I was ready to be done, or maybe jump to the divisive Thief 3, but the more I played, the more people tried to tempt me to try stuff in the FM or 'Fan mission' community. Thief has a series falls in the same place as Doom, with a little bit of Bethesda Game energy. These are games that are kept alive by their communities. The history of these games is inseparable from the history of the people who keep them alive, not only with new content, but even working at all. Like Doom, the Thief fandom has made an artform out of mission making. Their techniques, still with the same tools used by Looking Glass Studio, surpasses their work at every turn. This is almost be expected for any game that develops a mapping scene. A developer's time with its own engine is limited, both in time and scope. They need to move on to newer things, in newer engines. Meanwhile fans, be it old games, or old hardware, can ask the question of "but what is actually possible?". What if you made an open world n64 game? What if you just... kept making Doom levels for 30 years?

I played two of the most well popular and historically important Fan Mission packs -- complete games in their own right, with their own menus, cutscenes, voice acting and music. The first was the 2023 Thief 1 opus, The Black Parade, while the second was one of the biggest fan projects of the early 2000s, Thief 2X

Thief: The Black Parade

The Black Parade is a love letter to Thief Gold, so much so to the point that it is one of the few large campaigns made for it, rather than Thief 2. The Black Parade is about loving the past, loving the parts of Thief that got left behind in Thief 2. Made over 7 years, and representing 25 years of community experience, The Black Parade feels like what the future would look like without things like GPU generations. The level of craft is incredible. Taking influence from Life of the Party (and more so, probably hundreds of FMs that already evolved that idea further), the Black Parade presents missions that are sprawling, complex, but parsable. The city is realized in a way only the cutscenes of Thief Gold could truly realize, and every mission you have to wander parts of it to find your target. You burgle houses and shops along the way, picking up stray cash as you case your target and look for the best entrance. Old aesthetics, mixed with very modern design sensibilities. Not modern to the level of over-polish, the surge of modern gaming. TBP is modern in the sense that he comes with all the lessons gaming has taught us, applying them not to bring Thief into the future, but to improve The Old Ways.

Appropriately, our protagonist Hume is an old, dogged thief who has just escaped a long confinement in prison. He's gruff, and lacks the charm and reluctant heart of Garrett. While the two are both Master Thieves, Garrett gets his start as a Keeper, where Hume is categorically a lowly thug. In loving the past of the original Thief, TBP is darker and more extreme, from its protagonist, to its story (which I will spoil later, with warnings), to it's use of color and light. A world that is bigger, more beautiful, and worse. Some notes...

• The cutscenes and art and stuff are pitch perfect. Totally nailed the aesthetics of everything.
• You could quibble with the voice acting until you make yourself confront the fact that this was all done by fans, for free. I have heard worse voice acting in commercial games. So while sometimes Hume's delivery isn't the best, or some NPC sounds like he was recorded on a laptop mic, like... idk, this thing is a miracle. All the important people do more than a good enough job.
  • That said, sometimes Hume sounds like Solid Snakey. This is not a flaw, just very funny when it leaks out.
• Hume as a character is less likable than Garrett. He's not entirely rotten. You can still have sympathy for him. He's been dealt a rough hand... but there isn't a lot of light in him.
• The story is written around this. The story itself is pretty good, probably functionally a better story than either of the first two Thief games.
  • The writing isn't as good though. There is a lot of weak prose tough lines that would have been caught in the edit of a professional game. It feels bad to criticize, because again, this is a fan project, but I guess it frustrates me because it feels like it just needed one more pass!
  • This is also probably unfair because by the time this was done, they had 7 years more writing experience and were they really going to go back and re-record a bunch of dialog, by people who aren't getting paid?
• The music and sound design is top notch. A lot of it was lifted from other places (Which I obviously appreciate). I believe sound sound and music comes from Silent Hill, which is hilariously appropriate.
• Basically presentation, especially for a free fan work, is just insanely good.

