Thief The Dark Project is a game from 1998 created by Eidos it is the first game to utilize stealth based first person shooter and also used light and sound game play mechanics.  For the time that this game came out this was an amazing feature that inspired a massive amount of games, the game is set in a medieval steam punk city. 

In the game you play a thief by the name of Garret who is well trained by a secret society that takes missions to steal valuables.  There were several factors of detection in the game that really force you to really calculate your visibility and also sound making it a very difficult game at first. 

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 In 2000 Thief II: The Metal age was released this game is considered by most the best game in the franchise.  Even in the fan community after a new thief game this game still gets much recognition.  It is rare to see a sequel do some much better than the original game but this is one situation where you will see that. 

A year after Thief 1 was released fan missions started to get released but didn’t become popular until Thief 2.  The Thief fan forums now have over 700 fan missions they are still coming out with fan missions that are on a monthly basis.  There are fan missions that have been considered to be better than the original games.

As a way to increase participation they have contests to see who could develop a better mission with certain parameters.  People have designed missions that range from scary and dingy to funny and psychedelic. 

Unfortunately the fan base hasn’t been able to increase the graphics and textures from the game to make the game look more up to date but there is only so far that they can take the game.  With the release of Thief 3 in 2004 Eidos decided not to release the source code to keep the fan base current.  There is a new mod coming out called The Dark Mod which is going to release a standalone story arch and a different character. 

Thief 4 was announced earlier this year with the Eidos team releasing no information about the game just that they are only working on it.  They said that they plan on making this an ambitious project but didn’t offer any details as to what will make it ambitious it is after all hard to say anything about a game that is only in pre-production.  So what will make the game different this time around?  First it is important to note that steam punk is beginning to get popular again. 

In the art community there are steam punk images showing more and more so Eidos has an opportunity to capitalize on this resurgence.  Eidos also already has a fan base which is a gift and a curse, if I were personally working for Eidos I would spend most of my time on this community figuring out what people enjoy about this game serious and what they hate about it. 

This way you can appeal to your fans that already exist, if you don’t listen to them they will boycott your material and this has happened many times before for a myriad of franchises.  We will see how well Eidos will execute the production of this game but this recent return will bring a large fan base together with a current gaming market.  Lets just hope they do it right this time.

If you wish to see some new content for the thief franchise by playing some fan-made missions you can find their forums. The dark mod also has a stand alone ebsite.  Go there if you ever enjoyed this game and wish to enjoy it again with a twist.