It's an okay stealth game that's worth playing once. But the issues go a lot deeper than just smaller levels and no rope arrows.

The worst design decision in this game was not committing to either first person or third person. The game tries to have both and it results in wonky sluggish movement because Garrett now has a physical body. The infamous floating Garrett bug was extremely irritating.

Most of the levels are fine but unfortunately nothing compares to the first two games. Even the famed Cradle wasn't quite as shocking as I expected it to be. It certainly had a potent vibe, but I expected to be more scared by what is apparently one of the scariest levels of all time. But maybe it really was back in 2004. I found some of the levels in Thief 1 scarier personally. In my opinion the seaside manor is the best level in this game.

Exploring the city between missions was a cool idea but this game had too many limitations to flesh it out properly. It became a tedious trek after the first time.

The story wasn't as good as the first two games and I already struggle to remember some of it, while I can recall the first two games' stories perfectly despite playing Deadly Shadows more recently than them. I was happy to get a definitive conclusion to Garrett's story though.

It's a far cry from 1 and 2, but still a pretty good game. The movement is a bit janky, the levels are way smaller and a lot less varied and feel a lot less realistic, and the story and tone have taken a pretty big step back too - the longer the game goes on, the harder it is to be immersed. But the atmosphere is still good, the moment to moment gameplay is still solid, and it still feels like a Thief game. The second to last mission is a standout, but it isn't the greatest level of all time or anything.

Consider the Sneaky Upgrade mod absolutely mandatory for playing on PC. Also I recommend playing on Normal for your first time through.

Not as good as T2, but still a solid Thief game in it's own right and a decent sendoff for the series.

Biggest issues id say are not only the obvious downgrades from T2 (such as larger maps being split between load zones) due to console limitations (which can be removed entirely with mods nowadays) and also just how items and shopkeeps are balanced. You can stock up some of the most useful items in the game (ie. gas arrows) pretty easily since they're so cheap and especially on harder skills, you WILL have the money since missions require you in most instances to get 80% loot or more. That and the open world bits feel woefully underutilized. They're such a cool idea in concept but there's maybe only 1 or 2 things total to do in them and they barely change with time over the course of the plot. Other then that, definetely worth the play I'd say. Just don't go in expecting T2 but totally improved.

Its alright overall, but is held back by its lack of anything particularly great.

In terms of gameplay, Thief: Deadly Shadows is a simplified version of the stealth system of the previous two games. While most of the fundamentals are still in place, many of the smaller aspects have either been removed or made less important. The type of flooring has much less impact on the sound of your footsteps, the sound is no longer as clear making its directionality much less relevant for gameplay, multiple items have been removed, and the addition of 3rd person view lets Garrett get away with peeking around corners or other areas without the risk that normally came with it.

To some extent, it does work. The previous two games had plenty of jank to them and some simplification could be valuable if it resulted in a more polished experience. But ultimately, the quality of the work on display just wasn't enough to compensate for the lost features. With the changes to sound and movement, much of the tension of sneaking is gone meaning that tension has to be replaced by something else. But levels, rather than compensating with a more interesting or challenging design, were instead simplified as well with smaller and more straightforward locations, fewer alternative routes, and a lack of enemy variety (excluding reskins).

Put it all together and Deadly Shadows was a far less tense and much more boring experience than either of the previous two games. While it was never horrible, it was never especially good either. Everything was consistently ok. While its worst aspects are better than the worst parts of the previous games, its best aspects fall well below their peak.

Ultimately, its a short enough game that I didn't outright dislike my time playing. But there's not a particularly compelling reason for me to ever recommend someone play it either. For fans of the first two games, this just isn't going to be satisfying. For newcomers to the series, Deadly Shadows fails to show what the core system is capable of accomplishing and doesn't really teach you any skills that would come in handy when playing through the rest of the series.

If you're already interested in playing, then its at least worth a quick foray. The game only took me around 17 hours total so its hardly a huge time investment. But if you're on the fence or have other stuff you would rather spend your time doing, then this game probably isn't worth it.

I was super close to giving this 4 stars, but that final mission was such a letdown that I couldn't help but subtract half a star for that ... The overall quality of the missions is pretty high, though. Shalebridge Cradle being the obvious one, but I also loved the seaside mansion and the museum heist.

Thief: Deadly Shadows is still a very good stealth title with great atmosphere and varied leveldesign. I think the previous games had even more variation and creativity, but DS is still strong in that regard.

What bothered me the most about it was the gameplay. The way your steps aren't really a big factor anymore really dragged the game down. Being able to just crouchwalk over metal and other loud surfaces felt unnecessarily dumbed down. I never used moss arrows as a result of that. The blackjack also feels ... off. Since you can't use it from crouching anymore, you have to line up awkwardly to an enemy and too often I fucked up the most basic takedown and had to reload. I ended up saving my game before taking down every guard and I wish that wasn't the case. Sitting enemies are also immune to the blackjack for some reason.