As for the game itself...

• I said it already, but the scale is crazy. The amount of unnecessary buildings surrounding any mission is incredible and deeply immersive.
• I don't know how, but mantling just feels better in TBP. I don't know if thats something you can just tweak with well designed geometry or whatever, but it felt great.
• Where Thief 2 opts for a more readable map, TBP goes for a worse map than Thief Gold. You get no indications of even vaguely where you are. This works out though, as the level design is good at orienting you.
• I said "Thief 2 was right to not try and do The Sword again". TBP does it right away and nails it by extending the scope, and focusing on a different kind of unreality. It's less Alice in Wonderland, but still surreal.
• I like how they added stuff like pinching candles. It just felt real immersive to stalk around, gently pressing out candles as I went.
• You gotta be a bit more on the ball, since Hume is more visible than Garrett. It doesn't seem to be by much, but they made a point to say he's not a Keeper, so he's not AS invisible.
• I respect how this game lets you use your tools. You can get up on roofs and are often treated with beautiful views and treasure for your troubles. There are many fun ways to do things the wrong way.
  • The new tools kinda are whatever though, I barely used them. I think I used the Strength Potion once when it was practically required.

Ultimately it's just an incredible mod and anyone vaguely into Thief should play it. If you don't want to read me talk about more spoilery stuff, click here.

TBP Spoiler

Alright, now to talk about some stuff more squarely in spoiler territory.

• I loved The Brand, but hated the follow through. Not that it was bad, but you can't do something that feels so invocative of something like Berserk and have the consequences just be 'You can see magic doors'.
  • Also seeing magic doors barely comes up.
  • I WANTED TO BE FUCKED UP BY EVIL GHOSTS IN THE MIDDLE OF A NORMAL MISSION OR SOMETHING!!
• I was really glad I got the super secret sword in Mission 4 that murdered undead.
  • Yes I did look up the solution.
• Some of the new enemies are incredible. The horrible metal knights at the end of that one Keeper Mission or all the surreal horrors in that strange tomb.
  • WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT BIG FLOATING PITCHER PLANT THING??
• I love how bitter the ending is. I love how the game outright says like HEY HUME, you got here being a murder and a thief, what makes you think repeating this cycle will fix anything? Hume's unchanging nature ends up not being a writing flaw, but a thematic statement. Grow or die, literally.
  • It's almost weird for this to be the theme in a game about being old and stuck in the past, literally. Yet it somehow lands. While TBP loves the past, it also lets itself grow. In a weird way the ending is saying, at the finish of this magnum opus... "This was fun, but its time to move on".
  • As is Thief tradition, the last mission is the worst mission, but that's okay. Less tedious than Thief Gold and 2, but less interesting than 2. Even the end segment worked better in Thief 1.

Thief 2X

If The Black Parade was about celebrating the past, Thief 2X is a game about the future. Comparing it visually to The Black Parade, you wouldn't immediately think that, but for Thief 2X, the future was 2005. The game isn't married to either of the ideals of Thief. Thief 2 was different in tone from Thief 1, and as such, Thief 2X was different from either. It's more grounded and literal. More "realistic", by the standards of the time. It takes some distance from the crazed mad city of Thief, moving its outsckirts, or even relaxing port cities. Not free from the madness -- Hammerites and Mechanists have been spreading out -- but sane compared to the previous games we've played. It has FMV cutscenes! Like sure, TBP has them, but that's 2023. This is 2005 and some of these cutscenes look shippable(... some of the animations, not so much) for games in that era.

Changing the tone further, we have our protagonist, Zaya. Where Garrett is a charming, Keeper trained Thief, and Hume an incredibly talented thug, Zaya is a young, naive girl who falls into a quest for revenge. The 2X team was future cited here too, citing the endless swarm of male protagonists in gaming. "If we can't use Garrett, we want to do a woman". This was the type of sentiment that didn't become common until the 2010s.

