Thief: Deadly Shadows is one of the hallmark legends of the early 00s stealth genre. It mixes fantasy, horror, and stealth gameplay in a witch’s cauldron to create a truly magical experience. Even 20 years on, it still looks amazing on GeForce NOW, and at $13.45 on Steam, it is an absolute steal (get it? 😉) for anyone looking for their next adventure in the cloud.
The Shalebridge Cradle whispers around me, given voice by the shifting of timbers and the sobs of long-dead patients and orphans. The asylum knows me now as one of its own. It won’t let me go, just like it never let the empty husks wandering the halls go.
That won’t be me; all I need to do is let the Cradle see me die. All I need to do is die. Sliding by the last of its puppets, I crest the window mantle of the highest tower of the orphanage turned insane asylum. My foot hovers in empty air for a moment… I tip forward, I fall, and the Cradle lets me go.
This place haunts my nightmares, it let Garett go, I’m not sure it let me go…
Right, to be fair, Shalebridge Cradle is hardly emblematic of the entirety of Thief: Deadly Shadows. It is, however, a perfect showcase of the places this game will take you. From mind-numbing horror to brain-aching puzzles to heart-pounding action, Thief: Deadly Shadows will take you from the lowest points to the highest and back again.
So, you might be wondering, why am I playing this 20-year-old title? First of all, I can play what I like; don’t tell me what to do, hypothetical reader. Second, I don’t know, it’s refreshing! Playing the games that made me love gaming in the first place has reinvigorated my love for the medium.
Besides, back then, I was playing on an ancient system, almost as old as me (and believe me, realising this game is 20 years old has made me feel ancient) and seeing how good it can still look with the power of an RTX 4080 in the cloud behind it? Turns out Thief: Deadly Shadows is a bit of a silver fox because it’s still a very handsome game.
This is largely down to good art direction and a still really quite nice lighting system, but I still can’t help but feel a shiver down my spine as I slink through long shadows in haunted streets, the moon my only companion, at least, the only one I trust.
Let’s see 9-year-old me’s parent’s office PC pull these kinds of frames!
Should you give it a go? Yeah, probably; thanks for asking. Thief: Deadly Shadows is a legendary stealth title for a reason. You take on the role of the thief, Garrett, in a fantastical city locked in a cold war between strange religious factions. The brutalist industrial Hammerites push the city further and further from fantasy into steampunk as the Pagans fight to preserve nature with the aid of their horrific and vicious fey allies.
Amidst this strange conflict (a real standout as far as video game fantasy settings go), Garrett’s just out to make a quick buck by doing some work for his old monastic order, the Seekers. They’re using him to assemble some ancient prophecy. He knows it too, but he just doesn’t care. Garrett is a fantastic character, a brutally solitary, individualistic character who refuses to bend the knee to anyone or anything unless it can give him some kind of advantage.
He’s a stark outlier from the classical good or evil characters in video games; he’s neither; he’s just out for himself and doesn’t really care what you think about that, but not like in an edgy anime teen-heart throb kind of way, more a tired 9 – 5 kind of way, this is just what he does, and he does it well. Still, despite his want to exist on the outside, Garrett is forced into the role of a reluctant hero as the prophecy rapidly becomes all too real with the arrival of a vicious new threat to the city, the Hag, with Garrett being the only one who can atop her.
Our handsome hero.
It’s a unique story, which I can’t do justice in a spotlight this short. Honestly, Thief: Deadly Shadows is just a very unique game, leaning heavily on the immersive sim side of stealth, offering a dozen different ways to solve almost every problem. Genre tricks like this may feel like old news now, but Thief walked so that games like Dishonored could run. Going back to it has reminded me just how fantastic older titles can be, and if you can get past the aging visuals, you’ll find a lot to love, too.
Thief: Deadly Shadows will look great on any plan, but I have to admit it’s been fun pushing it to its limit with my Ultimate membership. Who knows, I might explore my retro library a bit more and see what other old treasures can be revived with the ultimate upgrade.
This Spotlight was written by CloudGG team member “Motley” and does not represent the opinions of CloudGG or NVIDIA.