The hubworld is ... pointless. Well, almost. There is some merit in getting a feeling for the world and I kind of liked going shopping and selling my loot manually. But there's also so much wasted potential. Like, there is this landlord you can steal his debt money from ... It never gets addressed later on. I also kept stealing money from the same vendor, yet he never changed the location of his money and also never ran out of business. I think these kinds of changes would've gone a long way to make the place more alive. Because what's the point of repeatedly visiting the same location if it never changes? The constant loading times between areas didn't help either.

I still enjoyed my time with this game a lot, though. It's still Thief, the graphics look great, the leveldesign is really good and I just love hunting for loot and avoiding guards. It just could've used some additional polishing and work.

Played up until right before the last proper level. This game was a frustrating mess. The sound mechanics were oversimplified, the controls felt awful, the level design took a massive dip in quality and the visual design leaves a lot to be desired. There are some legitimately good parts, and if you do end up playing this game play with a controller because it feels much better, but the previous games do basically everything this game does but 10x better, except for atmosphere, but that's literally it.

This game has four stages, like the four seasons of the year:

1. This is an inferior sequel
2. Shalebridge Cradle
3. Recovering from Shalebridge Cradle
4. This is an inferior sequel

It's...good...

Well, the positives are pretty numerous. Out of the whole trilogy this one is by far the most approachable for a newcomer due to it's more simplified level design and loot hub areas which allow for hoarding resources. I think the city areas were a good idea and give a little bit of variety to the expected gameplay structure.

Quite a few of the levels are very solid and can hold up compared to the best of Thief 1/2. It helps that since Deadly Shadows had a relatively normal development cycle it doesn't suffer from the poor decisions of many of Thief 2's worst missions. If you play this you are in for a relatively consistent experience.

The core gameplay is about as solid as the first two without any significant regressions aside from the loss of rope/vine arrows, but the replacements and choices in level design prevent a sense of the gameplay loop being 'dumbed down' thankfully. Quite a few changes I actually wish were present in the first two games in fact, such as an actual inventory screen, a visible menu for selecting gear, loot glint to make important items clearer, and being able to see Garrett's actual feet and body when traversing. In a good way this reminds me of the tactility of Jurassic Park Trespasser's movement, where you actually feel the weight of how Garrett's actions would realistically be.

Additionally, the story is as excellent as the prior two games and does quite a lot to expand the setting while at the same time wrapping up the trilogy in a fairly nice bow. Garrett remains the best written protagonist in all of video games.

Now for the various...well, let's say quibbles since nitpicks slants too negative in connotation. First, while the amount of cutscenes are fine quite a few were done with in-game graphics which look significantly worse then the stylized, abstract cutscenes that are much more standard for the series. Similarly, the graphics are a step up from the first two games on a fidelity level but lack a certain bit of character present in those ones, possibly due to the lighting slanting more purple then straight black for accessibility reasons. I don't think the game looks bad, but for me the first two games look pretty timeless from an art direction standpoint so it's hard to really top that.

The game can also be quite buggy unpatched with some jank with controls and odd UI choices, although the extent this affects the experience is heavily exaggerated. I've beaten this game both patched and unpatched and can safely say both are perfectly fine.

Overall this is a solid game that I would recommend to people, it's just for me it is lacking in a fairly undefinable sense of specificity the first two games had, which isn't the fairest thing to hold against it but it is how I genuinely feel. If you haven't played a Thief game and feel a bit intimidated by the first two, then start here.

This is definitely the weakest of the original three thief games - by a pretty wide mile IMO. I went into this expecting an Invisible War situation, but it’s thankfully not that bad - not even close actually. This is a pretty decent experience with a lot of the DNA of the first two Thief games but also with a lot of significant problems that weren’t present in those titles.