Now, Zaya design isn't perfect. Coming from an egyptian coded area, her design is more Goth White Girl GF... But you know, with a black makeup design around one of her eyes, a design that feels like it keeps getting reused for Egyptian women all the way up to Overwatch. But hey, 2005, it's ahead of the curve there too. She's a little Fanfictiony. But so is Hume. And while Garrett isn't fanfictiony, he sure is trope and genre-fictiony.

... And nobody says that about them. Yet they will say it, and repeat it about Zaya. Or they'll complain about her voice actress. Constantly. You will find posts from the 2020s where people are asking for FM packs, and when T2X is mention, someone will show up to complain about Zaya and her voice. I saw one from 2023 saying "Call me old fashion, but as a dude I wanna play a dude." And you know what?? That's fine! I hate playing dumb dudes in games, so it'd be hypocritical for me to say they were wrong for having a preference but god man you don't have to say it unprompted like you were giving some kind of Female trigger warning.

So how is her voice acting? Honestly, the voice actress, Wynne, is the best voice actor in either mod. She's not perfect. This is again, a fucking unpaid fan project, but she nails the one protagonist that substantially develops throughout the story. Hume is purposefully static. Garrett has a bit of a relucent hero thing going, but he's still always Garrett. Zaya, on the other hand, evolves from mission one. She is, through her voice acting, a different character by the end of the story than the beginning.

... The "problem" is that she's aggressively feminine... And she talks like a teenager(I don't know if Zaya is canonically like 18 or w/e but she sure acts it). She has unstable emotions like a teenager. If shitty gamer men find women grating, a teenage woman is unbearable. I found her charming.

Mild spoilers for Mission 1, but the mission is boring. You walk, following your cousin, Kadar, listening to him talk through some horrible laptop potato mic. You have no items, nor weapons. You're not really a fighter, or a thief. Once you're bored out of your mind, and feel like the end is in sight, you're mugged. Thieves shank your cousin, killing him in front of you. They chase you, an unarmed girl, through the the back alleys of the city. It feels incredibly vulnerable, and happens so fast you can't even process what's going on. While you eventually escape, and accept mysterious training from an old, suspicious man who pushes you toward vengeance.

As hate and trauma build up in Zaya, she gets cooler and more callous. Not evil, but revenge takes a toll on her and you hear it in her voice. Her confidence and weariness grows with each mission. This is... great? Something that people would comment on if it was a male lead?

To be fair, it's not like no one complains about Hume's voice acting, or misinterpret his story. But people come to him and his voice actors defense, as they should! Meanwhile for Zaya, the topic comes up constantly, and the defenses, while they exist, are dwarfed by complaints. I'm not saying everyone who doesn't like Zaya is a raging misogynist. You can take issue with any of these characters, even Garrett... but gosh is the amount of bitching suspicious. Sorry, I had to get that rant out. Anyways.

• Finding a version of this you can actually install with a thief FM launcher is a pain in the ass. The one on their site won't work anymore.
• The levels are simpler and breezier than either Thief and TBP. I might be bias after playing 3 of these things, but I liked that.
  • Two complaints. One, the mantling is rough, like actual normal Thief. But hey, I don't know what sorcery TBP pulled.
  • Getting up on roofs and stuff make things weird. Missed TBPs flexibility on the matter.
  • It... just looks different from Thief. I don't like it's aesthetic as much in a vacuum, but I like that they made a choice that fit their game.
• They go full Thief 2 with the map which is fine, especially in 2005. Remember, modern.
• Zaya starts off with a hairpin lockpick. This originally bothered me. Not because it was femme coded -- that was the best part -- but because it felt weird compared to the other games, where lockpicks are a big deal.
  • Eventually though, Zaya encounters a lock she can't complete with just her hairpin. You find a new set of picks in the mission, and stop taking your hairpin with you. Like oh, now this is CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT and I love it!
  • Digression, because I forgot to write about it before, but I love Thief's lockpicking system. I love how simple it is. I love how it still gives every lock tension. I love how you check each lock pick HOPING you don't need a key. I love how shifting around in your inventory as you hear footsteps coming is stressful. It's great. It's so immersive, more so than any minigame.
• Most of the items and weapons in the game are unique models. Just for the sake of doing it.
  • I can't aim Zaya's fucking bow.
  • Replacing the blackjack with a fucking claw hammer is certainly a choice. Thief was already CTE city, we don't need subdermal hematomas too.
  • You also had unique arrows using elemental crystals? I didn't find most of them very useful, but they were definitely neat.
• One of the weirdest added features is fat people you can't lift. Which... lol, mean, but it does lead to funny and fun gameplay.
• The game removes single use keys when you use them. This is technically better, but part of me missed shuffling through a ring of 5 or 6 keys, annoyed when each one doesn't work

