A huge improvement over its predecessor in pretty much every aspect.

The map alone, which shows where you have already been and where you are at the moment, makes a huge difference. Also, thank goodness there were no more pure action sequences, but always stealth passages, which were very varied. The missions are much longer (at least that's how it felt to me), which partly contributes to the atmosphere and immersion, but sometimes also means that individual missions drag on a bit and seem a bit tough. Especially towards the end, I just wanted to get through it because it dragged on so much.

The story isn't all that original but is told in a very natural way - you overhear conversations, read diary entries and get a really comprehensive picture of the world and the story, which I thought was great. The German dubbing is also well-done again, even if it's a bit bumpy at times due to the many English terms used. All in all, a really strong sequel.

Wow what an amazing game. This is a step up from the already great Thief 1 in every way, building upon and elevating its complex and open ended stealth mechanics to near perfection.

Everything good about the original Thief that I mentioned in my review of that game returns here. Sound and light mechanics are once again implemented wonderfully. There are few things in gaming as tense and satisfying as hiding in a darkened doorway, unable to peak around it for fear of being caught, and carefully listening to the footsteps of a guard so you can know when it’s safe to pop out and attack or make a break for it.

Movement once again feels fluid and sneaking and takedowns work perfectly. There wasn’t a single instance in my playthrough where a takedown didn’t work properly or I felt like I was spotted unfairly, which is something that almost always happens at least once in stealth games.

One notable improvement over Thief 1 is regarding the focus on pure stealth for every mission. Thief 1 mixed up gameplay a bit from level to level. The majority of levels were pure stealth missions but quite a few ventured into experiences more akin to a tomb raider style game or a survival horror game. These levels worked relatively well but paled in comparison to Thief’s stealth focused levels IMO. Thief 2 thankfully focuses entirely on stealth. Every single enemy is able to be taken down stealthily; there are never any moments where you’re forced to break stealth (even if an alarm goes off for story reasons); and there aren’t any levels where the layout doesn’t lend itself to stealth gameplay.

Thief 2 also has a greater focus on open ended level design and just better level design in general. While Thief 1 gave you several options for approaching challenges most levels had a somewhat linear path of progression. For instance Thief 1 would give you multiple ways to move from point A to B and B to C, but the level could only be completed by progressing in a specific order: A, B, C, etc. Thief 2’s levels are much more open ended and take the classic immersive sim approach of plopping you into an open sandbox, giving you a loose goal, and telling you to figure it out for yourself.

The settings and conceits behind Thief 2’s levels are also generally more interesting and engaging than Thief 1’s. Unlike Thief 1’s levels, which were designed around the games story, Thief 2’s levels were designed first with the story being written around them later. One wouldn’t be able to tell that this was the case just from playing the games, but once you know about it, you can very clearly see this difference in the design process. Thief 2s levels are like a greatest hits of stealth and infiltration scenarios. There’s a bank robbery, breaking into a police station, an art heist, infiltrating a secret underground base, and carefully navigating a maze of rooftops just to name a few. Some of these levels also require that you never engage the enemy at all, which creates and interesting challenge and for players like me, who usually like to knock everyone out before exploring, forces them to change up their gameplay style. A lot of later stealth games would also make use of these scenarios and settings, but Thief 2 does them better than any other game I’ve played.

Interacting with Thief 2’s levels also allows for a lot of player creativity and ingenuity. Thief 2 adds secrets in each level that allow you bypass areas and find extra loot if you’re willing to look for them. There are also a lot of opportunities to use Garret’s tools in unexpected ways - more so than in the original. One of my favorite instances of this was in the penultimate mission. You’re tasked with stealing masks from a room where poison gas will be released if you touch the floor. The player is expected to solve this by finding a way to turn off the booby trap and then walking into the room. Instead of this, I was able to use Garret’s vine arrows (scalable ropes essentially) to rappel from the rafters Mission Impossible style and grab the masks without touching the ground. This isn’t the most out there emergent solution but it was still incredibly satisfying.

Story has never been the focus of the Thief games but T2’s story is surprisingly compelling. It’s nothing terribly deep but it has a well written and incredibly well acted villain, a unique and well rendered setting, and enjoyable interactions between Garret and other characters. For a game like Thief where the story doesn’t need to be anything more than a vehicle to get players invested in gameplay it absolutely shines.

This is an absolutely wonderful game. Undoubtedly the best stealth gameplay I’ve ever experienced and one of the best immersive sims I’ve ever played as well - second only the Deus Ex IMO - and I would recommend this to anyone that has even the slightest interest in stealth games or immersive sims.

Thief 2 is my favorite game of all time, I fucking love everything about it. Even if I admit that there's a handful of levels in here that I think completely suck, it's a game I consider perfect with a straight face. Soulforge and Casing the Joint, as well as the return level to the Lost City all suck ass (though I have some defenses for Soulforge)

However, I think there's something in particularly Soulforge that is genuinely enjoyable. It's a lengthy level but it feels like the true end of the whole game. Putting your skills you learned from every level prior to the ultimate test and setting you out in this large and albeit too long level that leads into one of the best endings in gaming.

I love the cutscenes in both this and Thief 1 but 2 definitely steps it up a ton I feel. The way everything is framed, how the scenes themselves are planned. It's so good.

Overall this game to me is amazing, while also being flawed in a handful of ways. But said flaws I can easily overlook. Therefore, Thief 2 is my favorite game of all time.

Near masterpiece in every way and a masterclass in stealth.

Everything that T1 did wrong is corrected wholesale here, and that game already laid a solid foundation. Does everything a sequel should do and expands on everything.

Some people may still think T1 is the better game with it's setting variety/concepts, and I can respect that. But for me, T2 has the most consistent level quality throughout and never fails to get me sucked in. The only frustration comes at the very end (casing the joint wasn't needed).

