterpiece that stands the test of time, and playing it on Expert difficulty was one of the most rewarding gaming experiences I’ve had in years. Despite its 1998 release and outdated graphics, this game does what many modern titles fail to achieve: it offers true challenge and immersion without relying on gimmicks or hand-holding mechanics.

Unlike modern games that often crank up enemy health or perception to make things artificially harder, "Thief" introduces difficulty by increasing the complexity and number of objectives. You’ll be required to think, plan, and execute your heists with precision, and every success feels earned. The level design is simply genius, offering a sense of freedom while maintaining tension, and it’s amazing how well the mechanics hold up even today.

The innovation packed into this game is mind-blowing, especially considering the limitations of its time. "Thief" did things in 1998 that many modern games fail to even touch, aside from ticking off 'politically-correct' checkboxes.

One of the best stealth games ever!

Still an amazing game to play.

Mechanics have aged gracefully and don't feel too archaic in general design, a few stinky missions in Gold but overall still worth playing before checking out Thief 2.

I'd recommend "Tfix" found on moddb to ensure maximum compatibility & stability on modern set-ups.

If you enjoy this and can't get the sequel for any reason, "The Dark Mod" is also a great follow up experience.

Thief is the greatest game ever made...

...Let's talk about The Black Parade. It's a absolute shining example of what can be done with fan modding.

The first mission is fantastic, tho just a shadow of Skacky (the project lead of TBP)'s former FMs "Burrick in a Room" and "Endless Rain." Which is apt, because those FMs are the reason I knew about this project at all, swiftly becoming a fan of Skacky after experiencing those maps. They are a pinnacle of city design and so is this mission. The mic drop of putting a horse in there- it was like a broadcast "yes we know what we are doing and are going to blow you away."

2nd mission. Okay, they just made a new version of The Sword. It's not as good as The Sword mainly because it's a copy, but also because it's way longer. A recurring method in TBP is to sort of "relitigate" on some of the classic Thief levels. It mostly works, but doesn't improve here with The Sword rehash. Like the horse, it feels sort of a statement of intention, "we are going to try to better the greatest Thief mission ever...on level two." It's a very noble effort and fun mission. But what made The Sword great is its concise design. Also this was a strike on the "making me consult a walkthru" list, and if the correct path was buried in the book pages and you should look there, devs should not have done it quite like that. Even super-fans skip most the written lore I think..(in total, I think I hit a walkthru 4 times or so. I very much dislike doing that, but it's likely testament that this campaign's got some deep secrets!)

Mission 3, Bonehoard (my fave original mission) relitigated. Great, if maybe a tad too long and maze-like. And, while I wouldn't have minded no map, I really get frustrated by inaccurate maps, which this seemed to be.

There were a few moments I got frustrated. But this and the next mission 4 were the first ones where "is this too long/too much?" entered my head. I looked online and people agreed. These are insanely huge levels. Too long? Perhaps, but my overall journey, with this and later missions, was "I persisted. And came out liking it all the more because of it." This is not an easy campaign. You cannot rush it. You have to curb your impatience and really sit with it or you won't get thru it (or be rewarded by it). Even when the search for those last bits of gold almost has you rage-quitting.

Mission 5, The Brand (maybe the only one I remember the title), was a little wonky trying to navigate just entering it. I'm still uncertain if I did it the right way. Another monster level so soon? But works cuz it's a proper haunted house. It gave me The Cradle vibes.

The keeper mission 6 was likely my favorite, something so satisfying about starting in town and then finding this pristine perfect place way underground and then robbing it blind.

It's hard to understate how many new, clever things are in this campaign. The alarm system in the Hammerite mission before, and Mission 7, the heist to reclaim the gem: just ingenious. The latter level gives you 5 minutes to shut down the alarms and replace the gem with a replica. Got that done no problem, plenty of time, went to the basement to last-minute drop the dead Hammerite in the torture chamber, almost back home, and "Mission Failed." What?! Then it dawned on me: I didn't close the glass lid that the replica gem was in! I didn't think it would matter because Video Games...But it did! This is a true immersive game, of course the NPCs will notice if the glass lid is out of place! And compounding the problem my quicksave was less than a minute from the time expiring, else I gotta restart the whole mission. So I race back and shut the glass lid at the very last possible second. And there you have one of my top 5 coolest things that have happened to me in an im-sim! The hubris of this wannabe thief thinking the game was not smart enough to notice that lid was up!