Thief 2X tries to be in the future, ahead of the curve, graphically and in design. What could Thief be? How far could we push it? Sure, it didn't quite beat Thief 3 to release but it's still filled with that spirit.

Anyways, spoilers again, so feel free to skip to here.

• I kinda like that you know Malek sucks from the get go. Like Zaya doesn't know, but you know. Some people who try to embody their protagonists too directly might be turned off by that, but I like the dramatic irony.
• You never quite get to easily take part in revenge. I wish the game encouraged you to do violence more. I wish the options to avoid it were a little bit more challenging. It felt like they wanted to keep Zaya's hands clean.
  • Even though her mission and goals were misguided, her targets still kinda deserved what they got. They sold people into medical science!
• On that topic, your cousin becoming one of Karric's Children was great. It was awesome to see this happen to an actual character, as well as feel the emotional toll that would have on that persons loved ones.
  • I also like that you can't save him. Might have been nice if it was a little bit more drain out and painful, but given the resources... whatever, great work.
• I liked the whore house level but it definitely got weird sometimes and felt oddly out of tone with the rest of the game. In isolation it's fine, but... I don't know if it should have been in there.
  • These days you could do a better take on this idea I think.
• In Thief Tradition, the last two levels are like whatever. I will give Thief 2X credit for not making the finale drag.
  • I wish the end wasn't just like... running up, grabbing the scales, and yeeting them into lava. I'm sure there is some intended stealth way but it was too easy to just run in and do it.
  • I also liked how the ending dovetailed with the plot of Thief 2. It was done quite tastefully, feeling more like a fun little bonus than anything directly important to Zaya. The streams just cross at Sheriff Truart.

While both games have that fanfic flair, Thief 2X wears it a bit more forward. Maybe it was just the time, but regardless, it also made it way more raw and honest. There is a shamelessness to the drama that is endearing to me.

Darkmod

I'm not going to go crazy talking about it because I only did the two missions included with the download, but I still want to point out Darkmod. Originally a Doom 3 mod, with the release of Doom 3's source code it was able to become an independent project. Like Doom 3, Darkmod looks great. The engine was basically made for rich shadows, so it fits thief perfectly.

Darkmod isn't officially a Thief fangame. You have all the items you'd expect, and the setting has its serial numbers filed off. I didn't even notice the Hammerites were simply called The Builders. The vibe is obviously less weird, as it doesn't really fit a more realistic aesthetic. But it plays and moves great. Mantling feels incredible. Little tweaks to the mechanics give it its own flavor. Lockpicking gets a small touch where instead of simply cycling through two picks, you need to listen and know when to stop. There is an autopick option for people who just don't wanna with that, but that little detail seems like a good added skill component for people who have likely already played a metric ton of Thief.

The two included missions were simple, but great. Some of the recommended FMs can range to up to 5 or 6 hours long. I don't have to energy to try something like that right now, but I at least wanted to point this project out in a post about fanworks. As someone on bluesky said to me, the Thief community can move mountains in support of the franchise they love.