Game Stooge

LOOK BACK: Thief: The Dark Project (PC)

• Scribbled on October 10th, 2008 by Jonah Falcon
• Filed in Features, PC, Retro, Shooter

When people talk about innovative games, they talk about Looking Glass Studios. When people talk about scary games, they talk about Looking Glass Studios. Why? Looking Glass produced two of the scariest video games ever made on the PC: System Shock 2 and Thief: The Dark Project. We’ll talk about the latter.

Thief: The Dark Project was and is one of the most influential games ever made – it began the first person skulker, or first person sneaker. Every game that has a light meter and stealth aspect owes its existance to Thief. While it wasn’t exactly the first, it perfected it. Its sequels never quite had the same feel of being a babe in the woods, of being a guy with a knife when everyone else had a gun. While the protagonist Garrett was armed with a sword, having to use it represented failure. It meant you blew it. Your job was not to kill – it was to be in and out like the wind. One of the few failings of the game was the lack of a reaction to your skill; if I completed a mission without even knocking a single guard out, yet robbed the place blind, I wanted to see a notice that somehow a bunch of valuables were stolen yet no one could account for an intruder. It was if the loot just vanished.

But more than that, Thief was scary as hell. Even the opening cutscene was intended to make you feel like you weren’t just stalking in the shadows – the shadows were stalking you.

On a 17″ monitor in a dark room, you were already feeling dread and unease. It wasn’t enough that humans were a threat, and that a group of guards screaming about an intruder and bearing down on you was almost certain death – you had to deal with the further unknown. Every chapter was preceded by a warning from some ancient text – and the tone was perfectly chilling. Again, the later two sequels never matched the intensity of the horror, even now – especially the singsong, macabre pagan writings.

The previous missions were unnerving enough, but Viktoria’s mission for you to steal the sword started the real psychological horror. It was bad enough that earlier you were hiding from danger in normal houses, now you were in a place where M.C. Escher fused with Anton La Vey. There was occult menace, and even though you knew that something was deeply wrong, you didn’t know how wrong.

After successfully completing the mission, you were treated to one of the more genuinely creepy scenes – though it definitely wouldn’t be the last, nor the most intense – and the use of sound and the grunge music married perfectly. Garrett was sliding deeper and deeper into quicksand and didn’t know it – or care. You knew something bad was going to happen, but you didn’t know when.

Now, a moment – there is undead in the game, but incredibly difficult to kill. They had to be eliminated with holy water arrows or fire. Now, fire arrows were loud, and costly, and holy water arrows were difficult in that you had to go to a holy water font, bless a water arrow, then use it before the holiness wore off. Plus, you also had to conserve your limited supply, and water arrows were mostly used to douse torches. So, the undead was better left avoided. Spectres were even more troublesome. Keep in mind, these creatures could wipe out Garrett easily, so you’re dodging unholy spirits – which are truly frightening in game – and what not, and you finally get the Eye after completing a few levels, having to go from Hammerite Temple to Lost City, and so forth.

What happened next, every Thief player knows by heart. All of the fear, dread, and danger finally reached a crescendo in the following infamous scene. Squeamish readers may want to skip viewing it.

All you need to get a reaction to anyone who’d played Thief is to say, “Bow to the Woodsie Lord, and offer up your flesheye so his eye of stone may see, manfool!” It wasn’t the graphicness of the violence, it was the mood, and everything that had preceded the scene. You had been dodging danger left and right, and now, finally, you were in a place that you could not escape. As artful a thief you were, you were finally caught, brutally.

At this point, the game’s terror did not increase, but your fear and desperation online increased when you were quite forcefully shown what you were up against.

The beings that were the minions of the Woodsie Lord were perfectly inhuman. While you eventually could understand their emotion from their clicking, lipsmacking, and whatever noise they uttered, they were otherworldly yet realistic. They were far more scary that the apes that were in Thief 2: The Metal Age because they were so alien.

Eventually, you learned that the Keepers had used you, just as the Woodsie Lord did, and suddenly, your cockiness returned, as Garrett regained his composure, musing, “I never robbed a god before – it will be a challenge.” Despite all the horror and dread, you finally felt like you could handle anything, especially after what you’d already been through. Garrett was ready to kick ass and take numbers; well, hide and smirk, anyway. The final level was almost embarrassingly easy, compared to earlier levels, and the final boss battle was a snap, since the game laid out exactly what you had to do.

The last cutscene expressed a different emotion: one of poignancy, and blessed relief.

It wasn’t just that you were finally safe – for now – or that the white snow constrasted with the darkness of the game. The reverence the game felt over your saving the world was palpable. After everything you’d been through – relaxation, relief, satisfaction, and defiance – hit all the right notes. Garrett was not unscathed; the whirring of his new mechanical eye stressed that.

A first person shooter is defined mostly by its story and innovation – and Thief: The Dark Project is one of the unsung greats. The gameplay mechanics were ingenious, the story chilling, the gameplay tense and heartpounding, and the voice acting superb; Master Chief has a lot to owe Stephen Russell’s Garrett’s vocal performance. If you haven’t tried it yet, you should. It’s a game that has never been repeated, not even in its two sequels.