Mission 8 I nearly skipped. I was not up for another monster mission. I've become critical of custom monsters in most mods (including OG Doom, Minecraft, etc), partly because I don't trust that they will work correctly, but also because I don't want to learn new things and am comfortable with the monsters I know (ie: know how to kill) haha. But the spiders in this level had horrible hitboxes. I stuck with it tho, and this is The Lost City (a weaker original mission) completely rethought, polished, and made entirely awesome.

Likewise, Mission 9 is Mage Towers (another subpar OG mission) rethought and totally made fantastic. The conceit where you had to sneak thru, seeing all the goodies on the way but unable to take them, then starting a looting extravaganza in almost backward order. Very cathartic.

Mission 10 was an ordeal. I was done with monsters, especially these (admittedly very cool, those shoggoths! the snakes like Tremors!) custom ones. I started to just watch the ending on youtube and learned "omg I was nearly at the end" but w/o a key I needed found at the start at a place I had no idea I had to go to (camped on by enemies is a like a "don't go here" signpost in Thief). I woke up the next day telling myself, "but Thief is like the one game you are good at!" Plus, in skimming that YT vid, I saw that they had 3 copies of that needed key by level's end; I'll just find a new one at the top of the level(...?) I returned, sequence broke a little by jumping to a dark ledge...at least it felt that way. I'm certain that me "breaking" the level was intended design, and beat the mission. In the end going out of my way to solo swordfight a few of these tough new monsters just to tell myself I'm still up to snuff! Finally, calling the last mission an ode to the absolute slogs of the final missions in TG & T2.

One of the greatest experiences I've ever had in games. I'll gladly let it be some alternate shadow version of Thief 3 or something. Wherever it fits (I thought the whole campaign we were somewhere amidst/between the original games, but turns out it's a full prequel!) it deserves an equal spot in the canon.

Special shout to the cutscenes too. They are so authentic that I was blown away. Great renderings! I'm an artist and I would never in a million years had the patience to be that rigorously faithful.

Top notch all around! And, like I said, one of those games where the hardships of getting thru it ended up making it better instead of worse. Thanks to Skacky and the team if you read this!

Fun, but very difficult. I can't beat the first level.

One of the best stealth games ever made, it has flaws due to the devs not knowing what type of game they wanted to make , though it does mean that the missions have variety, the atmoshpere, music, voice acting, and gameplay are all top tier.

Still the undisputed GOAT of stealth games, despite it being 25 years old. Play with TFix.

This is an amazing game, but please for the love of god do not buy this version of the game, get the one on GOG instead, the state that this here Steam version is in is actually embarassing: Gamma settings dont work, the only two selectable resolutions are the two smallest ones (not really a problem for me but still, why?) and i changed one setting and the so called fix that the game came with broke. The worst issue is definitely the cutscenes not loading, absolute disgrace honestly, while there is some charm to interpreting the story differently due to the lack of context, the fact thats an issue at all is nothing short of baffling.

All in all, there is no excuse for this port being in this state, despite those issues the gameplay doesnt seem to have any problems, but still, dont get this version, get the GOG one instead.

I walk in the sewer, I open the drain and attack my opponent from behind like a viper. Classic.

long as that there thief aint riflin' through m' tackle box, he's a-ok in my book

I simply cannot recommend this game enough. It is one of the greatest experiences I've ever had in gaming. I scarcely knew of this franchise until recently and I'm blown away that I haven't heard more about it. It's stealth is unmatched by any save it's own sequels (thief 4 doesn't count). The lighting, sound, movement, and level design, and equipment all work together for an absolutely peerless stealth game experience. You feel so vulnerable and so unbelievably badass simultaneously. It's mind boggling. Garret's voice actor, Stephen Russel, is phenomenal. The world is really damn cool and I buy into 100%. Looking Glass Studios is practically worshipped by game enthusiasts and I can see why. There is nothing on the market today that holds up to this. Play this game.

I played a demo for this on a copy of Tomb Raider way back when, and I knew immediately I had to have it. These games have great atmosphere, are occasionally frightening, and always intriguing. Love this series, and I'd love to see it return more gracefully than the infuriatingly lame 2014 game.