The biggest and most immediately apparent issue is Garrett’s movement. Deadly Shadows ditched the engine used for the first two Thief games and movement in this new engine is really janky and at times just bad. Mandalore’s review of this game is illuminating in this regard but to quickly summarize - most of these issues come from the poorly implemented 3rd person perspective and the way the position and physicality of Garrett’s body interacts with objects in the environment. Garrett’s movement feels sluggish, he regularly gets caught on the environment, he frequently glitches out and starts floating around the level, and trying to jump on and vault over objects is an absolute nightmare. Whenever you try to climb through an open window there’s a 90% chance you’ll just jump in place, alerting every nearby guard in the process. Using the blackjack to stealthily knock out guards is similarly janky. Unlike in the previous games where the blackjack can knock out a guard from any angle as long as you’re undetected, Deadly Shadows requires you be at a very precise angle behind an enemy for the knock-out to work. If you get the wrong angle (which is very easy to do even when you’re directly behind a guard) you’ll just give them a weak little bop on the noggin causing them to turn around and immediately stab you in the chest. All of this jank pretty much necessitates frequent quick saving unless you’re willing to let the game’s bad movement mechanics blow a stealth run for absolutely no reason. This required save-scumming likely won’t bother people who would be doing that anyway i.e truly elevated players that realize save scumming is one of the proudest PC gaming traditions and a very cool thing to be mildly addicted to, but it can be bummer for anyone who quick saves infrequently because they enjoy being forced to adapt to mistakes they might make. I honestly thought about ditching the game during the tutorial mission due to how bad movement felt. It’s incredibly jarring if you’re playing it right after finishing the previous two Thief titles like I was. I got used to it after about an hour however, and the game can still be fun in spite of it. All in all movement is serviceable but at times very frustrating and generally just a huge step down from the near perfect movement mechanics of the original two games.

Level design and gameplay follow in the footsteps of the original two games with a large focus on light and sound, slow meticulous movement, and the creative use of Garrett’s tools. DS is, however, a lot more linear than the first two games, which takes away a lot of the immersive sim elements present in those titles. The atmosphere in DS is very strong though. Ambient music plays a much larger role in this game, frequently veering into full on horror territory, and it creates an emotional experience that can be very different from that of the first two games. In levels that really lean into the horror tone there can be a tremendous amount of tension, which does work well in short bursts. “Robbing the Cradle” is one of these levels and has risen to somewhat legendary status due to how scary it is. It’s a master class in atmosphere and level design and definitely one of the highlights of the game even if it doesn’t engage with DS’s stealth mechanics as effectively as other levels do.

The biggest intentional difference between Deadly Shadows and its predecessors is the presence of a hub world. In between missions you’ll be given the opportunity to explore various districts of The City. In The City you can sell your loot to a fence (something you have to do manually now, which I found to be a fun and immersion increasing gameplay feature as opposed to a pointless annoyance), you can take on side quests, look for loot, and also search for maps that you can use to get your bearings in future missions. All of this is generally pretty fun and works relatively well. It has a lot of potential but unfortunately fails to fully realize it most of the time. The City is pretty samey and can get boring to walk through after a while. Side quests also usually boil down to hints about where loot is stashed and nothing more. There are also moments where DS seems to be going for a dynamic hub world that reacts to the player’s behavior during missions, but this ultimately isn’t fleshed out. There are only a few instances of very minor dynamic interactions between the hub world and player choices. These all work well and feel rewarding and immersive, but I just wish the game leaned into it more heavily. Using the hub world to actually make you think about what you steal, who you steal from, and how violently you behave on missions is a really interesting idea for a Thief game. That’s sadly not the game we got with Deadly Shadows though. Different factions roam the hub world and depending on whether or not Garrett has done some quick side quests to raise his reputation with them they may or may not be hostile to him. These factions also interact with each other in the streets, which is a cool idea, but is implemented horribly. By the end of the game, five different factions are in an all out war with each other - and seemingly with civilians as well. During this part of the game you can just hide and wait for the factions to kill each other, so you can walk around the hub world mostly unopposed. It’s ends up being unintentionally hilarious just how chaotic and ridiculous this all is.

Another intentional difference between DS and the previous two games (Thief 2 in particular) is the simplifying of in game maps. The maps in Thief 1 were often vague and didn’t include every area of a level but would highlight where the player was roughly located. The maps in Thief 2 (likely to make navigating its large levels more manageable) were a lot more detailed and would update when the player explored new areas even if they weren’t originally included on the map. Deadly Shadows features much simpler and much vaguer maps. The player’s location is no longer highlighted, you often have to locate maps in the game world before they’re available, and they’re rendered so simplistically and gloss over so much of the actual level that it can feel like the map itself must be incorrect. The maps also aren’t always drawn so that up is north and often don’t have a key signifying their relationship to the cardinal directions. All of this can be a positive or a negative depending on who you ask. It took me a while to get used to, but I enjoyed the maps in Deadly Shadows. It adds some additional challenge to the game, and the levels are generally small and well designed enough that one rarely finds themselves pining for a more accurate map.

Deadly Shadows also focuses more on story and lore than the previous two games. DS has quite a lot of cutscenes as well as readable notes and books that shed light on its world. This is in contrast to the notes and books in the first two games that mostly functioned as delivery vehicles for hints on how to complete a level. I found myself actually getting sucked into the books and notes scattered around DS because I wanted learn more about the lore and story of the game. In the previous games I mostly just skimmed through notes for information on how to find secrets or complete the level. The story also does give a nice ending to Garrett’s character arc, which was a pleasant surprise. I wasn’t expecting DS to try to tie all three games together and give the story a sense of completeness but it does. There’s nothing particularly creative or subtle about the way DS does this, but it was nice nonetheless and provided a sense of closure to the trilogy.