Even the story, while lesser then T1 (due to LGS making the levels first and designing the levels around it unlike T1) still manages to get me sucked in. Thief's atmosphere in general is second to none, and makes for the ultimate relaxing nighttime game if you ask me. Turn off the lights and maybe light a candle in the corner of your room, and you can't help but get immersed in the role of Garrett, helped even more by Stephen Russel's incredible performance throughout the whole series.

On top of this, I can't go without at least mentioning the modding/FM scene for this game. I've only scratched the surface with it with stuff like T2X but there's so much content out there that there's always something to play.

If T1 turned you off, don't be afraid to go straight to T2. It's that looting/exploring stealth gameplay from 1 but just amplified and better in every way. Hell, you can totally play this in general without playing T1 or just looking up a short summary. I'd encourage it period if you love stealth games. There's a reason why even 20+ years later, nothing else comes close for a lot of people.

I should qualify that it's been ages since I last played these games so they are not super fresh in my memory.

With that said, Thief 2 is where my true love of quicksave sneak'm'ups really began.

I love the experience of spying from the shadows for 10 minutes. Sitting there, trying to put together a plan for how to make my way past a segment while grabbing everything that isn't naile down or on fire. Then you hit quicksave, a guard that you hadn't seen spots you immediately, you fail, quickload and have to start over from scratch.

I love it. Amazing experience, highly recommend!

It’s cool to see how much the world changes between these entries: From pilfering ancient tombs protected by curses as solemn and mysterious as the lost civilizations that inscribed them to spiritless, autonomously guarded pho-cultured banks and art exhibitions / Secular and religious authorities existing practically on the fringes of unmeasured magical wilderness to partnering in the creation of an industrialized surveillance state / Outwitting an actual pagan god to a technocratic zealot with an infantilized god complex.

Throughout all this, it’s easy to forgot that Garrett’s ark is essentially one about faith. Beginning in The Dark Project when his arrogance very nearly causes the end of the world, billowing into his smarmy attitude towards religion at the start of The Metal Age and concluding when he finally chooses to believe in the keeper’s prophecies after they once again come true. It’s not that religion is perfect or anything (hammerites and pagans aren’t exactly your allies in Thief I) but that it still retains at least some cultural acknowledgment of cosmological inferiority, which “enlightened” modernity so eagerly attempts to exorcise under a steel cross.

Almost as good as Thief I if not for that last string of levels which are total stinkers. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + Del ty very much.

Atmosphere is just as amazing as Thief 1, sound design is still top tier, and the uncompromising commitment to the best stealth mechanics of all time is still going strong. There's less variety in the missions, but they're of consistently higher quality without feeling samey (and I say this as someone who didn't get filtered into thinking the gimmick levels from Thief 1 are bad). The story and worldbuilding are also better. I have basically nothing bad to say about it.

Tfix2 Lite and EAX sound fix are mandatory, don't bother playing without them.

I was a bit disappointed going in to Thief 2 hearing that all the supernatural sort of stuff was completely toned down or removed, I really loved The Sword in Thief 1 and was hoping for more. That being said, some of those levels in Thief 1 really bring the game down. Aside from Trace The Courier being boring, Casing The Joint is obviously just padding, Kidnap being in my least favourite part of Thief 1, and parts of Sabotage at Soulforge, I loved the majority of levels in Thief 2. Sound design and atmosphere are unmatched. Excited to start The Black Parade soon.

I think this is the perfect sequel, it takes every single element of its predecessor and ramps it up a notch. It's such a natural progression, down to the architecture and technology, and takes further strides with its mechanics to challenge the player in ways that feel totally fresh and fair. It's all the best parts of Thief, but more!
The immersive sim elements are taken a step further, and missions will provide more unique player-driven goals than the previous game's more linear "get object and leave" objectives. Within the first few missions in T2 we get an "escort" mission that plays surprisingly unintrusive, a "grab as much money as you can" sandbox with optional secret bonuses, and a heist that challenges you to ghost as much as possible, with penalties to knock-outs and kills. The level designs are better, the tech is interesting and is actively shown being integrated into the world, and the puzzles have a lot more variety.
Every level has a gimmick to some extent, and up until the last few levels every single one felt like "the" level. There are only a few shortcomings in my book -- Garrett's new eye is mentioned once by Karras and never becomes relevant mechanically or otherwise, and there's a point where the mechanist plot peaked at the lighthouse level then dropped pretty severely for me with the reveal that the "horror of the seas" wasn't actually a lovecraftian creature, and was just a submarine they built to go to the ancient city, which also didn't house a lovecraftian creature.

Whereas Thief 1 had a solid mechanical base, it often squandered its potential with poor missions and level design. Rather than a stealth game, it felt like it was trying to be half-stealth and half-action but couldn't decide which one would he holding the reins at any given moment.

Thief 2 feels cohesive in its vision in a way that the first game never managed. The levels are consistently good and often great, facilitating the best parts of the game's mechanics while still providing plenty of alternatives to those looking for a different approach.

Thief 2 genuinely feels like a stealth game. Any other aspect that it has is trying to supplement the stealth rather than replace it. And even with a more tailored focus, it still provided plenty of variety in its missions and levels that pushes you into experimenting with everything the game has at its disposal. Even the levels that broke with the typical manor break-in were still providing a similar experience, just with unique challenges that facilitated a different approach, though one which still utilizes the same core set of stealth mechanics.

While there are plenty of aspects that have aged poorly, I think Thief 2 is one of the better-aged games of its era. Throw in your choice of fanmade patch and you've got a product that I think I can recommend fairly easily even to somebody less acquainted with older titles.