Deadly Shadows suffers from a lot of significant problems, which causes it to be an enjoyable but ultimately frustrating experience. The bones of a good Thief game are there, but its lack of polish and largely linear nature prevents it from living up to the high standard set by its predecessors. I would really only recommend this game to fans of Thief that have already played the first two games. It’s a satisfying and enjoyable send off for the series and one that I think most Thief fans will enjoy in spite of its problems. If you’re not a Thief fan, and you’re just looking for a solid stealth game there are a lot of much better options out there.

N.B - the sneaky upgrade mod is absolutely necessary for playing this game on PC. I won’t go into all the reasons why but trust me - you don’t want this game to be even jankier than it already is. I initially tried playing DS unmodded and found it to be literally unplayable without all the movement and sensitivity options enabled by the sneaky upgrade. Even if you’re the most hardcore “I only do vanilla the first time around” player you need this mod. This is the only game I’ve ever played that I would say this for. Just enable the fixes and disable any graphical or gameplay changes. This game goes from a fun but flawed title to near-unplayable without it.

While this game is an obvious downgrade from Thief 1 and 2, it still holds its own weight against them. The levels having actual music instead of just ambience, the animated cutscenes sprinkled within missions, and a proper conclusion for Garrett's storyline help elevate this game from feeling like a jank cashgrab to a genuine sendoff for the series.

I can't lie though that this game feels incredibly bad to play without getting the Sneaky Upgrade. Even with it, I almost wanted to quit during the first mission just due to how bad it felt to play. However, once I understood how the blackjack worked in this game and got used to movement in this engine, it felt like I was back playing a genuine Thief title again.

Shalebridge Cradle also really is as good as everyone says. This might be one of the best levels in gaming ever made.

Deadly Shadows is very different from Thief 1 and 2. Taking a far different approach and being more in line with the console gen at the time. Both graphically as well as gameplay wise, you can see a lot of technical limitation aspects such as the loading screens in between areas.

But regardless of that, this game, while janky as all hell and filled to the brim with bugs, I think it's my second favorite Thief title for sure. Each of these games are great (in the original trilogy atleast) and Deadly Shadows is such a good ending to said trilogy.

Storywise it has some iffy moments I'd say but I do really enjoy it. I see a lot of criticism on the levels but I personally love them all, which, regardless of me loving both previous games (especially T2 which is my favorite game ever made) I can't say the same for the first two.

Deadly Shadows' ending is also great in my opinion. Nowhere near as masterful in terms of framing and imagery as 2's is but it still gets the job done and is just as impactful as the previous entries.

Anyway I love this game, I love the Thief trilogy. They're all great. Except for the 2014 one which uh....yeah no.

The more controversial, third entry in the Thief franchise, and the final one (We don’t talk about the reboot. There is no reboot). After installing a fix to make the awful movement slightly less awful, I had fun with it, it’s unfortunately not as complex as the first two games, but it’s still great stealth and there’s some levels that were huge highlights. Shalebridge Cradle, in particular, is the only videogame level I’ve ever seen that has its own dedicated Wikipedia article, and with good reason, but I loved the House of Widow Moira just as much. This is a beautiful game for its time, and it dedicates that beauty to some awesome atmosphere. Still, it unfortunately can't really match the first two in their complexity.

Just make sure to use Thief 3 Gold. The movement sucks ass without it, it's genuinely terrible, please use T3G.

This game gets a really bad rap for being pretty divergent from the first two games, moving it onto a new engine, streamlining it and essentially 'dumbing it down' for the fact that it was also released on the original Xbox. I can definitely see some truth in that, and there's a feel to this game where it's vaguely unfinished and buggy (really there's so many ways I found to break this game, some gameplay mechanics were a bit frustrating - and there's so many new elements introduced that are a bit lacking in polish.)

That said, I also think this game still is pretty fun - and it's something that succeeds way more in conveying this dark atmosphere and a genuinely intriguing storyline. There's still quite a lot that this game does well - especially with putting you in the headspace of Garrett as he's hooked into so many things he doesn't want to be involved in, and also the fact that this game is genuinely scary at points (The Shalebridge Cradle is a masterpiece in level design and probably one of the best levels in the entire series.) Also a special note to the graphics and the lighting in this game - which were especially good for the time, and definitely an improvement on the original entries.

It's rough around the edges, but still well worth playing in my opinion. There's still a lot of stuff this game does well - even if it doesn't nearly reach the heights of the previous two entries.